The Chase (1946) is a film noir dream-like in its plot in which a has-been war veteran becomes a chauffeur to a deadly gangster and falls in love with a trapped wife of the gangster. The Chase full movie is a public domain film that is readily accessible on the internet and has become a cult film due to its bizarre blend of romance, paranoia, and fatalistic suspense.
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Full Plot Summary
The Chase (1946 film) follows Chuck Scott, a World War II veteran drifting through Miami with no money and recurring nightmares. One morning he finds a wallet filled with cash; instead of keeping it, he returns it to its owner, Eddie Roman, a volatile Miami mobster.
Roman pays Chuck attention to his integrity and military attitude and provides him with an employment opportunity as a chauffeur. Chuck becomes aware of how dangerous his new boss is when Roman reveals that there is a second accelerator pedal in the back seat, which lets him step on the car in the back seat to scare Chuck and his henchman Gino just to scare them.
Roman is living in a lavish mansion and governs the place with fear and violence. Lorna his wife is virtually a captive: at night he locks her in her room and watches her. Feeling lonely and desperate already, she starts to chat with Chuck on their nightly drives and feels that Chuck is a softer person than the gangsters who surround her.
Lorna later pleads with Chuck to drive her to Havana to escape with her using the offer of 1,000 dollars in case he is willing to drive her to the boat and abandon Miami. Chuck, who is already in love with her, goes along with it. They bring it to Cuba and break in a night club and have a drink and momentarily allow themselves to feel safe.
What breaks the mood is that Lorna is stabbed and dies in the hands of Chuck. The evidence mounts up against him: people have seen him with the girl, and the murder weapon is a knife which he purchased a few hours before, in a curio-shop. Chuck understands that he is being framed and probably by Gino who has tracked them to Havana to take revenge.
A photograph from the club that could prove Chuck’s innocence is destroyed by Gino, wiping out the clearest piece of evidence that someone else approached Lorna. Chuck escapes police custody and returns to the curio store, hoping to find proof about the knife, but Gino lies in wait and guns him down—his death implied rather than fully shown.
Out of the blue, The Chase complete film completely changes its tone. Chuck finds himself back in Miami on the same night that he and Lorna intended to escape, dripping with sweat and holding his prescription pills, evidently having gone through the whole thing as a very real dream or vision. Due to his war-related trauma, he can’t recall any of it clearly and thus decides to visit the U.S. Navy hospital to consult with his physician, Commander Davidson.
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Davidson tries to help him reconstruct why he is wearing a chauffeur’s uniform and urges him to face whatever memory he is blocking. The two stop at the Florida Club for a drink, and by coincidence, Eddie Roman and Gino arrive at the same time. Davidson gradually realizes that the woman Chuck is secretly in love with is Roman’s wife, which makes the situation far more dangerous.
Chuck drives out of the club to locate Lorna as he remembers bits of the incident. He gets to the mansion and takes her out of her locked room and the two escape to port where they get into a boat to Cuba. Roman and Gino drive furiously to the docks on learning that Chuck has been seen purchasing the tickets and Roman applies his rear-seat accelerator to push the car beyond the limits of safety.
Speeding with a speed of 100 miles per hour, their car hits a coming train killing the two gangsters immediately. Roman and Gino have gone, leaving Chuck and Lorna alone to drive out of Miami and make their escape to Cuba on their own. The distinction between dream and reality remains slightly indistinct, and the viewer is left with the sense of discomfort even after the story ends on an optimistic note.
Genre and Key Themes
The Chase (1946) is a classical film noir that is combined with criminal, psychological thriller, and romance drama. Even though it has trademarked noir, elements, including gangsters, nightclubs, shadows and doomed love, it is distinguished by surreal and dream-like form.
Major themes include:
- Trauma and unstable reality:
The trauma of the war and hallucinations experienced by Chuck complicate the distinction between what actually occurred and what did not and the fascination with noir that is characterized by confusion, guilt and fractured identity. - Entrapment and escape:
Chucks and Lornas both are prisoners not only of their mental injuries and poverty, but also by an abusive marriage to Eddie Roman. Their scheme to escape to Havana is a reference point to hopelessness against excessive dominance. - Power and sadism:
This casual violence and additional accelerator pedal of Eddie Roman demonstrate the degree to which he enjoys and gets satisfaction in manipulating people and putting their lives at risk. The quiet threat that Gino poses only contributes to the impression that kindness is something dangerous in a world of cruelty. - Fate and fatalism:
Based on a Cornell Woolrich novel, the movie has his typical feeling that people are trapped in a net of misfortunes and wicked luck. Even after the reality re-sets there is a sense of doom that never completely goes away.
Due to those aspects, The Chase 1946 movie is often referred to as one of the most successful screen adaptations of the dark and oppressive atmosphere of Woolrich.
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Movie Review
The Chase (1946) has been widely acclaimed as less logical than moody. The twist of the it was all a dream in the middle of the film has sparked several divisions among the filmgoers, yet it also makes the narrative look experimental, almost experimental in the way of noirs of the studio age.
Robert Cummings, who plays Chuck Scott, does the same by giving him a surprisingly light-hearted performance, as a decent but frail veteran, instead of a hard-boiled tough guy. Michèle Morgan adds some sadness and elegant touch to Lorna and makes her look like something more than a typical femme fatale. Steve Cochran is indelible as Eddie Roman, half likeable, half sadistic, and Peter Lorre brings with him his usual discomforting aura as watchful, mild-spoken Gino.
Director Arthur Ripley goes into darkness, cramped spaces, and dizzying transitions to keep the viewers on the wrong foot. The Havana scenes, the nightmare-like killing, and the abrupt reset of the story are all sources of cult fame of the film. This structure can therefore be confusing to some viewers and critics, though noir fans would readily complain that the confusion is one of its attractions.
Cinematographer Franz Planer assists in providing The Chase full movie with its characteristic appearance, as well as intense contrast and stylized compositions which focus on both the glamour and the danger of Miami. Despite being inexpensively produced, the movie had lapsed into the public domain and was printed poorly over the years, but is currently being restored by UCLA and published in better versions by companies such as Kino Lorber.
In general, The Chase (1946 movie) is a moody, peculiar noir that pays off when viewers are more interested in psychological development than in criminal storylines. Being a free classic film and a public domain movie, it can be readily viewed online and is a solid recommendation to all who are interested in investigating film noir that is not well known.
Movie Tags
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