Borden Chase played a key role in the development of the postwar Western. His efforts in that genre and his scripts for related adventure films were instrumental in establishing the ambivalent action heroes who dominated the period. He wrote important screenplays for several major directors, including King Vidor, Howard Hawks, and especially Anthony Mann. His narratives have a keen edge of moral complexity and often provide exceptional dramatic conflict between protagonist and antagonist. Although his writing has faults, notably a tendency for dialogue to state the author's moral and social position too explicitly, these faults are compensated for by his gift for narrative structure.

Chase was born Frank Fowler in Brooklyn, New York. He left school at fourteen and joined the U.S. Navy at seventeen. After leaving the navy, he worked at several jobs, including prizefighter, taxi driver, high diver in a carnival, driver of a milk...