Themes: Small-Town Life, Escape From Prison, Southern Gothic
Main Cast: Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, James Fox, E.G. Marshall, Angie Dickinson
Release Year: 1966
Country: US
Run Time: 135 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
All hell breaks loose in a Texas town when an escaped convict heads home in Arthur Penn's Southern gothic melodrama. Appointed by local kingpin Val Rogers (E. G. Marshall), benevolent Sheriff Calder (Marlon Brando) manages to keep the peace in Tarl, but the situation starts to fester one Saturday when news filters in that wild child Bubber Reeves (Robert Redford) has jumped prison. Bubber's impending arrival arouses hostility among Tarl's citizens, such as Edwin Stewart (Robert Duvall), who believes that Bubber will come after him to settle an old score, and Damon Puller (Richard Bradford), who, between grope sessions with Edwin's wife Emily (Janice Rule), uses Bubber as an excuse to terrorize black residents. As the atmosphere heats up, Calder wants to keep Bubber alive, and he convinces Bubber's wife Anna (Jane Fonda) and her lover, Val's son Jake (James Fox), to find Bubber and coax him into surrender. Val's fear that Bubber will kill his son, however, sparks a long confrontation that leaves rational law and order pummeled into the ground by the town's ignorant cruelty. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Review
Scripted by Lillian Hellman from Horton Foote's novel and play, The Chase's story -- of how fear of youth and distrust of the liberal Sheriff Calder unhinge a small-minded community -- became an allegory of cultural disintegration after the 1963 Kennedy assassination. In this hothouse atmosphere, traditional institutions of law and marriage fall prey to decadence and racism. Following a shoot marred by struggles for creative control, producer Sam Spiegel took the film away from Arthur Penn during editing, apparently leaving the best of Brando's performance on the cutting room floor. Penn subsequently disowned The Chase, swearing off filmmaking until Warren Beatty cajoled him into making another timely movie pitting young rebels against society's repression: the landmark Bonnie and Clyde (1967). With this history, The Chase stands as a sign of incipient upheaval in both 1960s Hollywood and 1960s American culture. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
