They Live by Night

[Sandwiches and sodas. Click any image for a larger view.]


[On the road, again.]

They Live by Night (dir. Nicholas Ray, 1948) seems ahead of its time. The film’s brief prologue tells us that the young couple at the center of the story, Bowie Bowers (Farley Granger) and Keechie Mobley (Cathy O’Donnell), “were never properly introduced to the world we live in.” They are in flight: he, as an escaped convict; she, as a daughter, niece, gas-station attendant, and maid of all work who runs from her family of thieves. The premise might suggest High Sierra (dir. Raoul Walsh, 1949), but Bowie is no criminal: he was wrongly convicted after falling in with bad company. As Keechie tells it, “He’s just a kid.” It seems that neither she nor he has ever danced or kissed. They are absolute beginners. All they know is their mutual devotion.

They Live by Night has been repackaged for DVD as film noir, but I’m not sure the description fits: there are too many moments of comedy (Ian Wolfe as the proprietor of an all-night marriage chapel, Byron Foulger as a manager of rental cabins), too many scenes of domestic happiness. But happiness for Bowie and Keechie is always fleeting: just as a cop in the film predicts, every knock on the door sets their hearts pounding. Thus they are again and again on the move, by day, by night, one or the other driving. And then there are Howard Da Silva and Jay C. Flippen as Chickamaw and T-Dub Mobley, Keechie’s brutal uncles, determined to make Bowie the third man in their criminal schemes. (It takes, T-Dub explains, three men to knock over a bank, “the three mosquitoes.”) Perhaps it’s noir after all. But I prefer to think of the film as the prelude to Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955): the real story here is one of young lovers attempting to flee the world. Leigh Harline’s score — made largely of variations on “I Know Where I’m Going” — underscores the pathos of their journey.

For me the great revelation of this film is Cathy O’Donnell. She has always seemed to me the one false note in The Best Years of Our Lives (dir. William Wyler, 1946): as girl-next-door Wilma Cameron, she speaks with a stagey voice that seems wildly out of place — courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn, who arranged for diction lessons to remove O’Donnell’s southern accent. Here O’Donnell is a far more natural actor, and the difference is extraordinary. No wonder Granger recommended her for the film. The two have a genuine, sweetly erotic chemistry on screen. Granger and O’Donnell co-starred again in Side Street (dir. Anthony Mann, 1949), but there O’Donnell has relatively little to do. My guess is that They Live by Night is her shining moment in film.

They Live by Night is adapted from Edward Anderson’s novel Thieves Like Us (1937). A copy sits somewhere in our house, in the stacks of books waiting for shelves not yet built.


[In a bus depot. Keechie skips the nickel candy bars and chooses the cheapest option, “Delicious Fresh Nuts,” 1¢. I like vending machines with mirrors, artifacts of the dowdy world. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.]

A related post
Will Lee (Mr. Hooper) in They Live by Night

Cartoon plagiarism

The cartoonist Jeff Parker, a recent victim of plagiarism by one “William Charles”: “How bad are you at editing that you couldn’t notice your ‘cartoonist’ has been wildly swinging from one style to another, like Tarzan on Red Bull?” “Cartoon plagiarism and the case of the unknown Maryland cartoonist” (The Washington Post ).

The strangely mild attitude of Montgomery Sentinel editor Brian Karem toward his pseudonymous serial plagiarist (“that’s two strikes against him”) is appalling. I’d say that the plagiarist has already struck out — and that he should be thrown off the team.

Recently updated

Name that actor Mystery solved.

A joke in the traditional manner

Did you hear about the cow coloratura?

No spoilers. The punchline is in the comments.

More jokes in the traditional manner
The Autobahn : Elementary school : A Golden Retriever : How did Bela Lugosi know what to expect? : How did Samuel Clemens do all his long-distance traveling? : What did the plumber do when embarrassed? : What happens when a senior citizen visits a podiatrist? : Which member of the orchestra was best at handling money? : Why did the doctor spend his time helping injured squirrels? : Why did Oliver Hardy attempt a solo career in movies? : Why did the ophthalmologist and his wife split up? : Why was Santa Claus wandering the East Side of Manhattan?

