Arthur Penn studied at the Actors Studio in the 1950s and after Elia Kazan and Sidney Lumet he was probably the most significant film director associated with it. The Left-Handed Gun, with Paul Newman, The Miracle Worker, with Anne Bancroft; Little Big Man, with Dustin Hoffman; and The Missouri Breaks, with Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, were all directly linked to the school. As is The Chase, with Brando again, and fellow alumni Jane Fonda.
Scripted by Lillian Hellman from a play by Horton Foote, The Chase feels like a movie made while the world is one fire. Bubba Reeves (Robert Redford) escapes from prison and the south Texas town where his wife (Jane Fonda) is carrying on with his best friend (James Fox) is in uproar. Sheriff Marlon Brando tries to keep a lid on the unpleasantness but mob rule is the order of the day.
Penn didn’t have final cut and wasn’t satisfied with what came out, but The Chase is never less than interesting and there’s superb work from Brando and the stellar supporting cast.
It’s melodramatic, overblown, sometimes downright hysterical. And yet that hysteria, though mocked in many contemporary reviews, which gives The Chase its queasy power… The passage of time hasn’t dimmed the brilliant power of Brando’s performance, or the film’s seething atmosphere which still manages to burrow under your skin. The Chase survives today as a fascinating throwback, a time capsule of an industry teetering on the brink of something new.
Chloe Walker, Little White Lies
Arthur Penn
Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, James Fox, EG Marshall, Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule, Miriam Hopkins
USA
1966
English
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Screenwriter
Lillian Hellman
Cinematography
Joseph LaShelle
Editor
Gene Milford
Original Music
John Barry
Production Design
Richard Day
Art Director
Robert Luthardt
Also in This Series
Getting Real charts the evolution of screen acting in American film from 1945-1980, diving into the psychological realism which took audiences somewhere deeper and more authentic than ever before.
Notorious
In the first of our new Film Studies series, Ingrid Bergman is pimped out by US agent Cary Grant to Nazi-sympathizer Claude Rains (ironically the most likeable character in the film). Hitchcock's classic is a prime example of classic Hollywood star power.
All About Eve
Arguably the best backstage melodrama of them all, this story of a young actress on the make seems to have been dipped in acid before the cameras rolled. Bette Davis is the uncomfortably peaking diva Margo Channing and it's her finest role.
Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood on Hollywood: the tale of a screenwriter, Joe Gillis (William Holden), who stumbles into the orbit of a now-forgotten movie star, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), and realizes this silent film diva could be his meal ticket.
A Double Life
In this fascinating lesser known George Cukor picture matinee idol Roland Colman plays a quintessentially English classical theatre actor, Tony John, whose dedication to playing Othello on Broadway leads to jealous fits off-stage.
Red River
Mutiny on the Bounty out on the range. Cattle driver Tom Dunson (John Wayne) is a pioneer, a self-made man who sees no reason to trust anyone but himself. In just his second film, Method man Montgomery Clift is Dunson's adopted son Matt Garth.
12 Angry Men
12 strangers (all of them white men) deliberate on the likelihood that a Puerto Rican teenager murdered his father. It's an open-and-shut case for 11 of them. But Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) is not convinced.
The Heiress
Olivia de Havilland won the Oscar for playing Catherine, a shy and insecure young woman who blossoms under the courtship of handsome gentleman caller Morris (Montgomery Clift). Her wealthy father, Ralph Richardson, looks on with severe skepticism.
A Place in the Sun
George (Montgomery Clift) takes a job in his uncle's firm. But before he can break into the family's charmed inner circle and fall in love with socialite Angela (Elizabeth Taylor), he becomes embroiled with a factory girl (Shelley Winters).
A Streetcar Named Desire
"I don't want realism. I want magic!" declares Blanche du Bois, the tragic heroine who meets her nemesis in her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski, in Tennessee Williams' great play. Brando's performance as Stanley is a turning point in American acting.
On the Waterfront
Marlon Brando's definitive performance as Terry Malloy, a New York dockworker (and once a promising boxer) who loses faith in his union and his smarter but corrupt older brother Charlie (Rod Steiger) after a whistleblower is murdered.