They Live by Night (1948)

Regrettably I have seen very little of Nicholas Ray, however from his debut in They Live by Night I saw the same care spent on his youthful characters, which is also noticeable in Rebel Without a Cause. He does not treat "Keechie" and "Bowie" as cardboard cutouts or kids who are dumb and in love. They have value and feelings that are worth examining more closely.

The film opens with three thugs breaking out of the local prison. Two of the men Chicamaw (Howard Da Silva) and T-Dub (Jay C. Flippen) are weathered criminals. The third, Bowie is a baby-faced kid looking hardly a day over 20, but he went into the clink for a reason.

They find shelter at a nearby filing station where Chicamaw's mangy older brother (Wil Wright) makes a living with his timid, no nonsense daughter Katherine.They get a car and have enough money to get their feet off the ground before a big bank job in Kelton.

It goes off without a major hitch but soon after Bowie gets in a car accident and Chicamaw takes him back to his brother's to be cared for. Katharine is there and the two of them find companionship in each other because neither one has anyone else to turn to. They are young, naive and in love. They've never had these types of feelings before.

Since Bowie needs to lay low, he takes "Keechie" with him and they make an adventure out of it. Ultimately, it results in a cheap $20 marriage and a lot of nice intimate nights spent together driving and cuddling. They're living the lives of carefree newlyweds who need no one but each other. They find a simple cottage out in the back country owned by a homely proprietor (Byron Foulger) and it acts as a new home. A perfect oasis from the newspapers, the cops and Bowie's accomplices.

However, they do catch up with him eventually and he and Katherine split fast after a tiff. They want a normal life, but Chicamaw and T-Dub won't allow it because they need more money. He won't and in the subsequent attempt his former partners eat it. The lookout is still hot for the boy as well.

He seems so undeserving of hard justice, but it is bound to come after him anyways. For such relative newcomers Farley Granger and Kathy O'Donnell (The Best Years of Our Lives) have such genuine chemistry opposite each other. Granger is more often than not gentle and kind. O'Donnell is pretty in a simple, unadorned type of way. They elicit so much more sympathy than Bonnie and Clyde or even the fugitives in Gun Crazy. Perhaps because they aren't even outlaws, only young kids who are victims of their circumstances.

4/5 Stars