They Live by Night

Fugitive lovers on the run from nightmare America—drab, mercenary, and insanely competitive—create their own fantasy world full of charm and playful naivete in Nicholas Ray’s contribution to 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.