They Live by Night (1948)

Director:

Nicholas Ray

Writers:

Edward Anderson (novel)
Nicholas Ray (adaptation)

Release Date:

26 October 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Romance

Tagline:

Cops or no cops I'm going through!

Plot:

An escaped convict is injured and is helped by a woman with whom he has an ill-fated relationship.

Plot Keywords:

Justice Of The Peace | Moonshine | Helicopter Shot | Sweet Potato Pie | Prison Farm

Cast

Cathy O'Donnell	...	Catherine 'Keechie' Mobley
Farley Granger	...	Arthur 'Bowie' Bowers
Howard Da Silva	...	Chicamaw 'One-Eye' Mobley
Jay C. Flippen	...	Henry 'T-Dub' Mansfield
Helen Craig	...	Mattie Mansfield
Will Wright	...	Mobley
Marie Bryant	...	Nightclub Singer
Ian Wolfe	...	Mr. Hawkins, Wedding Chapel Proprietor
William Phipps	...	Young Farmer
Harry Harvey	...	Hagenheimer, Banker

Also Known As:

The Twisted Road (UK)
Your Red Wagon (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | USA:Approved

Filming Locations:

RKO Encino Ranch - Balboa Boulevard & Burbank Boulevard, Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

Nicholas Ray's first directing credit.

Goofs:

Continuity: Chicamaw's right eye is okay in a brief scene toward the end. Otherwise, the eye is opaque.

Quotes:

Arthur 'Bowie' Bowers: [waking up mother on bus] M'am, you're baby's crying.
Mother on bus: Well, I've been on the bus three days. When we get to the next stop, I'll fix her bottle.
[ignoring the baby and going back to sleeo]
Mother on bus: Till then, I just don't care.

Movie Connections:

Featured in They Live by Night: The Twisted Road (2007) (V)

Soundtrack:

Your Red Wagon

a classic "B-noir" film with heart and style

Nicholas Ray's first film is a fascinating, enveloping example of a filmmaker getting as much as he can out of so little. His film was made under the radar at RKO, despite having John Houseman as a producer. While also having a cast of really unknowns, he also uses it to his advantage to tell a small story very well. It's close to being one of the more 'text-book' examples, in the story's core, in the history of B-noir (film-noir that didn't get the hype of The Big Sleep or Out of the Past, star vehicles as much as unique thrillers). Bowie (Farley Granger, soon to be a Hitchcock stock-player) escapes from jail with the help of a couple of bank robbers who make him, as they say, "an investment." He meets a girl, Keechie (Cathy O'Donnell), daughter of a farmer they pass by, and he becomes friends with her, so to speak. She agrees to leave town with him and they also decide, almost on a whim, to get married (for twenty bucks no less). But soon, very soon, fall in love, however, despite the checkered and now notorious past catching up to Bowie.

Obviously, if you're looking for stellar, "method" acting, look elsewhere in the main performances. But they do have enough of a pull in their chemistry on screen- sometimes rough and spelling of their doomed relationship, other times tragically tender- to back up the best aspects to the film. The true pleasures in seeing They Live By Night are the details that Ray lays in the scenes, bits of life probably taken from the book the movie's based on. Godard once proclaimed that Ray "IS cinema". If this statement does hold validity to a degree, it shows for certain even in Ray's debut in the scenes with the secondary platers. Such as the wedding scene, or in general with the dialog in the script (i.e. "Between him and the chicken, I'd bet on the chicken", or "I'm the black sheep" "the only thing black about you are your eyelashes), or even with the strengths in Ray's camera as a simple storyteller. In a sense this cuts right to the chase with the theme of doomed youth, years before Rebel Without a Cause yet with the given desperation of the noir films.

While generally less seen than Ray's other films (though more attributable to being less available on video), it's likely one of his best; a powerful mix of the bittersweet tale of a criminal and his love that would decades later meld with other crime-film elements into a work like True Romance.