Chase

Arthur Ripley's The Chase (1946) is a classic piece of film noir that has dropped out of sight in recent years, a result of its not being in the hands of a major distributor. The very fact that it has shown up at all of DVD, even in a public domain edition with lots of flaws, ought to be cause for rejoicing among genre buffs. The source looks to be a 16mm dupe print, with lots of scratches in the opening credits and end credits that get chopped off very suddenly. On the other hand, most of the movie also looks and sounds about as good as it did at the last theatrical showing this reviewer attended of it, in 1999 or thereabouts, so it's difficult to complain too loudly about Alpha's DVD edition. The picture is reasonably sharp, within limits, and there aren't too many pronounced flaws, apart from the faded nature of the source print, but the producers have compensated as best they can for this, so that even the night shots have useful picture information -- additionally, the audio track, including Michel Michelet's striking music score, has been mastered at a very healthy volume level. The usual six chapters common to Alpha titles are here, but the complexity of this film really requires more effort in that area for the chapters to matter. The whole release is a bargain-basement treatment of a movie that deserves more respect than that, but one this reviewer is still glad to see.