The Chase

 
(1946)
Directed by Arthur Ripley
Written by Philip Yordan
Starring Robert Cummings, Michele Morgan, Steve Cochran, Peter Lorre, Jack Holt
IMDB Entry

Sometimes you can see when a movie goes off the rails. What seems like an excellent film falls apart in just one scene. The Chase is obscure, but could have been much better if it weren't for a cliche that even beginning writers are told not to do.  Which is too bad, because it could have been a great one.

Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings) is a down-on-his-luck veteran who stumbles upon a wallet with a considerable amount of money in it. Starving, he buys a meal, and, finding a name inside, he decides to bring it back to its owner, Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran). Roman is impressed by his honesty (Scott admitted he did buy a meal with the money) and hires him on as a chauffeur. We learn that Roman is a ruthless gangster who, aided by his henchman Gino (Peter Lorre), murders a competitor by locking him up with his vicious dog. Scott doesn't know about it, but begins to suspect that Roman is no good. Scott begins to drive Roman's wife Lorna (Michele Morgan), who tells him of her bitterness and her desire to visit Havana. 

They make plans to leave that night, and soon find themselves in Cuba. But Lorna is murdered and Scott is framed to be the killer. Gino is there, and goes all out in the frame.  It's a tense and fascinating situation.  

And then, Scott wakes up. The trip to Havana was all a dream. They hadn't left yet.

This is what I meant by a cliche.  "It was all a dream" was hackneyed years before the movie came out, and is one of the first things they tell beginning writers to avoid. It destroys the first-class tension and sense of paranoia the movie had built up.

They try to rationalize it. Scott calls his psychiatrist (Jack Holt) who's been treating him for PTSD* and the many nightmares he's been having. But Scott realizes there is still time to get Lorna and escape.

I also found the ending too much of a deus ex machina. It doesn't come out of the blue, but it is too convenient.

Robert Cummings is best known as light comedian, but before TV, he played a similar role in Hitchcock's classic Saboteur. He makes Scott an everyman who is caught up in a sinister web. 

Peter Lorre is Peter Lorre, though he plays the role with quiet sinisterism. Steve Cochran was often cast as a gangster, including roles in Danny Kaye vehicles and in White Heat. Writer Philip Yordan was a pretty busy man and acted as a front for several blacklisted writers in the 50s.

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*Not that they called it that back then.,