You can tell it's a Marlon Brando picture - it all seems prearranged to insure that he's given one heck of a scene where the evil Texans beat the &#%! out of him. The impromptu crucifixion-by-beating scene has been a Brando standard ever since On the Waterfront, and The Chase delivers a lulu. Uninhibited by the modern MPAA's animosity toward red blood, Brando leaks hemoglobin all over the place. Blood was never sexier.

That's just one highlight in a story determined to sell the notion that America is Evil. From the bottom up and the top down, the citizens of this ugly place are an encyclopedia of sin. The local businessmen prepare a wild night for the dentists' convention. The Rogers clan packs off their unhappy migrant workers with cheap used televisions instead of expected pay. Val Rogers' lavish barbecue soaks the ugly rich for millions for a new college carrying his name. Val is beside himself with anxiety because his unhappy son Jake's marriage is a sham put on for appearances' sake.

Uninvited, Rogers' bank employees hold their own drunken Saturday night bash. Bored businessmen Richard Bradford, Clifton James (David and Lisa, Live and Let Die) and Steve Ihnat pack guns and lust after the teenage girls at the party next door. Mascara runs down the face of drunken housewife Martha Hyer - her husband's carrying with somebody else's wife right in front of her. Nobody even tries to conceal the rampant adultery.

Meanwhile, Jane Fonda waits for her rich boyfriend over in the bad part of town, while an obnoxious real estate salesman and his wife (Henry Hull and Jocelyn Brando) provide a nosy Greek chorus to all the commandment-breaking that's going on.

Sheriff Brando puts on his best Saturday mumble and faces up bravely to the general scorn, even when baited by slut housewife Janice Rule (in a rare socko performance):

The main conflict for Brando's Sheriff Calder is trying to hold onto his dignity while serving as Val Rogers' appointed sheriff. The resentment grows when Calder and his wife Ruby (Angie Dickinson, in fine form) are invited to the swank party. Calder keeps telling himself that he's just a man with a job trying to earn back the farm he lost (shades of The Grapes of Wrath) and doesn't want any special favors. But like Marshall Kane in High Noon, he becomes one man alone against the entire community. Bubber Reeves, actually desperate and harmless, is taken as a threat by everyone. When push comes to shove, the upstanding citizens are the ones who attack the Sheriff and beat information out of a defenseless black man in his holding cell (Joel Fluellen). The rest of the townspeople gawk idly as Calder collapses on his own jailhouse steps with his wife begs for help. Penn isolates their wanton faces.

The symbolism comes on thick and fast in an automobile junkyard, the last outpost of the American Dream. The town's three parties converge there in a mix of posse, lynch mob and midnight picnic. The illusion of a dangerous Bubber Reeves incites a storm of emotions and sexual energy - a teenage girl dares her boyfriend to prove his love by retrieving his ring from a fire, and the local brat kid (Paul Williams - that Paul Williams, I think) composes a song for Bubber on the spot. The burning garbage and car wrecks scream an all-too obvious message: Society is boiling in its own consumer evils.

At this point it all clicks. Foote and Hellman are plumbing the same waters as Billy Wilder's story about collective depravity Ace in the Hole. There are also resemblances to Try and Get Me!, the socially-conscious noir that concludes with a horrifying lynching. Not only does Robert Redford resemble a Kennedy, but there's an appalling ending scene (Spoiler! Next Paragraph! I warned you!) ...

... an appalling ending scene where a man is shot in a faithful recreation of the Lee Harvey Oswald mob hit. The handcuffed victim is helpless, and the result is as bloody as all get-out. In '65-'66 movie violence was accelerating to express the madness in the American culture (wars, riots, assassinations). The Chase is probably too quick in its judgment, indicting the nation and the South in particular as lawless scum not worthy of their own flag. Few Americans recognized Foote and Hellman's small-town sewer as an accurate representation.

The Panavision cinematography is dazzling and John Barry's nervous western score combines with it to give The Chase a look and feel of its own. Audiences reacted negatively to the movie's huge dose of negative vibes ... nobody except a guilty liberal likes being told they're an evil racist, and I'm given to understand the film didn't do well. Righteous indictment or irresponsible smear, the film is a top-rank Marlon Brando picture and a key representative of the violent 60s.

An assistant art director on the film worked on 1941 and told me how they modified the Warner backlot to shoot the town square scene. It's the same square seen in hundreds of pictures and TV shows, with Bye Bye Birdie coming to mind as a prime example.

Unbilled at the Rogers barbecue are Eduardo Cianelli, and W.C. Fields' old comedy nemesis Grady Sutton.

Columbia TriStar's DVD of The Chase is a fine enhanced widescreen transfer that makes the old so-so laserdisc version look bleary and smeary. The bold soundtrack appears to be mono. There aren't any extras except some promo trailers. Maybe Columbia will get with the added value concept someday, but right now even an original trailer on one of their library titles is too much to ask. I don't feel like complaining as long as they put DVDs out in such good transfers and appropriate aspect ratios.

Their liner text is terrible, however. It doesn't for a moment 'get' what the movie is about and just plain misrepresents the plot. Angie Dickinson doesn't try to talk Brando out of bringing Bubber in alive. Val Rogers doesn't want to cover up his son's affair, he just wants Jake to be safe.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Chase rates:
Movie: Very Good
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: just promo trailers
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: February 13, 2004