The Chase

Oppressively nocturnal, arthouse slow, with ebullient players like Cochran and Lorre acting as if underwater - this movie, out of the noir cycle, is the one that most approximates the condition of a dream. At one point, it's revealed that the previous 20 minutes have been a dream, or nightmare, in the mind of the pill popping, shell shocked hero, if 'hero' is a proper description of Cummings' passive chauffeur, limply involved with a mobster's wife. The curious Ripley, a former gag-writer for Harry Langdon, only directed a handful of films, but this adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's The Black Path of Fear, with its Wellesian grotesqueries and its morbid, slightly absurd atmosphere, certainly confirms his oddball status.