SUBJECTS

Love -- United States -- Drama, Man-woman relationships -- United States -- Drama, United States -- Social conditions -- 1918-1945 -- Drama

They Live by Night

35mm Archival Print

featuring

Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen,

Fugitive lovers on the run from nightmare America—drab, mercenary, and insanely competitive—create their own fantasy world full of charm and playful naiveté in Ray's contribution to l'amour fou. Bowie (Farley Granger), an escaped convict, and Keechie (Cathy O'Donnell) are innocents who were "never properly introduced to the world we live in," and their romance is their only defense against a cruel world. Already in this astonishing first film, Ray's style is striking in its compactness and expressive mise-en-scène, and personal in its peculiarly nervous existentialism. The tenderness of the love story contrasts sharply with the noir elements of the genre.

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Charles Schnee
Based On
  • the novel Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson

Cinematographer
  • George E. Diskant
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 35mm
  • 95 mins
Source
  • BFI National Archive
Permission
  • Warner Bros.
CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.

View They Live by Night documents  

The cinema is Nicholas Ray (program note), Cinematheque Ontario/a division of Toronto International Film Festival Group, James Quandt, 2003

The films of Nicholas Ray (program note), Pacific Film Archive, 1973

The twisted road (review), Variety, Brog., 1948

[Nicholas Ray films] (program note), Cinematheque Ontario/a division of Toronto International Film Festival Group

Two for Nicholas Ray (poetry), Barry Alpert

They live by night (program note)

They live by night (collection documents), Pacific Film Archive

They live by night (program note)

They live by night (program note), Mike Wilmington

They live by night (synopsis), British Film Institute

Displaying 10 of 10 publicly available documents.


View all They Live by Night documentation on CineFiles.