Warners'
Film Noir Classic Collection Vol 4 collects five thriller double bills
probably classified in the 'Low "A"' to 'High "B"' range, encompassing titles from Warners, RKO
and MGM with a Monogram oddity thrown in for good measure. This pairing links RKO's
They Live By Night and MGM's
Side Street, both starring Farley Granger and
Cathy O'Donnell.
Nicholas Ray's first feature
They Live By Night is the work of a Hollywood outsider. It's
definitely Noir by theme and characterization, but is sourced in Edward Anderson's socially
conscious Depression-era novel
Thieves Like Us. A product of Roosevelt's New Deal
public works programs, Ray was brought to Los Angeles by producer John Houseman and
encouraged to place artistic goals first. With two young stars borrowed from Goldwyn, Ray
made what might be Hollywood's darkest romance since the silent era.
Synopsis: Inexperienced Bowie Bowers (Farley Granger) escapes from jail with hardened
criminals T-Dub and Chickamaw (Jay C. Flippen & Howard Da Silva) and is stashed at Mobley's
filling station to recover from a wound. He's nursed by Mobley's teenaged daughter Keechie
(Cathy O'Donnell). Despite the fact that neither has known anything but hardship and distrust,
they begin a friendship. Bowie accompanies his cohorts on robberies and is soon being
publicized as a bloodthirsty public enemy; Bowie and Keechie go on the run together and find
that the underworld doesn't want loose-cannon hillbillies hanging around. They marry on the
road, and Keechie becomes pregnant. When T-Dub and Chickamaw run into trouble, the
young couple hide out at a motor hotel run by Mattie Mansfield (Helen Craig), who is bitter
because her husband's parole has been denied. Bowie sneaks out to arrange their escape to
Mexico.
They Live By Night is the most tender of films noir. It opens with a dreamy shot of
lovers kissing by firelight, while the words, "This boy ... and this girl ... were never properly
introduced to the world we live in" fade up on the screen. Keechie and Bowie share a
sensitivity that transcends their miserable backgrounds. He's been in prison since childhood
and she's turned cold and hostile to avoid further abuse from her drunken father. When Bowie
returns from a robbery with a gift, we can see Keechie's heart melt. From then on they're like
mated animals. Keechie's father is quick to inform on the lovers. The bull-like T-Dub and the
hotheaded Chickamaw use threats to force Bowie into more bank robberies.
Ray concentrates on the couple's growing relationship. Keechie and Bowie gratefully accept
whatever happiness they can find. Whenever they let down their guard and behave like 'real
people', things go wrong. Bowie foolishly flashes his bankroll in front of strangers. A crooked
marriage parlor operator (Ian Wolfe) can tell immediately that they're fugitives. The idea of
'honor among thieves' is revealed as a myth when crooks grossly overcharge them, and friends
betray them to the police. Their situation is summed up by nightclub singer Marie Bryant's
evocative delivery of
Your Red Wagon, a creepy jazz tune that insists that one's
problems are one's own, and it's no good expecting others to sympathize. Nicholas Ray's fine
direction is just what Farley Granger needed -- he was never this good again, not even in his
movies for Alfred Hitchcock. The much more natural performer Cathy O'Donnell is simply
magnificent.
They Live By Night conjures powerful and memorable images, from its innovative
helicopter shots to cameraman George Diskant's unusual character compositions. The lovers'
happy faces fill the screen as they dream of the future, until the one-eyed Chickamaw shows
up to demonstrate his menace by crushing Christmas ornaments. Not every scene happens at
night, but those that do evoke the false sense of security when driving in a car, and the
loneliness of being set adrift in a hostile world.
They Live By Night is the second of a string of very good rural bandit -
amour
fou movies roughly based on the Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow story. Fritz Lang's
You Only Live Once is good cinema but forced in almost every respect. Joseph H.
Lewis'
Gun Crazy has a different blend of violence and out-of-control sexuality, and
Robert Altman's
Thieves Like Us has its good points as well. Arthur Penn's
Bonnie &
Clyde is a masterpiece in its own right but openly borrows from Nick Ray. The banker that
leaps onto Clyde's running board and is shot in the face is clearly meant to one-up the
They Live By Night moment when Bowie shoves the nice jeweler from his car
window. A big part of our concern for Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty is the edgy
knowledge that their demise will be bloody and graphic. At the end of
They Live By
Night, we wish we could throw ourselves in front of the police to shield the Romeo &
Juliet-like Granger and O'Donnell.
The conclusion is as complex as noir films get, a beautiful distillation of the trauma of criminal
life. The hard-faced Mattie betrays Keechie and Bowie in a pitiful bid to free her own husband
from prison. The finale is somewhat idealized, but the Madonna-like grace afforded Keechie is
emotionally very moving. I've never seen a showing of
They Live By Night where
people didn't applaud -- even back in college screenings.
The print of
They Live By Night is nearly flawless, completely overshadowing
the old Image laserdisc from the early 1990s. The nights are inky black and the image has very
little grain. The interesting soundtrack highlights the music of Leigh Harline, and we're told
that themes by Woody Guthrie can be heard as well.
