They Live by Night

 They Live by Night:

Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell star in this 1949 film about two young lovers mixed up with a criminal gang. Although it is a crime drama with film noir trappings, it is really a love story with an ending as tragic as Romeo and Juliet. 95 minutes. CC.

This film marked the film debut of famed director Nicholas Ray, perhaps best known for "Rebel Without a Cause" with James Dean. It was filmed in 1947 but only released in London in 1948 where its critical acclaim finally led to its USA release in 1949. It was a breakthrough film both in its story and in its telling. 

As mentioned above, it is a tender young love story from the opening scene, a kind of preface with closeups of the two young lovers. Immediately after we go to a unprecedented helicopter shot of a speeding getaway car racing down a lonely road, and the action never lets up.

Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell make an extremely attractive and likable pair of lovers. Granger is best known for his starring role in Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train," and O'Donnell gained screen immortality in 1946 as Wilma, the teenage girlfriend of the sailor returning from WWII with hooks in place of his hands in "The Best Years of Our Lives".

Eddie Muller of Turner classic Movies (TCM) provides a fine intro to this groundbreaking film.

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Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell