{"id":7850,"date":"2011-04-09T01:42:59","date_gmt":"2011-04-09T05:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=1839"},"modified":"2011-04-09T01:42:59","modified_gmt":"2011-04-09T05:42:59","slug":"hot-bothered-the-chase-by-arthur-penn-and-sam-spiegel-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7850","title":{"rendered":"Hot & Bothered: The Chase, by Arthur Penn and Sam Spiegel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Perhaps the hottest and most bothersome elements in The Chase (1966)<\/p><\/div>\n

From March 24 thru April 6, the folks at the TIFF Bell Lightbox [TBL] ran a retrospective of an unlikely film hero, American director Arthur Penn. It\u2019s actually easy to forget his role as part of the wave of new directors stemming from live TV who made striking contributions to filmmaking in the U.S., during the waning days of the studio system.<\/p>\n

His final feature films \u2013 Target<\/strong> (1981), Dead of Winter<\/strong> (1987), and Penn & Teller Get Killed<\/strong> (1989) \u2013 weren\u2019t classics, and his prior works from the mid-seventies were uneven, bloated, or just plain weird, as with Night Moves<\/strong> (1975), Little Big Man<\/strong> (1970), and The Missouri Breaks<\/strong> (1976), respectively.<\/p>\n

He also contributed to a pair of anthologies \u2013 Lumiere and Company<\/strong> (1995), and Visions of Eight<\/strong> (1973), the latter having utterly vanished from distribution \u2013 but his major accomplishments were transposing gritty acting styles into his live teleplays, translating William Gibson\u2019s superb play The Miracle Worker<\/strong> (1962) into a moving film (with a great Laurence Rosenthal score to boot), putting slightly odd spins on the western (The Left Handed Gun<\/strong>), and pushing the limits of onscreen violence as Production Code<\/a> was on its death bed.<\/p>\n

Bonnie and Clyde<\/strong> (1967) brought to the screen a heightened level of lawless behaviour, and a fiery shootout that remains one of the most violent death scenes in a major studio film. Warner Bros., who produced the film, also made Sam Peckinpah\u2019s The Wild Bunch<\/strong> in 1969, and it isn\u2019t a leap to assume that without the Code\u2019s demise and Penn\u2019s focus on slow, drawn-out death montages, Peckinpah wouldn\u2019t have been able to go further with gore, dynamic editing, and slow-motion death throes.<\/p>\n

TBL\u2019s retrospective included most of the aforementioned films \u2013 Left Handed Gun<\/strong>, Bonnie and Clyde<\/strong>, Night Movies<\/strong>, and The Chase<\/strong>, plus<\/em> Mickey One<\/strong> (1965), a bizarro \u2018chase\u2019 film where Warren Beatty plays an annoying comic on the run from mob elements. It\u2019s another striking, trippy film that ain\u2019t on DVD because it\u2019s been forgotten, save for occasional airings on Bravo or TCM.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Pretty, isn't it?<\/p><\/div>\n

The black & white cinematography\u2019s stunning, and the jaunty, sleazy orchestral jazz score by Eddie Sauter features gorgeous Stan Getz solos. The album itself is worth snapping up on CD, and the LP, if you want the striking cover art.<\/p>\n

Pity Alan Surgal never wrote another feature film, but perhaps he needed Penn to turn his peculiar concept into a kinetic film experience.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to fathom whether the chase structure of Mickey One <\/strong>was the key aspect that brought Penn to direct Sam Spiegel\u2019s production of The Chase<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The producer had reportedly wanted Brando to play the role of escaped convict Bubber Reeves in the fifties, but as time passed on, Brando got older, and he seemed better suited to play Sheriff Calder, with relative newcomer Robert Redford ideal for the young rebel Bubber.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, given the few scenes Bubber actually has in the film, Brando would\u2019ve been ill-served by the role \u2013 unless the original film concept was closer to the length and breadth of Horton Foote\u2019s play.<\/p>\n

Penn had already proven his knack with plays in TV and Miracle Worker<\/strong>, so producer Spiegel got what seemed to be the perfect director \u2013 someone who could handle strong subject matter, complex themes, big stars, intimate dramatic moments, and a complex array of characters in a lengthy narrative \u2013 which The Chase <\/strong>was, albeit bloated to 135 mins.<\/p>\n

It is<\/em> a flawed film, and my first impression maybe 15 years ago was straight boredom, but there were intriguing elements in the story, not to mention one of the most amazing casts ever assembled. Not one small role was cast with a hack; it was all quality, and they were all well directed.<\/p>\n

The problem with the film lay in its midsection \u2013 something even the small audience at the Sunday April 3rd screening undoubtedly felt \u2013 but there was a marked difference in seeing the film on TV, and experiencing it on the big screen. The TBL\u2019s print was fairly clean, with only the mono audio rather pinched to the mid- and high range, but it is a handsome production, and sometimes what plays as kitsch on video feels more organic on a big fat screen.<\/p>\n

John Barry\u2019s score had some moments of power, and even if Penn wasn\u2019t happy with the way Spiegel supervised the film\u2019s editing, it did<\/em> move. I\u2019d argue the first 45 mins. or so are textbook examples on how to string together disparate scenes of diverse townsfolk interacting in scenes that introduce and establish their superficial and secret relationships. The tricks are fluid, and would work in any genre, provided one constructed such an elaborate series of character intros properly.<\/em><\/p>\n

Spiegel reportedly \u2018tweaked\u2019 Lillian Hellman\u2019s script, but it\u2019s obvious the play was fleshed out, characters may have multiplied, but somehow you don\u2019t lose track of who\u2019s who, nor who\u2019s screwing who\u2019s wife. Rewritten or just tweaked, that\u2019s great story and script construction.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve uploaded reviews of the film<\/a> [M<\/a>] (which is, incidentally, still available on DVD), as well as John Barry\u2019s soundtrack album<\/a> [M<\/a>].<\/p>\n

According to Barry biographers Geoff Leonard, Peter Walker, and Gareth Bramley, Spiegel wanted Leonard Bernstein (!) to score the film, which sounds nutty, except that Spiegel did produce Elia Kazan\u2019s On the Waterfront<\/strong> in 1954, which co-starred a young Brando, and featured a great original score by Bernstein with jazz elements.<\/p>\n

Spiegel\u2019s stature in film is significant because he was an independent producer who worked with major<\/em> maverick talent; he also knew how bullish he<\/em> could behave, so it made sense he could handle Kazan (On the Waterfront<\/strong> and The Last Tycoon<\/strong>), Orson Welles (The Stranger<\/strong>), John Huston (The African Queen<\/strong>), Joseph Losey (The Prowler<\/strong>), Joseph L. Mankiewicz (Suddenly Last Summer<\/strong>), David Lean (Bridge on the River Kwai<\/strong> and Lawrence of Arabia<\/strong>), Anatole Litvak (The Night of the Generals<\/strong>), and Franklin J. Schaffner (Nicholas and Alexandra<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

For a man credited with 23 productions, a third is comprised of all-time classics. Spiegel was a man who sought out great talent, and now and then, trusted newcomers, of which Penn and contemporary Schaffner came from a generation of TV wonderboys.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Blog on the recent screening of producer Sam Spiegel’s The Chase (1966), as part of their retrospective on director Arthur Penn, plus a review of the film and John Barry’s score… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6,4,5],"tags":[396,283,398,397,400],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-22C","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}