The Chase is an “And Peter Lorre” movie from 1946, and though he’s not in it that much, he provides a good bit of the flavour of this very odd movie about a genial nobody who winds up in the employ of a psychopath, falls for his woman and then runs off to Cuba with her.
Robert Cummings is top-billed and is the everyday nobody, a down-on-his-luck war veteran who finds a wallet and, having treated himself to a decent breakfast, returns it to its owner. Impressed with the guy’s honesty – Chuck Scott fesses up to the breakfast – rich gangster Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran) offers him a job as a driver. And is impressed again when, out for a drive, driver Chuck keeps his cool after Eddie takes control of the car’s accelerator from a secret pedal in the back of the car and guns the car up to 100mph.
Who has a secret accelerator in the back of his chauffeur-driven car? A 12-bore fruitbowl is the answer, but then we know Eddie Roman is a bit off-beam after one squint at his home’s décor. Roman by name, Roman by nature, the gangster’s spacious mansion is full of statues from antiquity. As for Eddie’s wife, held as a virtual prisoner in this highly elaborate cage, Lorna (Michèle Morgan) more or less dresses like a statue come to life.
Lorre plays Gino, Eddie’s creepy, deadpan factotum, a right-hand man with a cool head and a way of preventing Eddie’s wilder thoughts from becoming reality.
All this – mad Eddie, captive Lorna, the house full of statues, weird Gino – pales into insignificance though. The film’s most unusual aspect is the way it has two runs at a finale. At a certain point Mrs Roman starts propositioning Scotty (as everyone calls him) and suggests they run away to Havana, Cuba, together. A wild place full of shady characters, passionate musicians and rascals, Havana is where the two of them do eventually end up, only for Eddie’s men to catch up with them… with disastrous consequences.
And then, rewind style, director Arthur Ripley runs through that running-away sequence all over again, as seen through the eyes of a Scotty who didn’t go to Havana with Mrs Roman, and who didn’t get caught by Eddie’s henchmen. In fact, it’s suggested in scenes set in a bar with a navy commander who also happens to be a shrink (!), maybe Scotty dreamt it all up.
So, Scotty gets the girl, in one version at least, a neat way of getting around a censor who always seemed to worry more about marital fidelity than trifles like shooting someone in cold blood.
Chuck Scott is a foolish man rather than a bad one, and Cummings plays him as the everyday Joe out of his depth. It’s Steve Cochran who’s the real star, as the genial psychopath always just about keeping a lid on his worst instincts, aided by Lorre’s Gino, who may not wear the white uniform but is in essence a psychiatric nurse keeping one lizard eye on his patient.
Aberrant psychology was a fad in the 1940s and there’s plenty of it on display here. There is probably a good Freudian way of describing the two different finishes – an id versus superego showdown, maybe, with the ego helplessly looking on? – and the film’s final conclusion (no spoiler) does seem to suggest that nothing good can come of letting demons off the leash. That accelerator pedal makes a second appearance and this time… well, it’s good is all I’ll say.
I watched the restored version of this bizarre and richly textured film, done by UCLA in 2012. The contrast is good, the image is pretty sharp. There’s the odd scratch still but it adds to the 1940s vibe. Worth watching a few times.
The Chase – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
