Bob Cummings, whom I've seen in a couple of things before, is a down-on-his-luck veteran. He finds a wallet full of cash in the street with an address in it. He returns it to its owner, who lives in a gaudy mansion outside Miami. The owner is played by Steve Cochran, who I didn't know at all. Said owner likes Bob Cummings and hires him as a chauffeur. Which is kind of bad news because Steve Cochran is a full-on psychopath who will kill you just for breathing his air. See the limo he's tricked out with a secret accelerator in the back seat. Or his browbeaten wife (Michèle Morgan) yearning for escape.
The Chase is adapted from a novel by Cornell Woolrich, who would also provide the basis of Hitchcock's Rear Window a few years later. Unlike some noir it's got very little patter or overt humor. The only actor who gets to be funny is Peter Lorre, who's also the second most evil character. But it's got an unnerving intensity. There's also a headspinning twist that happens not quite at the end.
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The odd thing is that we've seen this movie but don't recall much about it. What we remembered immediately was the guy in the backseat who had his own gas peddle override. Now that was very weird. The other odd thing was the casting of Bob Cummings in the part of the veteran since my main memory of him was when he starred in the comedy television series the Bob Cummings Show in the 50s. Somehow having him appear in a dramatic role was a bit disconcerting.
Then I watched a few outtake videos and remembered the rest. Peter Lorre was a deadpanned genius in all his movie roles. He really was a scene stealer. The mansion set was pretty outrageous too being all in white with draperies and classical plaster statues. Cochrane made a very nasty gangster and there were some other very bizarre characters: "The horse is tired". And the old gypsy woman in the curio shop with Peter Lorre - she should have been more careful about her intention to tell.
Bob Cummings dream? In truth the whole film was pretty strange but definitely a 'noir' original.
If you've seen a lot of movies it's understandable that the details on some number of them will start to blur. But yeah, that gas override was weird. I wonder if cars were ever actually marketed with that feature. Of course the guy's need for speed wound up being his downfall. An interesting thing about Bob Cummings is that in his early years he worked under a couple of fake names and pretended to be British. In the main he seems to have always been considered a light comedy actor but Hitchcock used him a couple of times.
The mansion, like the trophy wife, is meant to project a certain image. Still, it is a quite dazzling place. Peter Lorre was a unique talent, and he's always worth watching. And there's a business rival who gets a nasty end thanks to Cochrane's character. Should have just skedaddled much earlier.
The thing about the lady in the curio shop is, does she even exist? She only appears as part of that elaborate fantasy. Cummings's break from reality and his chat with the old Navy shrink was current for the immediate postwar time, but it's also undeniably strange. The movie goes to odd places in general.
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