THEY LIVE BY NIGHT
Revisiting Nicholas Ray’s classic 1948 noir, and more archive re-releases.
Bonnie And Clyde. Badlands. Natural Born Killers. All roads lead somewhere, and when it comes to lovers-on-the-run movies, they lead back to Nicholas Ray’s thriller. Farley Granger stars as escaped felon Bowie who, while hiding out, meets cute with Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell), the niece of fellow con Chickamaw (Howard Da Silva).
Soon enough, Bowie and Keechie hit the road, scraping a jittery existence in the remote cabins and motels of dustbowl America during the Depression, pursued both by the law and Bowie’s old gang.
Based on Edward Anderson’s novel Thieves Like Us (later adapted by Robert Altman), this was – remarkably – Ray’s debut. The director signalled the bold approach to genre he would continue to flaunt with his memorable takes on the western (Johnny Guitar) and melodrama (Rebel Without A Cause). He’s less interested in hard-boiled gunplay than
the relationship between two youngsters who are altogether too nice to be involved in crime.
Granger and O’Connell look more like romantic leads than noir antiheroes, and Ray portrays them as victims of a society that’s cynical and mercenary; even the registrar who marries them is a huckster. That clash of mood and subject lends a tragic fatalism to proceedings, which is ably dissected in the extras: a short doc, critic’s video essay and a commentary (recorded by Granger before his death). Simon Kinnear