CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Alex da Silva Three prisoners are on the run - hardened bad guys Howard Da Silva (Chickamaw), and Jay C. Flippen (T-Dub) and youngster Farley Granger (Bowie). They share out some money and Granger takes a shine to Cathy O'Donnell (Keechie) who has nursed his wounds. These two pair up to start a life together but the other two spend their money and want more. They need 3 for their bank robberies and a reluctant Granger is persuaded back into a life of crime after receiving a few slaps. Things only go downhill for the trio.Well, that was all a bit boring. Nothing unexpected happens. The best in the cast are everyone else other than the two leads so that doesn't do the film any favours. Granger and O'Donnell are both unconvincing in their roles and way too much time is spent on sappy sentimental nonsense between them. Who cares if she's having a frigging baby! It's a totally irrelevant detail to put into what should be a tense noir. What we get is a bit of a mushy drama. The proper bad guys come off best and that includes Helen Craig (Mattie). The problem is they're all quite an unattractive bunch so I can't relate. The best bit of the film is Marie Bryant performing "Your Red Wagon" in a nightclub scene.Interestingly, Granger is given the name "Bowie" obviously a nod to David Bowie. This is probably the most interesting aspect of the film. I think it is probably from his 'Thin White Duke - Young Americans' period but I can't be sure.

Dan Franzen (dfranzen70) In Nicholas Ray's seminal crime drama They Live by Night, injured bank robber Bowie (Farley Granger) falls for the independent young rancher's daughter Keechie (Cathy O'Donnell), and the two use Bowie's ill-gotten gains to distance themselves from the authorities and the rest of Bowie's gang.Bowie is the gang's wheelman, and when he's injured during a getaway, it's his newfound companion Keechie who gets to nurse him back to health while the others - Chickamaw (Howard da Silva) and T-Dub (Jay C. Flippen) - make themselves scarce. Keechie doesn't think much of her patient and his lifestyle. And make no mistake, Bowie feels little shame in his role, which has included murder. No bright-eyed neophyte, he. But there's something about Keechie, her deliberate movements, her slinky smile, that really appeals to Bowie, and the two slowly fall for each other.The first shot by Ray (in his directorial debut) is an early helicopter angle, as the bad boys speed down a rural road as they escape from jail. In fact, it's the first helicopter action shot, as previous uses of the vehicle were simply to shoot landscapes to set a scene. In any event, a tire is blown and the gang heads toward a farmhouse, where they meet farmer Mobley (Will Wright) and his daughter Keechie. There's chemistry just dripping between Granger and O'Donnell; both seem more naive than they truly are, and although each pretends to dislike the other, it's not long before them old hormones come a-knocking, although not too much, because this is 1948, after all, and the movie's set some 15 years earlier. On the run they go! Ray's first feature is strikingly shot. Aside from that iconic opening helicopter shot, there's also a great little scene of the gang pulling off a job - from Bowie's perspective as the driver. A bystander tries to engage Bowie in conversation just as T-Dub and Chickamaw run out of the building, earning him a rough shove to the face. That's noir film for you. Watch your face! O'Donnell and Granger work very well together (no surprise, since the latter recommended the former for the role), although I think most of the appeal comes from O'Donnell, who turns in a graceful, passionate, and unique performance as the trusting Keechie. Granger, appearing in only his third film (with Rope on the horizon) was never really that good of an actor, and so many of his lines are delivered in an almost nonchalant monotone that you wonder if some lessons weren't in his immediate future. At least no one can accuse him of hamming it up.And do you know who produced this masterpiece? None other than the great John Houseman, who most of us remember from his old Smith-Barney commercials but who was also one of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre performers back in the day. The man knew talent, and he picked Nicholas Ray to direct without input from the studio. It's to Houseman's credit that the movie's as good as it is - which is to say, a true noir classic. There may not be a Bonnie and Clyde ending, but we're not talking about a Disney finale, either. Bonus cameo - the jeweler who sells Bowie a watch is played by none other than Will Lee. Yes, the same Will Lee who would go on to play Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street.

LeonLouisRicci The excellent side Characters in this overly romantic Film-Noir are more interesting than the two love-struck leads. So is the dark atmosphere and incredible look of the Movie. Where it falters is the extreme naiveté of the Couple that becomes a bit irritating. "I don't know how to kiss, you'll have to show me".A farm Girl uttering such silly nonsense is just not wholly believable even in the Forties. They are both portrayed as such innocents that it is really too much. But if you can forgive some of the more whispering Romance scenes there is enough here to recommend as a Film-Noir with more Romantic notions than most.It can be quite engaging at times but is bogged down again and again by more school-kids playing house kind of stuff. Fortunately their Dream Life is interrupted just in time before it becomes unbearable. The world of Film-Noir is penetrated here with idealism and hope, but there is just no way that any of that will do in this perpetually bleak place. In the end, they both come to that realization.

RResende There seems to be a unique thing about Ray's career, in its time and context. He was an interesting director who worked inside the Hollywood system, and indeed obeyed to their rules, give or take, and was able to produce some films that people still remember today, so called classics. Yet something in each one of his films, even the more studio tailored ones, seem to constantly pull the films away from the norm. The man had a visual imagination, and an experimental attitude. Much has been said about how he handled colour, but i think it's in these black and white first phase films that Ray shines brighter. That's because black and white film technology was already advanced enough to allow him to do things such as shooting on real locations, while coloured films made his camera work and groundbreaking visual presentations more stiff, less fluid. This film has very interesting bits. The aerial shots of cars along the road, loose and free. The disembodied camera that appears on some cleverly conceived crane shots, and the general cinematography whenever we are clearly outside the studio. That's where Ray's mind was, clearly. Whenever we are on sets, well, plain old classical illumination, which doesn't even borrow from Toland/Welles, who had by than created a whole new set of light codes. But in the outside shots, he does things that hadn't been done, some of which do work even today, in terms of our modern ability to understand framing.So the road trip genre suits perfectly Ray's intentions. The mere physical description of the sequences made his mind figure what he might get out of it. This isn't visually as ground breaking as On a dangerous ground, or even Knock on any door, but the guy was just starting. Other than that, this is melodrama. Characters caught by hard backgrounds, forced to struggle, unable to fight whatever burdens society and their shortcomings as people placed upon them. It's a very dear theme of Nicholas Ray, the misfits, the outcast, ennobled by how they assume their faults and try to get out of that world, but ultimately pushed down by the weight of their mistakes, and the cruelty of people around them. How Ray formulates this makes it a very American theme in its core, and very unique in its approach. I think no one has ever formulated this bonnie/clyde runaway type like this ever again, less adventurous, but deeper. No wonder Wenders, in his fascination with America, came to admire Ray so much.Cathy O'Donnell has a great face, her character's looks evolution is well thought, she shines when her face is allowed to act, which Ray does a lot.My opinion: 3/5 this is a worthy effort, which you should watch only if you're interested in Ray's best works. This will give you insight.