Watch They Live by Night For Free

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Many people forget, at one point or another, they once were young. Youth was a time of wonder, exploring, learning. Att the time, most Parents instilled values that were going to be needed, as the years went by. Many Youths remembered those values. Others shoved them aside for what ever reasons. And yet others got caught up in situations- being at the wrong place at the right time...like Bowie and the girl he falls for, Keechie As things've turned out for me, I'm a sucker for old movies. Black&White, Color, SciFi, Sit-Coms (My Little Margie) any ones! I hadn't realized how much I love to watch them. In this movie, the acting is unlike today's acting and that's another attribute that makes me go for noir movies. All of the Actors in "They Live By Night" add to the tragedy of the story by Screenwriter Charles Schnee. Sherman Todd's Film Editing is a sure story sequitur, while The Black & White photography (Kenneth Peach) captures the essential sinister scenes. The Lighting, shadows & depth of field (in the end scene) is pure Hollywood genius. Ollie Sigurdson (Stills) captured the youthful, innocent beauty of Keechie. Literally, I got all choked up. I wanted to embrace and console the poor, inconsolable child. Go see it. Have some popcorn too.

They Live by Night, Nicholas Ray's directorial debut which he also co-wrote, offers an emotionally powerful storyline with a moody atmosphere film noir is known for. Young, naive and recently out of jail, Bowie (Farley Granger) has to survive robbing banks with experienced accomplices 'One-Eye' Chicamaw and 'T-Dub' Mansfield. Lying low from the police in a gas station, Bowie and Keechie (Cathy O'Donnell), daughter of the gas station owner, bond which develops into a run-away romance following an incident. Though their relationship is threatened by being 'chained' in a continuous struggle between their love and a world of crime.As a film noir They Live by Night goes beyond action-packed violence, tense confrontations and atmospheric settings. They Live by Night's genius was creating a hotbed of complex relationships filled with stirring emotions. Placing these relationships amongst a noir setting resulted in a bittersweet viewing experience because of Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell's chemistry. It was magnificent, both giving their characters a sense of nativity and innocence within their love for each other. Amongst the reputation Bowie receives for his criminality we see his true self, a young man engulfed in misdeeds trying to escape. Whereas Keechie is vulnerable to Bowie's world and inexperienced in general. Yet she is still of giving love wholeheartedly. Bowie and Keechie's journey was heartbreaking to see. These attributes also extended to the secondary characters. Adding to They Live by Night's atmosphere was Bowie's working relationship with Chicamaw and Mansfield. Howard Da Silva and Jay C. Flippen respectively offered a fierce intensity to They Live by Night emphasising Bowie's vulnerability by bossing him around with their hard-boiled nature which is typical of film noir. These tragic and fierce attributes went beyond characterisation. They Live by Night offered appropriate symbolism adding to Bowie and Keechie's dire circumstances. In a memorable scene where Bowie and Keechie are married, it takes place at a cheap chapel and cost $20 for a wedding license. The cheap tackiness is associated with the background Bowie and Keechie were attempting to escape. Wanting to lead suitable lives yet having to sink so low to achieve it. This underlines a depth towards They Live by Night's narrative surpassing into a fully-charged emotional noir.

It starts with a jailbreak. Two older bank robbers, and a youngish thief named Bowie (Farley Granger), hit the road in search of more loot. Very soon, Bowie's chance encounter with a solemn young woman, Keechie (Cathy O'Donnell), changes the trajectory of Bowie's destiny.Essentially a love story, "They Live By Night" is a kind of Romeo and Juliet story set against a crime backdrop. Though society sees Bowie as an outlaw, he is a naive dreamer, at heart. Both Bowie and Keechie are outsiders, loners on the run, in a corrupt, uncaring world. Neither has any real friends, nor can they trust anyone else.The film's B&W lighting is certainly high-contrast noirish. And the director makes use of a fair amount of aerial photography. Looking down from above on Bowie's getaways, the camera is like a vulture swooping down on its prey, thematically representing the oppression that Bowie must feel, with no place to hide. The drab production design accurately mirrors the story's setting during the Depression era.Absent the usual story clichés, "They Live By Night" is a well-made film, with two sympathetic main characters. Although the ending is a tad predictable, the getting there makes for an interesting cinematic ride.

A couple fall in love, rob banks, go on the run and die in a hail of gunfire. Sound familiar? "Bonnie and Clyde", "You Only Live Once", "The Getaway", "Badlands", "Person's in Hiding" and "Thieves Like Us" all cover this material in a much more substantial way.What's interesting about "They Live By Night", though, is the way in which the film offers a template against which Altman's "Thieves Like Us" can be read.Altman's film uses "They live by Night" as a springboard to deconstruct the entire "couple on the run" gangster genre. Comparing the first shot of both films is useful in demonstrating Altman's work methods. "They Live by Night" begins with a car racing speedily down a road, a helicopter mounted camera tracking it as it moves. In contrast, "Thieves Like Us" begins with a fixed tripod mounted camera tracking a small boat as it glides lazily across a lake. Reversals like this occur throughout Altman's film on an almost scene by scene basis, the director using irony and humour to force his audience into the position of meditating upon genre rules and expectations.6/10 - This was Nicholas Ray's first film as a director. It's a good film, and in many ways laid the foundations for the "couple on the run" genre, but when viewed alongside such fare as "Badlands", "Gun Crazy" and "Thieves Like Us", the film is positively archaic.Note: this was one of the first films to make extensive use of helicopter shots.