"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. ~
Hal Erickson, Rovi
