They Live by Night [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Nicholas Ray Nicholas Ray

Overview

"This boy...and this girl...were never properly introduced to the world we live in." With this superimposed opening title, director Nicholas Ray inaugurates his first feature, They Live by Night. Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell play a "Bonnie and Clyde"-type fugitive couple, who in trying to escape their past are hell-bent down the road to Doom. Despite their criminal activities, Bowie (Granger) and Keechie (O'Donnell) are hopelessly naïve, fabricating their own idyllic dream world as the authorities close in. The entrapment -- both actual and symbolic -- of the young misfit couple can now be seen as a precursor to the dilemma facing James Dean in Ray's 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. A box-office disappointment upon its first release, They Live by Night has since gained stature as one of the most sensitive and least-predictable entries in the film noir genre. The film was based on a novel by Edward Anderson, and in 1974 was filmed by Robert Altman under its original title, Thieves Like Us.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/13/2017
UPC:	0715515198615
Original Release:	1948
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:35:00
Sales rank:	10,281

Special Features

Audio commentary from 2007 featuring film historian Eddie Muller and actor Farley Granger; New interview with critic Imogen Sara Smith; Short Piece from 2007 with critic Molly Haskell, filmmakers Christopher Coppola and Oliver Stone, and film noir specialists Alain Silver and James Ursini; Illustrated audio excerpts from a 1956 interview with producer John Houseman; PLUS: a new essay by film scholar Bernard Eisenschitz

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Farley Granger	Bowie Bowers
Cathy O'Donnell	Keechie
Howard da Silva	Chickamaw
Jay C. Flippen	T-Dub
Helen Craig	Mattie
Will Wright	Mobley
Marie Bryant	Singer,la chanteuse du night club
Ian Wolfe	Hawkins
Harry Harvey	Hagenheimer
Regan Callais	Young Wife
Frank Marlowe	Mattie's Husband
Jim Nolan	Schreiber
Charles Meredith	Commissioner Hubbell
J. Louis Johnson	Porter
Myra Marsh	Mrs. Schaeffer
Tom Kennedy	Cop-Bumper Gag
Stanley Prager	Short Order Man
Suzi Crandall	Lulu
Fred Graham	Motorcycle Cop
Lewis Charles	Parking Lot Attendant
Dan Foster	Groom
Marilyn Mercer	Bride
James Dobson	Boy at Parking Lot
Lynn Whitney	Waitress
N.L. Hitch	Bus Driver
Carmen Morales	Mother
Ralph Dunn	Policeman
Paul Bakanas	Shadow
Mickey Simpson	Shadow
Boyd Davis	Herman,Girl at Parking Lot
Kate Lawson	Tillie,Tillie
Guy Beach	Plumber
Byron Foulger	Lambert
Teddy Infuhr	Alvin
Curt Conway	Man in Tuxedo
Chester Jones	Waiter in Nightclub
Douglas Williams	Drunk
Helen Crozier	Nurse
Jimmy Moss	Boy
Erskine Sanford	Doctor
Frank Ferguson	Bum
Eula Guy	Mrs. Havilland
Will Lee	Jeweler
Russ Whiteman	People
Jane Allen	People
Bill Phipps	Young Farmer
Leigh Harline	Composer
Woody Guthrie	Composer

Technical Credits

Charles Schnee

Edward Anderson

Russell A. Cully	Special Effects
John Houseman	Producer
Nicholas Ray	Director
Charles Schnee	Screenwriter
Edward Anderson	Screenwriter
Dore Schary	Executive Producer,Producer
John L. Cass	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Clem Portman	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Roy Meadows	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

A premiere purveyor of high-strung anguish and jittery visual panache, Nicholas Ray filled his 1949 directorial debut with the wrenching emotion, fateful violence, and stylistic flair that would mark his most famous films, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Johnny Guitar (1954). Adapted from Edward Anderson's novel Thieves Like Us and starring sweet-faced Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell, the film presents a compassionate view of 1930s outlaws in love. Unlike the neurotic duo of Gun Crazy (1949) or the sexy rogues of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Bowie and Keechie are innocents doomed by circumstances. From the trail-blazing use of helicopter shots to claustrophobic close-ups and a bank robbery shot from inside the getaway car, Ray maintains the tension of the couple's flight from the law, while the noir-shadowed nightworld underlines the hopelessness of their plight. Little noticed in 1949, but championed, along with Ray in general, by the influential French film journal Cahiers du Cinéma, They Live By Night stands as a vital predecessor to both Bonnie and Clyde and Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou (1965); it was also reinterpreted by Robert Altman in 1974 under the novel's original title, Thieves Like Us.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola