The Chase (1966)

Summary: In an un-named Texas town everything is controlled by Val Rogers, and there is to be  celebration involving all the posher townsfolk in the evening. Meanwhile local bad boy Bubber Reeves has escaped from prison with another prisoner, who kills a motorist and steels the car, leaving Bubber making his way home overland. His objective is to get home to his wife, Anna, but she is having an affair with Jake, Val’s son, and Bubber’s best friend. In the town there is drunkenness and debauchery, and Sherriff Calder seems to have little control over events. Bubber reaches the town and makes contact with Anna and Jake, and the three of them end up hidden in a scrap yard, while the black night-watchman is sent to get cloths and money from Anna’s apartment. He is captured by drunken townspeople, but rescued by the sheriff, however once the vigilantes find out where he is they beat him up to find out where Bubber is. Things can only get worse.

Content: There is no sex or nudity, although there seems to be a lot of intent to do it. However a lot of drinking and smoking with some characters, particularly one of the ladies, being drunk all the time, and another flirting constantly with the local men. We see the convicts getting away and then Bubber riding the rail. In the town there is flirting in the bank, and later the general debauchery at the party. The extent of Val Rogers’s control is illustrated including a visit to what is certainly a real oil rig. Later much drama concentrated around the scrap yard, and famously, Sherriff Calder is beaten up by the vigilantes.

A View: This is a very odd film, and is generally considered to be a complete failure, the Life critic describing it as “a disaster of awesome proportions”. It was apparently a troubled production with the director and the producer, Sam Spiegel, mostly not agreeing on anything. The director did not even have the opportunity of editing his own film. I found that I did not like it on any level, except for the oil rig, which was, just for a change, definitely drilling ahead while in frame. So not really a watch, even for nothing.