THE CHASE (1966) stands out gloriously as one of the guiltiest of all Beached Quill's Guilty Pleasures, a megaton disaster sporting a high pedigree and a once-in-a-lifetime cast of superstars.Imagine a single movie that includes no less than Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Robert Duvall and a host of classic character actors like E.G.Marshall, Janice Rule, Martha Hyer, Clifton James, Malcolm Atterbury and Miriam Hopkins.
Produced by powerhouse mogul Sam Spiegel, written by the legendary playwright and author Lillian Hellman and directed by Arthur Penn (soon to upend American cinema with 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde"), "The Chase" serves up a nightmarish tour of one blood-drenched melodramatic night in a small Texas town. This hellish hamlet, controlled by an oil baron (E.G.Marshall) is almost entirely populated by a frenzied Basket Of Deplorables....race-baiting, gun-toting, wife-swapping bigots, their drunken slutty wives and an assorted Greek chorus of teens as depraved as their elders. The upstanding Sheriff Calder (Brando) serves, protects and mumbles incoherently as the only beacon of decency and morality in the madhouse surrounding him.
It doesn't take much to bring this vile village to a full boil... just.the prison escape and return of the town's soulful, James Dean bad boy, Bubber Reeves (Redford), Bubber's got issues and histories with what seems like the entire town, including his wife (Fonda) who's currently canoodling with his best friend, the Oil Baron's beloved son.(James Fox, providing that 1960's staple, the Brit actor working his Southern accent) As the the loony populace heat themselves up into panic and hysteria, Brando helplessly cruises around town trying to keep the peace while drawling out disgusted asides....it even sounds like he puts an extra third syllable into "Bubber".
Before the night's over, innocent blacks are intimidated and pistol whipped, the crazed residents set an auto junkyard ablaze and blow it to smithereens, Brando is mercilessly beaten into the consistency of cherry jello by the bigot brigade and even more death, surprise murder and beatings ensue. Folks, welcome to Dante's Inferno with a barbecue buffet.....
It's crazy, delirious fun to watch, though obviously not the high purpose editorial its makers envisioned. Supposedly Spiegel took the film out of Hellman and Penn's hands, editing his own version.....so it's anyone's guess what the movie was supposed to look like.....in the context of the here and now, Hellman's depiction of small town Southwest as a seething hotbed of racism, violence and depravity comes off as Hollywood condescension, the kind of elitist attitude that pundits believe undid Hilary Clinton. But coming out in 1966, the film was definitely ahead of the curve in its introduction of nihilistic violence into big-budget mainstream movies......the aura of hopelessness, of useless struggle against malignant authority started here and would fully bloom in 70's cinema. It wasn't until 77's "Star Wars" that the good guys started winning again....
So how does BQ rate a Guilty Pleasure? Good question....since we'd feel...uh...guilty applying our normal rating system to such an over-the-top detonation like "The Chase",....we decided to rate it strictly as a Guilty Pleasure, for the sheer screwy, undiluted entertainment value it provides...BQ, without guilt....bastes a full 4 Texas spare ribs for this one..
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