Synopsis
Chuck Scott (Cummings) returns a wallet he finds on the street to its owner, Eddie Roman (Cochran). Impressed by his honesty, Roman hires him as his chauffeur. Roman and his associate, Gino (Lorre), are ruthless and depraved criminals. They invite Emmerrich Johnson (Corrigan), a rival ship owner, to dinner and murder him. Roman's beautiful wife, Lorna (Morgan), lives in fear. She often has Chuck drive her to the ocean where she looks across the waves and dreams of freedom. Eventually, Chuck agrees to flee with her to Cuba.
Chuck buys the tickets, packs his bags, and lies down on his bed waiting for their planned meeting time. On the boat they admit their love. In Cuba they take a cab ride and are left at a tavern. Drinking at the bar, they are pledging their love when Lorna is suddenly stabbed and killed. Chuck seizes the knife and is holding it when he is arrested for her murder. He tells the police where he bought a similar knife. However, the woman in shop says he bought the knife used in the killing. In the street, Chuck flees the police and returns to the shop. Gino is talking to the woman. When she demands more money for her silence, he kills her. Gino hears Chuck moving around upstairs, goes up, shoots him, and drops his body into the shop.
Chuck awakens suddenly, confused and disoriented. It was all a nightmare. He calls his army doctor and tells him that he has had another attack of confusion and nightmares. He feels he had something to do, but he cannot remember what it was. He and the doctor go out for a drink. Lorna is waiting anxiously for him. Roman vindictively locks her in her room and goes out to a bar with Gino. Chuck sees Roman and Gino at the bar and remembers his scheduled meeting with Lorna. He goes to the house and releases her from her room. They go to the boat, but it will be late to sail. They fear that Roman and Gino will learn that they are running away and come after them. Roman and Gino learn that Chuck bought tickets to Cuba and realize that he is going away with Lorna. They race to intercept the escaping pair before the boat sails. Roman, who is controlling the accelerator, is determined to catch them, and he has the car racing at high speed. At a railroad crossing, he attempts to outrace the coming train and does not make it. Gino and Roman are pulverized. Lorna and Chuck are safe. In a Cuban cab, they embrace, kiss, and pledge their love.
Discussion
Based on the novel The Black Path of Fear by Cornell Woolrich, The Chase is one of the most bizarre film noirs in the genre. A long section in the middle is an eerie dream during which the heroine is knifed and dies. The hero goes on a strange quest to prove that he did not kill her, but his investigation seemingly ends with his murder by Peter Lorre. The audience does not realize that this weird and startling sequence is a dream until Cummings wakes up confused and forgetful. The film also features a two expertly creepy villains. Steve Cochran's screen presence is crazier and more disturbing even than Lorre's, and the deaths of the deranged villains is satisfying. Lorre, trapped by a crazy man in the speeding car, makes a series of terrified faces. Cochran just stares straight ahead.
Two other points add to the film's surreality. Firstly, the final shot shows the same carriage with the same driver in front of the same nightclub that Cummings had dreamed about. How is this repetition to be explained? Second, the actor who tells Cochran and Lorre about Cummings buying the tickets to Cuba is Don Wilson, the longtime announcer of The Jack Benny Program. How did he get cast into such a strange noir?
Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich was an American novelist and short story writer. He was born in New York City, New York, and as a child lived in South America with his father. He worked in Hollywood during the late 1920s and is credited with writing story lines and titles for several films under the pseudonym of William Irish. In 1933, Woolrich returned to New York where he lived with his mother until her death in 1957. Woolrich was a prolific writer and a recluse who rarely left his hotel room. His first published works were Jazz Age romance novels, but he is primarily famous for his many mystery stories and novels, in which everyday events go terribly wrong, and bad things happen to ordinary people. Many radio and television plays, and more than 25 films, notably Street of Chance, The Chase (1946), The Window (1949) and Rear Window (1954), have been based on his work. Woolrich's greatest strength is creating suspense that grips the reader even as the plot stretches credibility.