They Live by Night

Director: Nicholas Ray
Year Released: 1949
Rating: 3.0

Intriguing young lovers-on-the-lam movie told with simplicity and grace by Ray, who would make an even better film years later about disillusioned youth in Rebel Without a Cause. Farley Granger is certainly no James Dean, and Cathy O'Donnell is no Natalie Wood, but Ray's direction and the film's claustrophobic tension more than compensate. The scene where the two of them (awkwardly) get married in a $20 chapel is a masterpiece in itself.