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Category:    Home > Reviews > Film Noir > Bury Me Dead

The Chase (1946)/Bury Me Dead

 

                            Picture:     Sound: C     Extras: C+     Film:

The Chase (1946)     C+                                                B-

Bury Me Dead           C                                                 C+

 

 

In another of their Classic Film Noir Double Feature releases, VCI offers two more gems that are long overdue on DVD.  The Chase (1946) is one of the great Film Noirs, produced independently by one Nero Films and distributed by the original United Artists, it offers one of the most dreamlike of all situations when a young man (Robert Cummings) returns a wallet, only to find himself becoming a driver for some hoodlum gangsters.  Bury Me Dead (1947) is the more hilarious, amusing tale of the failed attempt to kill a woman, who comes back to verbally torment and absolutely shock all around her as she looks for who set her up.  The twist is this is played for a few more incidental yucks than usual and future TV mom June Lockhart plays the woman in question, from the hit TV version of Lost In Space and the most successful TV Lassie.

 

The Chase here, not to be confused with the ambitious 1965 Arthur Penn film of the same name, this is one of the best and most honest adaptations of a work by the great writer Cornell Woolrich (who also wrote under the pen name William Irish).  Like Rathbone/Bruce Sherlock Holmes film series director Roy William Neill’s Black Angel from Universal the same year, this film also offers Peter Lorre in peak form.  This film has a few interesting gimmicks and some memorable film moments that pull no punches and are the reason Noir was the early peak of honestly in cinema about the world at large.  Besides any given murders or how they occur, the villains are truly menacing and the ending is one of the oddest anywhere.  Can the innocent driver get away with his life?  It does not help that he has run away with the boss’ girlfriend.  Philip Yordan’s screenplay is solid.

 

As for Bury Me Dead, it would be an interesting curio without Miss Lockhart, but her post-TV reputation as “the good mother” only emphasizes the feminine qualities she so very much possesses in the first place.  Co-star Hugh Beaumont would be known even sooner and better for TV’s Leave It To Beaver.  Thanks to them, it is fun, even when the film runs into problems.  Both are must-sees, especially those who have never seen them and claim to understand what Film Noir is.  Director Bernard Vorhaus furthers the intensity with his effective matter-of-fact style that allows Lockhart’s one-liners hit the mark everytime.

 

Jay Fenton did as much as he could to restore both films and the result is good for what he had to work with and purists will be happy, as usual, that he did not tamper or take liberties with the films.  Cinematographer Franz Plane shot The Chase and adds to its unique quality.  The great thing is that anything dreamlike is emphasized by the deep focus camerawork (with so much of each frame in focus) and that he does not create any dated visual effects that spell out an obsolete language for “dreams” in film, then the film really does not have any literal such sequences.  That comes form the script.  The brilliant John Alton shot Bury Me Dead and though the restored print has some more issues, the distinct work is amazing and further smooths over any story issues.  That is quite a pair of films in the best shape they have been in for a very long time.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on both films is also as fixed up as it is going to get for now, with as much cleaning as could be done without taking liberties.  Fenton also does audio commentaries on both films that are mixed, being amusing at worse and smart at best.  His old school describing things as he sees them as they go along is charming.  His knowledge is very valuable.  Other extras include a poster gallery set to music, a great Noir trailers section, bio/filmographies of the stars, the Famous Studios Superman cartoon short Showdown (made after Max & Dave Fleischer left) has a budget but is not as good as earlier installments of that series, and an amusing abbreviated for TV version of Bury Me Dead is included for kicks.  Be sure to get this well-priced two-on-one DVD today.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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