Allegedly getting his nominal inspiraton from Borden Milk and Chase-Manhattan Bank, he went through an assortment of jobs including the building of New York's Holland Tunnel before turning, first to short stories and novels, and then to screenwriting with "Under Pressure" (1935), based on his Holland Tunnel experience. Chase provided the story for Anthony Mann's first film, "Dr. Broadway" (1942), but his screenplays for the director's 1950s westerns ("Winchester '73" 1950, "Bend of the River" 1952 and "The Far Country" 1954) are his crowning achievments.