Chase scene from Seven Chances, starring Buster Keaton, 1925
3 August 2020
The phrase cut to the chase is a request to get to the point, to be concise in one’s words. The phrase comes out of the motion picture industry, particularly the silent film era, where one of the tenets of style was to highlight the action sequences of a movie.
The phrase appears by 1929, when it was used quite literally in reference to film-making in J.P. McAvoy’s book, which may have the best title ever: Simon and Schuster Present the Supercolossal Wonder Picture Epoch of This or Any Other Century, Hollywood Girl:
That’s all with a lot of sound and effects and love is just a big gag socko she’s in love hit her in the heart with a custard pie klunk that’s a laugh isn’t that a wow now we cut to the chase she’s after him he’s after her he hides.
Another early, literal use appears in the Minneapolis Tribune of 9 September 1934 in a description of a studio mogul’s office:
In Mr. Hecht’s office there are several large signs for the guidance and inspiration of his staff. One reads: “Better’n Metro is not quite good enough.” Another says tersely: “Cut to the chase!”
This last is Mr. Hecht’s way of saying “eliminate everything up to the climax.” Mr. Hecht’s idea of the perfect movie is “Opening scene: man heaves a custard pie. The next five reels: He is chased.”
In the 1940s we see the phrase shift over into the metaphorical. Here is a nice example of a metaphorical use from 13 November 1946, but the source is the entertainment industry newspaper Variety, indicating that it is still mainly an industry jargon term. The author, Frank Scully, is writing about a conversation he had with a member of King George II of Greece’s cabinet about their escape from Nazi forces in 1941:
At the time, we were housing in America a parade of royal refugees. [...] Waiting for the third act curtain to go up on a show which had flopped badly in its first and second, I was prepared to pull a Nathan and leave before the final fold when one of the cabinet cut to the chase. He began telling how George got out of Greece.
Scully was quite fond of the phrase and used it frequently in his Variety column over the following years.
It took a while for the phrase to completely separate itself from the film industry. Here is an example from the Los Angeles Times of 23 July 1980 that has no obvious connection to the movies:
We hadn’t talked in a while so we did the how-are-you, how’s-your-wife, are-you-having-a-nice-summer thing. I finally cut to the chase.
Sources:
Estcourt, Charles. “New York Skylines.” Minneapolis Tribune, 9 September 1934, 16. ProQuest.
McAvoy, J.P. Simon and Schuster Present the Supercolossal Wonder Picture Epoch of This or Any Other Century, Hollywood Girl. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1929, 106. (Copy unavailable; quotation taken from Wordhistories.net.)
Oxford English Dictionary, draft additions January 2002, s.v. cut. v.
Scully, Frank. “Scully’s Scrapbook.” Variety, 13 November 1946, 53. ProQuest.
Thompson, Zan. “Baritone, Safety Songs and Search for a Lead.” Los Angeles Times, 23 July 1980, D1. ProQuest.
Photo credit: Internet Movie Database, imdb.com.