The Chase (1946): watch the full film free, legally

Miami dreams and a gangster’s chauffeur

The Chase is a 1946 American film noir directed by Arthur Ripley. Philip Yordan wrote the screenplay from Cornell Woolrich’s 1944 novel The Black Path of Fear. Robert Cummings plays Chuck Scott, a World War II veteran who has become a penniless drifter in Miami and is troubled by bizarre dreams. After finding and returning a wallet, Chuck meets Eddie Roman, a vicious gangster played by Steve Cochran. Roman offers him work as a chauffeur, calls him Scotty, and subjects his new driver to an unnerving test involving a hidden accelerator in the rear passenger compartment.

Roman is violent toward rivals and harshly controlling toward his wife, Lorna, played by Michèle Morgan. Lorna takes nightly rides and asks Scotty to take her to Havana, Cuba, offering $1,000 in return. He agrees and realizes he loves her. At a Havana club, Lorna is stabbed to death. Evidence appears to place Scotty at the center of the crime, including a knife he seemingly bought earlier that day. A photograph that could establish his innocence is destroyed by Roman’s right-hand man, Gino.

Scotty later wakes in Miami on the night he and Lorna were to leave for Havana. Sweating heavily, he takes pills and seeks help from his doctor, Commander Davidson, at a naval hospital. He cannot remember why he was dressed as a driver. At the Florida Club, Davidson recognizes that the woman Scotty loves is Roman’s wife. Scotty recovers enough of his memory to seek Lorna, while Roman and Gino learn that tickets had been bought at the port and head there after him.

Woolrich’s novel reshaped for the screen

The Black Path of Fear was published in 1944, and The New York Times praised the novel’s fiendishly ingenious plot and thrilling episodes. Producer Seymour Nebenzal bought the rights. In January 1946, he announced that Yordan, who had worked with him on Whistle Stop, was writing the adaptation.

The story required changes to meet the Production Code. Much of the action was framed as a dream sequence, allowing characters to escape consequences that would otherwise have followed their actions. Scotty was originally meant to reenlist in the army at the end, but veterans objected to that idea. Roman’s death was moved earlier so that Lorna could end up with Scotty. A death caused by a mad dog in the book became an automobile accident, and scenes set in Cuba were adjusted to avoid upsetting the Cuban government.

Robert Cummings signed for a leading role in March 1946, when Joan Leslie was borrowed from Warner Bros. to costar and Ripley joined as director. A dispute over Leslie’s Warner Bros. contract delayed principal photography for a month. Nebenzal replaced her with Morgan. Steve Cochran joined in May, having been borrowed from Sam Goldwyn, and Peter Lorre joined in June. Variety also reported a delay caused by an electrical workers’ strike at RKO’s Culver City studio.

Suspense, confusion and later reassessment

The Chase was entered in the 1947 Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France. Gene Arieel of The Hollywood Scene found flaws in the film but credited it with suspense and excitement, while also praising the performances. Leyen Decker of The Independent called it fascinating and suspenseful, though Decker argued that its dream solution was too familiar and would leave audiences confused and disappointed.

In a retrospective New York Times review, J. Hoberman called the film arty and compared the presentation of Mrs. Roman to Cecil Beaton’s Surrealist-inflected Vogue portraits. Eddie Muller described it as close to the subconscious cinema of David Lynch, saying it evoked Woolrich’s world of doomed romance and terrifying helplessness. The film was not a financial success, though it later became a cult favorite.

Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, writing in Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, judged The Chase, apart from Phantom Lady, to be the best cinematic equivalent of the dark and oppressive atmosphere in much of Woolrich’s fiction. The story had earlier been adapted for Suspense in 1944 and 1946, with Brian Donlevy and Cary Grant respectively, and for Lux Video Theatre in 1954. A restoration was completed in 2012.

Film details from the Wikipedia article “The Chase (1946 film)”. Text adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0.