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The Chase

The Chase Poster

Recently saw a 1966 movie called THE CHASE, with amazingly young actors and actresses with famous names -- Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Angie Dickinson, Robert Duvall, and Marlon Brando were all there. With such a cast, I left the movie a little surprised that it isn't better remembered.

The plot was nothing special -- it involved a man who escapes from a Texas prison, and we see him making his way back to his hometown. For the first half of the movie the story of his voyage across Texas countryside is regularly interrupted by the story of the lives of the people who lived in that hometown, and knew the truth about why this fellow had gone to prison in the first place.

At the midpoint, the convict (Robert Redford) gets back to the town, and the storylines converge.

It isn't really a movie about a "chase" in any conventional sense, even when we see Redford on the lam in the first half we don't really get a sense of watching a chase. But much metaphorical chasing is highlighted.

SPOILER ALERT: I must here give away the ending. The value of the movie isn't in the ending but in the performances, the interaction of the above mentioned stars. So you can watch it with enjoyment especially if you're a fan of any of them, if you chose to read what follows. Still, if you don't want to know more THIS IS WHERE YOU STOP!

Still here? All right then. Near the end of the movie the Marlon Brando character (the town sheriff) has the convict in custody and is escorting him to the jail, which is within the courthouse at the center of town. As they get to the courthouse steps a man steps out of the surrounding crowd and shoots the convict in the stomach. The convict dies and in the subsequent hail of gunfire the vigilante/assassin dies, too.

This incident is the last straw for the sheriff, who is portrayed as having long been dissatisfied with his job. The final scene is the morning after the convict's murder, and we see the sheriff and his wife (this was Angie Dickinson's part)  packing up to leave town.

What strikes me powerfully after watching this movie is that EVERYBODY in 1966 must have had the same impression from the scene of that very public murder on the courthouse steps I've just described. It looked a lot like the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, right down to the typically Texan garb of Brando and the other lawmen present.

I'm left with the sense that it is impossible to watch a 1966 movie in 2017 with 1966 eyes, with the notion that "this scene looks just like something I was shocked to see on live television, a news broadcast, three years ago."


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