The Chase (1946) directed by Arthur Ripley
An obscure and unusual B Noir with a very intricate
almost experimentally constructed narrative. Yes, a Film Noir with somewhat
of an
artmovie character and as a viewer you don't know whats for "real"
and what's a dream. Very interesting and just what made me love the
writings of crime master Cornell Woolrich. When reading his novels and
stories you feel like you're walking in a fever induced dream.
This film is based on his 1944 novel "The Black Path of
Fear" a novel in his famous Black Series (that started
out with his 1940 the Bride
Wore Black, his first regular crime novel after writing an enormous
amount of pulp fiction stories published in a plethora of magazines).
A man, Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings) is back from WW2
and without a job and money when he finds a wallet full of money. He
finds
the owner, the psychopathic gangster Eddie Roman (played excellently
by Steve Cochran, slimy like a Eric Roberts B movie character)
who offers him a job as his chauffeur. But, and there's always a But
in a film noir, the unhappy and beautiful wife of Eddie, Lorna (Michele
Morgan, the french actress) offers Chuck 1000 USD if he saves her and
takes her to Havana, Cuba, and soon The Chase is on and reality
and fantasy is floating and start to mix. A state of mind the Woolrich
protégées often find themselves struggling with, dream
or reality?
The director Arthur Ripley show us some bravery when
he try to do something original and new with this crime writing material,
but
without really succeeding that well. The dreamlike story is very well
photographed however by acclaimed cinematographer Franz Planer
(1894-1963, born in Austria-Hungary) who shot the film in a cool expressionistic
european style, and that is why i feel so disappointed
that this VCI DVD edition of the movie NOT manages to present the exquisite
visuals of this film in a better way.
But, BUT, when re-writing this text in february 2020 i see that Kino
Classics has released this film on a Blu-ray in 2016 with a UCLA
restoration of the film. Even though the direction and else is strictly
B the dreamlike structure of the story and the visuals makes it
worth buying, i think .... maybe. Perhaps mostly for Cornell Woolrich
fans
The film was presented by VCI in an original fullscreen
4:3 format, mono audio, black & white, with a commentary track by
Jay Fenton
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Bury Me Dead (1947) directed by Bernhard Vorhaus
A Film Noir comedy !? where rich Barbara Carlin (June
Lockhart) witnesses her own funeral after supposedly having died in
a fire.
Who's in the coffin then, and could her husband Rod and/or her young
sister Rusty (a fine as always Cathy O' Donnell) have had
something to do with it? Film Noir and Comedy, could that work? Well,
not so much i think, but that's me.
Great photo from master John Alton.
The film was presented by VCI in an original fullscreen
4:3 format, mono audio, black & white, with a commentary audio track
by
Jay Fenton, text sheet, biographies, filmographies, stills, trailers
and, for some reason, a 1942 Superman cartoon (8 minutes)
