Thieves Like Us

This often overlooked gem is one of Altman's best films. Keith Carradine and Shelly Duvall have seldom been better. The film has a rich verisimilitude that few films can equal. The whole film looks and feels as though Altman had transported his cast to 1935 to shoot on location.

Apparently this 1974 movie is a re-do of the 1940 classic THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT. The excessive violence in the shoot out at the end of the movie is basically the same as in BONNIE & CLYDE (a 1967 film). Above 2 lines are reasons why we should not complain about todays films being redo's of older movies. This is typical of Hollywood, NOW for the good stuff on Thieves Like Us. Very fine acting by members of Robert Altmans stock company, Shelly Duvall,Keith Carradine. It is also Louise Fletchers first acting role & she was very good.In fact, there was not a bad performance from anyone. This is a depression era dramatic,romantic comedy about bank robbers & there families, again like Bonnie & Clyde. I do not remember any thing about THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT .It would have been last seen over 60 years ago, thusly I cannot say how close this one is to that one. One of the most enjoyable parts of Thieves Like Us is the radio background shows we hear throughout. The time of this film is 1936 so we learn about the way things were back then. There are very few action scenes,the way they used to make films. Robert Altman was a very skillful director & when you view this movie you can see why he was so well thought of. It is not a great film, Just a good movie you will enjoy. ratings *** (out of 4) 84 points (out of 100) IMDb 7 (out of 10)

Robert Altman made some of the best films America has put out, and this one is up there with McCabe and Mrs Miller and Nashville. Thieves Like Us is a startlingly beautiful film, so full of atmosphere it's scarily evocative. Poetry on celluloid. Check it out.

Several days ago I selected a book by Edward Anderson and read through it. It was so interesting, I borrowed the movie directed by Robert Altman and called " Thieves Like Us " starring Keith Carradine who plays Bowie. The film mirrored the book in many ways, but somehow lacked it's heart. The movie itself tells the exciting, but doomed love story of escaping convicts who form a Bank robbing group who's initial success offers the opportunity to flee to Mexico. Failing to take advantage of their bank robbing efforts, T-Dub (Bert Remsen), Chicamaw, (John Schuck) Dee Mobley (Tom Skerritt) and Bowie travel about the state of Mississippi robbing other banks, until an innocent employee is killed which escalates their F.B.I criminal status to wanted Murderers. Despite running from the police, Bowie falls for Keechie (Shelley Duvall) a naive farm girl who dreams of a better life. The characters in the group lack the romantic flair, familiarity or likability of other films like Bonnie and Clyde, but are interesting non-the-less. The cast also includes Louise Fletcher as Mattie. Despite it's roaring car chase scenes and shoot-em-up action, the movie fails to deliver the adventure quality of the novel. ****

Another under-valued R. Altman flick (compared to Bonnie and Clyde), but more similar to Gun Crazy crossed with They Live By Night, has yet to achieve ANY kind of respect, critically or "financially". In the 1970's Altman was cranking out quirky, Americana, hopeful, black comedies and satires, that this one slipped under the radar, just like California Split did. Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall found themselves working with this old Cat and were never the same without him (any they knew it), but they got wonderful careers out of it, so pity the poor beggar as Dylan would say. Add in spunky, disturbing performances from John Schuck and Bert Remsen as ghoulish career small-time criminals, Louise Fletcher (just before Cuckoo's Nest), great cinematography as usual, and a simple story that scares some folks because it involves sacrifices, naivety, and hopelessness (almost). A lot of people drank Cokes in those days like Shelley Duvall's character does (incessantly)...so what? What should she be drinking - Root Beer? An under-rated gem that will never be looked at for what it might be - a tale of survival with minimal options down the long highway of hope. An 8 out of 10.

Down South during the Depression, two wily crooks and a young man convicted on murder charges break out of prison and hole up at a rural truck stop. Robert Altman directed and co-adapted this second film version of Edward Anderson's book (previously made in 1948 as "They Live By Night"), and he's obviously in love with the damp, grubby milieu and characters. He gets some wonderful work from then-newcomers Keith Carradine and blithe, earthy Shelley Duvall, yet fails to drum up interest in the narrative. The trio take part in bank robberies but never raise much hell, while the interrelationships between the criminals and their familiars are so matter-of-fact that nothing comes along to surprise us. The screenplay (also worked on by Altman's associate Joan Tewkesbury and, for a brief time, Calder Willingham) is talk-heavy with lackadaisical dialogue; all the gabbing may indeed have the ring of natural conversation, but it mutes the film's pacing. The frequent radio broadcasts, vintage costumes and cars are fun ingredients initially, but with such a drab presentation (and hardly any light relief) one is apt to become restless with the lack of drive. Altman probably didn't want bold, vivid colors from cinematographer Jean Boffety, but what he did get--muddy-wet roads and paint-chipped old houses--is far too gloomy. The filmmaker takes his precious time presenting each scene, enjoying himself no doubt, but interest in these seedy lives is extremely limited. *1/2 from ****

