This film is just marvellous, and I don't quite know why. Farley Granger and especially Cathy O'Donnell are terrific as the virginal couple on the run. The film has a wonderful momentum. Something's always happening. Robbery filmed from back seat of car very innovative and pre-dates Gun Crazy. It's brilliantly directed and edited (and photographed). I've had to buy the Criterion Blu-Ray. Written by Charles Schnee, adapted by Ray. Novel 'Thieves Like Us', Edward Anderson, which Altman remade in 1974.
Camera: George Diskant. Music: Leigh Harline, Editor: Sherman Todd.
With Howard da Dilva, Jay C. Flippen, Helen Craig, Will Wright, Ian Wolfe.
What great names everyone has: Bowie, Keechie, Chickamaw, T-Dub, Mattie, Mobley.
Most ironic that the main theme is 'I Know Where I'm Going'. Last seen 12 years ago, review here. Well overdue. I think it might be Nicholas Ray's best film (On Dangerous Ground a contender).
And from last time:
A New Wave favourite, here's Truffaut writing in the fifties: "We discovered Nicholas Ray about seven or eight years ago with Knock on Any Door. Then there was the dazzling confirmation of They Live By Night, which is still his best film." And Godard's debut Breathless also features a young girl who's mixed up with a criminal, and which ends tragically.
It begins straight in the middle of the action (and hardly pauses for breath) with hardened criminals 'one eye' Howard da Silva and Jay C. Flippen and young Farley Granger as prison farm escapees, taking refuge with alky Will Wright and daughter Cathy O'Donnell, with whom Granger becomes instantly smitten. (Some of their exchanges are great, demonstrating much naivety on both sides e.g. "Wasn't there even a boy who used to walk you to church on Sunday?" "No, do you think there should have been?" - after all, the film opens declaring that this couple haven't learned to grow into the world properly.) The couple's happy moments are like isolated pockets of sun in a dark storm. It's clear they have both had a pretty shit upbringing.
It begins straight in the middle of the action (and hardly pauses for breath) with hardened criminals 'one eye' Howard da Silva and Jay C. Flippen and young Farley Granger as prison farm escapees, taking refuge with alky Will Wright and daughter Cathy O'Donnell, with whom Granger becomes instantly smitten. (Some of their exchanges are great, demonstrating much naivety on both sides e.g. "Wasn't there even a boy who used to walk you to church on Sunday?" "No, do you think there should have been?" - after all, the film opens declaring that this couple haven't learned to grow into the world properly.) The couple's happy moments are like isolated pockets of sun in a dark storm. It's clear they have both had a pretty shit upbringing.
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| Suggestion here of being behind bars? |
Good immediate filming was what must have appealed to our New Wavers, unusual helicopter shots which track some of the progress of what is essentially an early road movie; a great bank robbery shot from the back seat of a car (George E Diskant) putting us in to the action, an abrupt car crash and execution. With lots of noiry double crossing film leads inexorably to tragedy and reminded me most strongly of Bonnie and Clyde and Malick's later Badlands, and thus is influential on many fronts.
Good acting (O'Donnell especially; I just realised she's Harold Russell's fiancée in Best Years of Our Lives). Produced by John Houseman with music by Leigh Harline; for RKO.
Good acting (O'Donnell especially; I just realised she's Harold Russell's fiancée in Best Years of Our Lives). Produced by John Houseman with music by Leigh Harline; for RKO.
P.S. 24/1/22 I read today that Charles Brackett worked on this script in 1944.
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