[“In the traditional manner”: by or à la my dad. He must take credit for all but the squirrel-doctor, Santa Claus, and this one, which won his approval this past Saturday.]

Name the actor

He’s playing a bit part here. He went on to play a character known to millions. Can you name him?

First prize: an all-expenses-paid round-trip ticket to 1947, the year this scene was filmed.

Take your best shot in the comments. I‘ll drop hints if needed.

*

11:46 a.m.: This post has had a fair number of visits but only one guess. Here’s a hint: notice that the character is working in a store.

1:12 p.m.: Another hint: he went on to play a character known to millions, both young and old, but especially young.

*

The Crow called it: it’s Will Lee (1908–1982), Sesame Street ’s Mr. Hooper. For comparison purposes:

 

The 1947 Lee is from They Live by Night (dir. Nicholas Ray, 1949). No date for the other photograph.

And for the record, I would never have figured it out without clues.

A related post
Review: They Live by Night

How to improve writing (no. 59)

From the national news, about a crane-and-building accident in Manhattan: “Luckily, the situation could have been far worse.” What’s lucky though is not that things could have been worse; it’s that things were not worse.

Better: The situation could have been far worse. But fortunately , &c.

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[This post is no. 59 in a series, “How to improve writing,” dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

From Newark to Boston

[A few weeks ago.]

We were sitting in Newark’s Penn Station, waiting for the Bolt bus that would take our son Ben back to Boston. It was quite a scene. An elderly black woman had just cussed out an interracial couple for being an interracial couple. The couple gave back as good as they got, drove the woman off, and began laughing about the encounter. And then I noticed a young white guy pacing. He wore track pants and a sleeveless T-shirt, and he kept doffing and donning his baseball cap, which he wore backwards. He had a muscular upper body and a shaved head and looked tightly wound, as if waiting for a bell to ring and a boxing match to begin. He had been standing outside near the Bolt bus that had been idling when we arrived, which of course had not been the bus to Boston. Now, inside the waiting area, he walked our way: “Are you waiting for the bus to Boston? Because I think that’s it.” He had spotted another Bolt pulling up outside. He too was going to Boston. We headed out, but it was the wrong bus, again.

Now he and I stood by the curb watching for further activity, and we spotted a third bus, waiting to turn the corner and head our way. He saw it first. Greyhound? We saw greyish-blue. But then as the bus began to move toward the intersection: orange. A Bolt bus. “They should hire you to keep everyone on top of things here,” I said. “No thanks — I spent enough time around here homeless,” he replied, entirely matter-of-factly. He explained that he had moved up to Boston, that it had been a good decision, and that he had come back to New Jersey to visit family. ”I hope there are better days ahead for you,” I said. “Thanks,” he said, and nodded.

This third Bolt was the bus to Boston. We said goodbye to Ben, watched as he queued up, and walked back to our car.

Amieux-Freres sardines

[Advertisement by Georges Fay, 1896–1900. From the New York Public Library Digital Collections. Click for a larger view.]

An approximate translation: “Amieux Brothers / Sardines and other canned goods / 11 factories employing 3500 workers producing 12 million cans a year / Required on every can: Our motto is like our name: Always the best.” I like the pun on Amieux and à mieux.

I may forget litotes , but I never forget sardines. Amieux Freres continues to this day. Not a bad run.

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[Translation corrections and improvements are welcome.]

A useful made-up word

Coined by Kathyrn Schulz, the word is lapsonym : “a word whose meaning you forget no matter how many times you look it up.” I’d like to think of lapsonym as also applying to a word you forget no matter how many times you look it up. My favorite lapsonym is litotes . Again and again, I have to stop and wonder: what’s the name for the figure of speech that, &c. Or I confuse litotes with apophasis. But probably not after writing this post.

Reader, what’s your favorite (or least favorite) lapsonym?

[I know, all words are made up.]

Eames radios

“These little-known artifacts, which date from the mid- to late-1940s, are among the Eameses’ earliest experiments with their plywood-molding process”: “Design’s Best-Kept Secret: Eames Radios” (The Wall Street Journal).

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