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.
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.
East of Eden
Salinas, 1917. Cal Trask's forlorn attempts to win the affection of his self-righteous father (Raymond Massey) represented James Dean's first leading role in the cinema, and his emotionally raw performance ennobled misunderstood youth everywhere.
Rebel Without a Cause
Kids turned bad in the 1950s -- and their newly comfortable middle-class parents couldn't understand why. Ray points the finger right back at them: "You're tearing me apart!" rails Jim Stark (James Dean), speaking for his generation.
Giant
This was the Yellowstone of its time: a big, sweeping modern Western built around an imposing ranch and family dynamics -- except Giant is much more subversive. James Dean strikes it rich as Jett Rink, much to the disgust of his former boss, Rock Hudson.
The Fugitive Kind
Sidney Lumet's movie brings together two of the greatest actors of the period, Brando and Anna Magnani, reason enough to check out this underrated poetical drama about a handsome musician who washes up in a small southern town.
Hud
Landmark modern western with Brandon de Wilde from Shane worshipping the wrong hero, Paul Newman’s eponymous heel. According to Paul Schrader, this movie marks the birth of the cynical (anti-)hero in American cinema.
Wild River
Tennessee Valley Authority man Montgomery Clift finds derision from the locals, love from the war widow Lee Remick, and obduracy from matriarch Jo Van Fleet, who just won’t leave that scheduled-to-be-flooded farm.