Review by joe-pearce-1

There is only one thing wrong with reviewing films on IMDb, and that is that there is no negative rating facility - i.e., rating a film below 1 (or preferably below zero). This is a film that deserves that rating, and I can't believe that the average of the four prior reviews comes to 5.1. I mean, the old joke about a film that wasn't so much released as simply escaped could have been invented for this film, which is absolutely the worst movie I've seen in about 5 years. Oy! Yet it is peopled by some pretty good actors. Did they read the script? Was there a script? The scenes between Langan and Jergens could have been written by a 10-year-old romantically-inclined little girl, except that would be insulting to 10-year-old romantically-inclined little girls. Kennedy's role is similarly ill-suited to anything approaching the dramatic arts, but at least it's better than Lon Chaney's dialogue. Oh, Lon Chaney doesn't have any dialogue? Then maybe Chaney's role is a better fit for this abortion of a movie. Jergens is the only one in the film who gives what sounds like solid readings, and here is Hollywood's ultimate late-1940s-early 1950s combination bad girl, gun moll, peroxide blonde, floozy (you name it) and she's playing a role that was tailor-made for Shirley Jones! What really annoyed me most about this film, other than its purely amateurish acting, photography, dialogue, presentation, etc. was that I bought it for Lon Chaney, and Lon is suddenly introduced into the film two-thirds of the way through it, sitting in the back seat of a speeding car, and we never even find out who he is (oh, we can infer such things, but golly gee, fellas, that's what a screenplay is for), and except for his hitting a guard over the head, and then running away from the cops through a railroad yard, that is pretty much where he remains. He has not a single line of dialogue, no interplay of any kind with the other characters in the car, etc., etc. And the woman who is somewhat pivotal to the story (well, if you can consider it a story), and who is the getaway driver for these miscreants, also has not a single word of dialogue, and gets shot in the back and thrown into a tar pit without so much as emitting a scream. She, too, must have liked the script. And Jim Davis, only 6 years after playing a leading man to Bette Davis, is stuck in this, too. His dialogue comes mostly in an early prison scene, and is delivered almost like it matters, which may be why he's the only one of these people who ended up with a decent post-BIG CHASE career (but only on TV, certainly not in films). I go back far enough to remember being originally introduced to Glenn Langan on the radio; this and THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN convince me that he should have remained on the radio. No doubt Mrs. Langan (the gorgeous Adele) took the expectant mother role in this film to support his career. No wonder she opted for retirement within another two or three years, but at least she provides something to look at when the film veers away from its chase scenes. (As for her smoking and drinking a bit heavily in the eighth month of her pregnancy, this was years before the Attorney General's report, and maybe Lippert was hoping for a sequel like THE INCREDIBLE TWO-HEADED TRANSPLANT. Stranger anticipations have been noted in Hollywood.) And maybe I've been spoiled by THE FRENCH CONNECTION, but the big chase scene for which this film is named is pretty cheesy at best. Everything here looks like an Ed Wood product, except not half as professional and not a tenth as entertaining.