I am not an Altman fan, but this film is superb. For those who say he ripped off Bonnie and Clyde, check out They Live By Night and see almost the same story, but here the relationship between Carradine and Duvall forces us to root for them and hope that somehow they can change their life. Was there ever a bath more haunting than Duvall's? The robberies are shot so matter of fact. There's no pounding score in the background, no elaborate plans are set and we don't see men looking at their watches, timing things. The radio plays, people swizzle Cokes and dogs bark, while the three men pull almost casually stroll in and rob the bank. I am struck by the similarity between the last scene here and in From Here to Eternity: the lover of the dead man traveling to another place, while painting an idealized picture of their beau. Watch it and pay attention; it's a fine work of art.

"They Live by Night," the 1948 screen adaptation of the Edward Anderson novel "Thieves Like Us," and other films that have obviously been inspired by it, like "Gun Crazy" (1949) and "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967), have all been so good that it makes you wonder if yet another version of the same story is necessary. The answer is yes, because Robert Altman is behind this version, and if Altman proved nothing else as a director, he proved that he could take any material and make it his own. Altman's "Thieves Like Us" is a beautiful and heartbreaking version of the lovers-on-the-lam story, with Keith Carradine cast as Bowie, the soft spoken, sensitive member of a trio of escaped convicts and bank robbers (the other two, Chickamaw and T-Dub, played by Altman regulars John Schuck and Bert Remsen, respectively). During a lull in their series of robberies, Bowie sets up house with Keechie (Shelley Duvall), a shy, simple country girl, and they take a stab at a sort of domestic bliss despite the fact that Bowie is doomed and it's only a matter of time before the law catches up to him. Meanwhile, T-Dub's sister-in-law, Mattie (Louise Fletcher), who has helped the fugitives because of family obligations, begins to tire of the example the trio are setting for her own children, and becomes an accomplice to the police trying to track down the criminals. Previous screen versions of this story cast gorgeous actors as the lovers and made us fall in love with them. In 1948 it was Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell; in 1967 it was Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. We fall in love with Carradine and Duvall too, but for different reasons. They are decidedly NOT gorgeous actors -- they're both skinny, ungainly and awkward. But they're both incredibly simple and sweet, and they have some lovely and naturalistic moments together that make us wish these two could just settle down, have a family and achieve their own small share of happiness. Altman constantly reminds us of the happiness these two are denied through use of an endless parade of print and radio advertisements that serves as a running commentary throughout the film. During a horrible depression during which so many people could afford nothing, Altman seems to be accusing the American consumerist culture of incessantly reminding everyone of what they didn't have. The way to happiness, Altman implies, seemed to lie in material comforts; no wonder the trio of men in this film prefer robbing banks to the alternatives available to them. And there's another theme winding its way through Altman's version, one which appeared again and again in his work, that of frustrated male inadequacy. The men in this film turn to the most destructive behavior (thieving, drinking, sexual aggression) in order to cope with a world they feel they've lost control of, and this behavior is continuously juxtaposed to the feminine, domestic sphere represented by Mattie, eternally capable and resourceful, and resentful of the disruption the men bring along with them. "Thieves Like Us" does not have that beautiful, ethereal sheen to it that characterized Altman's other early-1970s films, mostly because he did not use expert cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond on this outing. But thanks to the winsome performances of Carradine and Duvall, and the touching representation of their characters' tentative relationship, this is one of his warmest and emotionally resonant films from that time period. Grade: A

Back to the 30's, folks. I was there, I know. It wasn't that you saw Coke everywhere, it was the only soft drink you saw. There were no machines with a choice. There was a big red Coke cooler sitting at the service station, another outside the grocery. Some of them were serviced by the local ice company, that is; no motor, just ice. A lot of times they had a padlock on them, in other places you just lifted the lid, helped yourself and left your nickel. Later they graduated to some with slots where you could put your nickel. No point in showing people in this movie drinking anything else, except maybe iced tea. No one else had the coolers, and so all you saw was Coke. Add to that the amount of fountain coke we drank. And it took Robert Altman to make us all think about it.

two men break out of prison