The Chase is a 1966 American drama film, directed by Arthur Penn, written by Lillian Hellman, and starring Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, and Robert Redford.

In the mid-1960s, in a small town in Tarl County, Texas, where banker Val Rogers (E. G. Marshall) wields a great deal of influence, word comes that native son Bubber Reeves (Robert Redford) and another man have escaped from prison.

They include the hostile Emily Stewart (Janice Rule), who openly expresses her lust for Damon Fuller (Richard Bradford) in front of her husband Edwin (Robert Duvall).

"[4] The Chicago Tribune had more praise for the film's performances than for its plot: "The first five minutes...snap with the crispness of a good, old fashioned adventure story, but before director Arthur Penn can get his second wind it settles down into a modern-day morality play, a kind of barbecued Peyton Place with lots of lip-smackin' scandal....The script by Lillian Hellman...who should know better, is just as stilted as the characterizations....the part of the shuffling sheriff who finally leaps into action is custom-made for [Brando], who takes most of the punchlines as well as the punches.

Angie Dickinson is surprisingly effective as his simple, loyal wife; Miss Fonda and Fox are believeable as one of the cheating couples, and Bradford and Duvall make a convincing bully and boob.

Broadway's Redford [is] excellent as the muddled, dispirited Bubber....The few good story sequences are lost in the self-conscious Hard-Hitting Commentary on Racial Bigotry, Mob Violence and Moral Authority, so that 'The Chase' clocks in as a tiresome, inflated run-around which would have been more appropriately entitled 'Love on the Lam'.