Prison Break

By Fearless Young Orphan

They Live by Night (1948)

Directed by

This one looks like it could be a rather hokey old piece of corniness until you note that Nicholas Ray directed – according to imdb.com, it was his first major directorial release. We know Nicholas Ray from the Noir Scoire already. He directed the magnificent film which is tied with The Big Heat as our highest- scoring noir film to date at a mighty 98% of noir perfection. I admit I perked up considerably when I saw that. I mean, a minute into the film I’d just seen a couple of young people smooching and a rather intrusive subtitle telling us that they’re a couple of delinquents (they live by night, you know!) who aren’t following the rules set out by “the man” and I was thinking it might turn out to be like Reefer Madness or something. Then here comes Nicholas Ray’s name and I stopped being a smartass.

The smooching young people are Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell, and Keechie is a nickname for Katherine) and Bowie (pretty-boy , and Bowie is a nickname for his last name Bowers). Bowie is 23 years old. He has been in prison for murder since he was 16. Back then, he was arrested, tried and convicted all in one day in what he thinks was a miscarriage of justice, particularly since he was a minor at the time. While in prison, he saw a newspaper article about a young man in similar circumstances who was set free by the Supreme Court, and he hopes to be able to do the same thing. Bowie does not go about his legal proceeding in a very smart way, as he begins his search for a lawyer by breaking out of prison. He breaks out with two much older convicts, T-Dub and Chickamaw, middle-aged hard timers (and let’s not speculate overmuch on how they managed to hook up with the handsome, naive young inmate) who want to get out merely because prison sucks and there’s a lot of crime they want to commit. T-Dub needs to rob enough money to get his brother out of jail by hiring a fancy lawyer – damn, the convicts in this movie are sure hot to get lawyers, aren’t they? – and Chickamaw is just a louse who likes the idea of being a famous outlaw. He will be the villain of this piece, a loose cannon whose moral compass lost its magnetic north a long time ago. He has no reservations about killing, for example. Or about getting his companions killed.

Their escape from prison takes them to Chickamaw’s brother’s home. Now, don’t get confused. T-Dub’s brother is the one in prison. Chickamaw’s brother is an old drunk who runs a gas station and auto repair shop that looks like a crap barn just about to fall over sideways. His wife left him long ago for greener pastures (meaning, almost any other pasture), leaving behind with him their sullen daughter Keechie.

Keechie, who shows up in the movie looking like ten kinds of pissed off, has had just about enough of drunk old men and outlaws. She’s been keeping the business running while her father gets soused. She has no notion of what a normal girl’s life should have been. There has been nothing but idiotic crime and desperation around her entire life. Into their station comes T-Dub, “Uncle” Chickamaw and a wide-eyed young escapee who has some ridiculous idea that he can get a lawyer to help him, now that he’s broken out of prison, committed one robbery and is planning to help his older friends commit another.

Neither Keechie nor Bowie has any idea how to approach romance. Theirs have not been lives in which they learned about such things. The film takes its time with them, let’s them have all the extra moments they need to establish what is a first for both of them. “I don’t know much about kissing,” says Keechie. Bowie doesn’t, either. “We’ll learn together,” she tells him. Bowie is a criminal but he’s also an innocent with a sense of nobility borne out of nothing but whatever is left of his pride, and Keechie has never had anybody give a damn about her. Watching them blossom under each other’s affection is kind of beautiful. I don’t know if it’ll really hold your attention, but try to be patient with the kids. It’s a short movie, and you can just sit still.

A bank robbery is planned and executed mostly without a hitch, and with his share of the money, Bowie and Keechie elope (note that the scene of their quickie marriage is haunting – not in the location, but in the words of the justice of the peace who tries to help them and then, later when it matters, is simply unable to do Not the kind of service you’d get at Jiffy Lube, but so). By now Bowie has realized it’s still nice. that his chances of getting help from the Supreme Court aren’t all that good (they frown on bank robbery) so he and Keechie go into hiding. Neither of them is idealistic enough to think that their life together will be long or normal. We can see by the way they look at each other that they know their days are numbered. I think at one point they speculate that, with luck, they might have nearly ten years together. Luck isn’t something that graces their company much, though. Soon enough, here comes Uncle Chickamaw to tell Bowie that it’s time to rob yet another bank. Or else.