A fast-paced featurette by Sparkhill,
The Twisted Road has on-camera contributions
from Molly Haskell, James Ursini, Alain Silver, Oliver Stone, Christopher Coppola and star
Farley Granger. Granger returns with Eddie Muller in a feature commentary. The gracious
actor is good with generalities but remembers few specific details, and many of Muller's
patient questions receive four-word non-answers. Muller gives a fine account of the making of
the film. We might assume that the helicopter footage indicates a Howard Hughes influence --
Hughes injected aviation into films whenever he could -- but
They Live By Night was
produced before Hughes came to the studio.
MGM made noir films but not a lot of great ones, perhaps because the studio's commitment to
glamour worked against the noir ethos. Things changed a bit when Dore Schary imported
Anthony Mann and John Alton from Eagle-Lion. The director and cameraman made an
excellent team on
Border Incident, but Alton may already have been working on
An
American in Paris by the time
Side Street came around. Veteran Joseph
Ruttenberg's camerawork is just as interesting.
Side Street is a derivative tale sparked by some fancy location shooting, particularly
an exciting car chase in the narrow streets of Lower Manhattan. An opening narration imitates
Jules Dassin's
The Naked City, describing the daily cycle in New York while criminals
are doing their dirty work. As if conceived as an elongated version of a moralizing
Crime
Doesn't Pay short subject, our hero is an innocent dupe who makes one foolish decision
and becomes the target of ruthless killers.
Synopsis: Part-time mail carrier Joe Norson (Farley Granger) needs a real job to replace the
filling station he lost; his young wife Ellen (Cathy O'Donnell) will have to give birth in the
county hospital. Joe's dreaming of buying her a fur coat when he sees an opportunity to filch
$200 from a lawyer's office. The file he steals actually contains $30,000 in blackmail money;
lawyer Victor Backett (Edmon Ryan) and his partner George Garsell (James Craig) have
already murdered the girl who helped them get it, Lucille Colner (Adele Jergens). Ellen has
her baby and Joe decides to return the money. He walks into Backett's office and confesses all
--- and then discovers that a bartender has stolen his boodle. Before Joe knows what has hit
him, Garsell has killed the bartender and framed Joe for the crime. With the police on his tail,
Joe's only hope is to find Garsell first. He contacts nightclub singer Harriette Sinton (Jean
Hagen) for help, not realizing that she sees through him as well.
Side Street is always explained as a follow-up to the impressive
They Live by
Night. Like many noir gems, the Nicholas Ray film was a reported box office failure, so it
must have been an aesthetic decision to re-team Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell in a
story about young lovers in trouble. The couple isn't as compelling here, mainly because their
characters have been conceived along MGM 'little people' lines. As in
Mystery Street
and even the revivalist parable
The Next Voice You Hear, Joe and Ellen Norson are
'simple, good Americans' living a working-class life. Trouble comes when Joe is tempted to
pilfer some money, an offense that snowballs to life-threatening proportions. Ellen panics too,
screaming over a phone for Joe to run, when he should be turning himself over to the police.
As in
Quicksand, the message is that good lumpen proles need to keep their noses
clean and forget about things like fur coats.
The kiddie-lesson moralizing and the plagiarism from
The Naked City would cripple the
show were it not for MGM's impressive production values. Anthony Mann's strong visual sense
-- many tight, odd angles -- is active even without John Alton behind the camera, and he finds
renewed dynamism in the New York locations. The final car chase through the canyons of Wall
Street is strong stuff for 1950, with the cars taking tight corners at high speeds.
Joe Norson's consistently foolish behavior is more appropriate for a sixteen year-old. He's had
a business and lived in NYC all his life yet is a babe in the woods in his interpersonal dealings.
He parks a mystery package with a bartender and never thinks that the man might peek inside.
He walks into an office that has $30,000 stashed in a file cabinet and expects to find honest
men. Joe is too insipid to qualify as a good noir loser character, like Al Roberts in
Detour. Instead of hoping he'll get free, we're just as likely to wish that Ellen had fallen
in love with somebody sensible. An honest ending would add an epilogue showing Joe Norson
back in a menial job, no longer dreaming for anything better.
The venal crooks murder Lucille and several other obstacles in a business-as-usual fashion.
Edmon Ryan is excellent as the cagey lawyer and James Craig is suitably ruthless with the
ladies. Adele Jergens is a crooked blonde beauty with rotten luck in friends, and up 'n' coming
Jean Hagen steals the show with just one scene as an alcoholic torch singer. It's a crime to
think that her great role in
Singin' in the Rain didn't lead to even better things.
Side Street plays fine on DVD, with crisp B&W location photography that takes us back
to the hot sidewalks of 1950 Manhattan. Lennie Hayton's underscore is a definite plus. A trailer
is included as well as Richard Schickel's casual, sparse commentary track. Schickel considers
the film a great noir and opens by saying that the shots of the tall buildings imply that the city
oppresses little people like Joe and Ellen. His remarks about the backgrounds of the
filmmakers and actors are informed and authoritative. Sparkhill's featurette
Where Danger
Lurks has input from Patricia King Hanson, Christopher Coppola, Richard Schickel and
Oliver Stone.
The features have chapter stops but no chapter menus. After experimenting with slim cases,
Warners is back to using full-sized keep cases for all of its boxed sets.
For more information about
They Live By Night/Side Street, visit
Warner Video.
To order
They Live By Night/Side Street, go to
TCM Shopping.
by Glenn Erickson
