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| Thieves Like Us |
Altman's riff on the Depression-era tale of three prison escapees 'on the lam', also adapted in Nicholas Ray's
They Live By Night (1948), is closer in spirit to Arthur Penn's
Bonnie and Clyde. It also anticipates the Coen Brothers'
O Brother Where Art Thou? Altman elicits wonderfully naturalistic performances from his stand-out cast, which features 'regulars' Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall as the doomed lovers, John Schuck and Louise Fletcher (in her screen debut).
Social critique is never far from the surface in Altman's free-wheeling romantic melodrama. T-Dub, the crew's veteran of 37 bank robberies, reflects in hindsight: "I shoulda been a doctor or a lawyer; should've robbed people with my brain instead of a gun".
A meticulously assembled soundtrack of radio serials and songs of the era comment on the action and enrich the film's period detail.
Imported print.
Also screening with
Julie Rigg in Conversation with Robert Altman
