The Chase (1966) Reviews

• A Must For Film Lovers

  johngiovannicorda2017-11-12

  I think that "The Chase" has been sort of loss in the shuffle of time. To see it now it's not only chilling but profound. I don't think it should be much of a surprise considering the people involved. Horton Foote (Trip To Bountiful) wrote the play, Lillian Hellman (The Little Foxes) wrote the screenplay and Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde) directed and I haven't even started with the cast yet. Marlon Brando giving one of his best, adult, performances. His walking the thin line between duty and loyalty is powerful and profoundly moving. Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Robert Duvall, James Fox, Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule, E G Marshall even Miriam Hopkins. Gene Milford's editing, and Joseph LaShelle's spectacular cinematography all wrapped up in a phenomenal score by John Barry. A must.

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• Unsung classic

  gemtea2001-05-03

  The Chase did get pretty awful reviews when it was released but this is a movie to seek out, if for nothing else the performances. A young Richard Bradford is extremely believable as the town bully and womanizer. Robert Duvall as a henpecked husband. Jane Fonda and Robert Redford in early roles. The real reason to catch this one, however, is Brando's performance, which (as noted by another reviewer) is one of his better ones. I saw this movie when it was released and left the theater feeling exhaustion as well as an inner turmoil because the movie made me so mad! The fight scene at the sheriff's office was pretty violent for it's time and was quite upsetting. Great acting all around. Check it out.

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• better than I expected

  rupie1999-12-15

  The lukewarm reviews and comments led me to expect less than what I found in this decent movie of small-town corruption. Most of it is probably due to a pretty good cast - Brando is excellent, and Duvall, Dickinson, and E.G.Marshall put in good work. Redford's part is too small to do much with. I too was astounded at James Fox's pretty darn good Southern accent; it was so good that at first I couldn't place him, and then all those British roles came back to me in surprise. The script is ok too, and one would like to know more about the backstage fighting that went on over it between Hellman & company. The Panavision color is excellent; far better than what we have today. The portrayal of small-town bigotry, duplicity, jealousy, betrayal, and infidelity is well-done, and the spectacular junkyard Gotterdamerung is a chilling finale. The flick is definitely worth seeing.

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• In same ways it feels like a melodramatic masterpiece that just missed its mark

  secondtake2017-09-03

  The Chase (1966) I give this movie extra credit for ambition, and for richness of story and complexity. It's a torrid soap opera overall, which is a good thing because it is saved by its romanticized excesses. The title is odd, in a way, because the obvious "chase" here is the pursuit of the convict on the run (played by Robert Redford, and not his best performance). But in a way there are all kinds of other chases here—women and men wanting each other with a whole network of adultery and would-be affairs at play. But never quite shown. This is a movie pushing the end of the censorship code, but the code is still officially in place and so there are still some boundaries, even for a director like Arthur Penn, who would help New Hollywood blossom (notably with "Bonnie and Clyde" the next year). But the steamy background as this small town wrestles with decency, among other things, is great stuff. Decency, as a core idea, is what the main character is all about—the sheriff played by Marlon Brando. Brando is great. He isn't quite the Texas sheriff intended, of course (he's "Brando"), but he has nuance and strength, and he helps his scenes a lot. But the movie is brimming with talent: Robert Duvall, for one. Two women do their parts—Jane Fonda and Angie Dickinson—though neither is given enough to do besides support their male counterparts (Fonda is a kind of "loose woman" and Dickinson is a girlfriend having affairs). But Penn is the biggest talent, pulling together a very complicated story in two hours. Photographer Joseph LaShelle is great, too, one of the masters of early widescreen color in the US. Together they make this movie fluid, beautiful, and constantly demanding in the best way. What holds it back is a little of the superficiality that is so common in early 60s films—it's about sensation and effect, about drama for its own sake. You never quite care about Redford in his run (he's a surprisingly small part of the movie until the end). And even all the other characters working out their prejudices are a bit on the surface. There is a welcome racial theme here, and a generational one (young people utterly selfish and party hungry in this version, and older folk filled with prejudice and greed). I say see this film. There's a lot going on, and I could watch it a second time just for everything I missed.

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• A memorable film

  Pearsey1999-08-28

  I first saw this movie in the late 60's on T.V. as a pre-teen and it really stuck with me through the years. I've seen a lot of criticism of the film and I do find some parts now silly, but there are too many memorable scenes in it to dismiss it lightly. The scene where Marlon Brando's character of Sheriff Calder is brutally beaten is one you can't forget. I hated the character played by Steve Ihnat (one of the toughs who beat Brando up) for years afterward. Ihnat played that role with such menace that it seemed he had a larger role. I realized only recently he doesn't have a single line that I know of in the film, his gestures being sufficient to convey his character's hate. The entire scene in the junkyard and the finale on the court house steps which echos of Ruby's murder of Oswald are also memorable. What about the rest of the movie then? I think the cast was great, not just Brando, Fonda, Redford and Duvall, but also the supporting characters, Joel Fluellen, Henry Hull and Steve Ihnat.

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