Three criminals escape from prison during the Great Depression and embark on a robbery spree across the USA, emulating their favourite gangsters along the way in Robert Altman’s remake of Nicholas Ray’s doom-laden film noir They Live by Night, using the same Edward Anderson source novel.
Altman regular Shelley Duvall and Keith Carradine are convincing and touching as Keechie and Bowie – the young lovers adrift in the poverty-stricken Deep South.
Set in the 1930s and shot in Mississippi, the picture is classically made, lacking the “innovations” that were Altman’s trademarks.
Louise Fletcher, later an Oscar winner for One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), appears in her screen debut.
Bowie
Keith Carradine
Keechie
Shelley Duvall
Chicamaw
John Schuck
T-dub
Bert Remsen
Mattie
Louise Fletcher
Lula
Ann Latham
Dee Mobley
Tom Skerritt
Captain Stammers
Al Scott
Jasbo
John Roper
Noel
Mary Waits
Director
Robert Altman