I’ve complained before when have unreasonably happy endings, when everything we’ve seen so far has foreshadowed doom. There is no such copout here. Hell, I almost wish there had been one. Jeez, they’re hardly more than children, both from broken dysfunctional families, and nobody has ever given a damn about either of them. We’d kind of like to see them find some peace that didn’t involve graveyards.

The Scorecard:

Our Hero: Bowie is a young man who has been in prison since he was 16 and was not doing much better before that, either. He’s uneducated, naïve, clueless about the world, but has a steely core of dignity, and there’s no malevolence in the boy. He is talked into escaping prison with a couple older convicts who want to make him their getaway driver under the pretense that this will lead to his freedom from prison for good. Poor dumb bastard. He’s almost too pathetic to be a real anti-hero, but boy is he flawed. 8/10.

As Played by: Farley Granger, who does an excellent job being exactly as dumb as Bowie is supposed to be. He is well-suited for the hapless romantic role, which is heavy with so much sadness. 10/10

Femme Fatale: Keechie is not exactly a femme fatale. She is not trouble, she is the level-headed one. Yes, she’s been inadvertently involved in crime all her life, but that’s only made her less tolerant of it. She doesn’t lie to Bowie, betray him or seduce him into doing anything bad. If there is actually a femme fatale in the film, it would be Mattie, who is T-Dub’s angry sister-in-law. She is going to do her fair share of conniving, though we can hardly blame her. Her role is a rather small one, though. 7/10

As Played by: Cathy O’Donnell. She begins the film as an understandably disagreeable sourpuss and then blooms into a remarkably pretty woman when she falls in love. Her hesitant steps into love are utterly convincing, and we can tell the poor girl simultaneously adores Bowie while expecting at any moment for the cruel hand of fate to smack her back down. Helen Craig does a memorable job in her small role as the determined Mattie. 10/10.

The mastermind: T-Dub is the smart planner of the group of escaped convicts, but he’s got some common sense and knows, for example, that killing people is a bad idea. He even wants the robbery money for what he presumes is a valid reason. It’s Chickamaw of whom we must beware – that guy is crazy. Chickamaw has no respect for life or law, plus he’s got a notion that he’d like to be a notorious criminal. 9/10

As Played by: Jay C. Flippen and , respectively. These are performances so earnest that you might forget you are watching actors. Of the whole bunch, Farley Granger is the only one who seems to belong on a movie set. 10/10 The location: Nowhere except back roads, rustic and rotting hiding places, hidden-away cabins, sleazy motels. There’s barely a moment in the movie that doesn’t feel like something you’d find under a rock. When the movie isn’t in half in shadow, everybody is ankle deep in water or trying to catch some sleep in the back seat of a stolen car. 10/10

The crime/frame: Bank robbery flavored with murder. Three convicts escape from prison in order to rob banks, but one of them, Chickamaw, can’t seem to stop himself from shooting people. The spiral of crime and punishment is inescapable for our anti-hero. 10/10

The mood: Impending doom, from the time the opening credits stop rolling. Nobody is getting out of this mess unscathed. Crime doesn’t pay? Hell, it doesn’t even cover the gas bill. Nicholas Ray creates an atmosphere of such heavy hopelessness that this very aspect might turn some viewers against it as a godawful depressing film. 10/10.

The sex factor: There is a good amount of attraction between Keechie and Bowie, all of it unpracticed and strangely innocent. This is a love story, not a lust story, but you can’t deny that they do seem to like sharing space together. 8/10

Overall Noir Scoire: 92%