Thieves Like Us is a 1974 film directed by Robert Altman and starring Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall. The film was based on the novel Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson, which was also the source material for the 1948 film They Live by Night, directed by Nicholas Ray. The supporting cast includes Louise Fletcher and Tom Skerritt.
Thieves Like Us | |
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Directed by | Robert Altman |
Produced by | Robert Altman |
Written by | Edward Anderson (novel) Joan Tewkesbury Calder Willingham Robert Altman |
Starring | Keith Carradine Shelley Duvall John Schuck Bert Remsen Louise Fletcher Tom Skerritt |
Cinematography | Jean Boffety |
Edited by | Lou Lombardo |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
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Running time | 123 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The film was entered into the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.
Screenplay
Bowie, a youthful convicted murderer, and bank robbers Chicamaw and T-Dub escape from a Mississippi chain gang in 1936. They hide out with some colorful associates and continue robbing banks. Later, they hole up with T-Dub's sister-in-law Mattie and her children -- including her older daughter Lula, the object of T-Dub's lascivious attention.
Bowie is injured in an auto accident and takes refuge with the daughter of the gas station attendant, Keechie. They become romantically involved but their relationship is strained by Bowie's refusal to turn his back on crime. Chicamaw is eventually recaptured and T-Dub is killed while waiting in his car for his wife. Bowie poses as a sheriff's deputy to spring Chickamaw from jail but he quickly becomes disgusted with the violent, raving Chicamaw and abandons him on the side of the road. The Texas Rangers catch up with Bowie, who is betrayed by Mattie and meets a violent end. Keechie carries on, pregnant with Bowie's baby. (In Anderson's novel, she too is killed by the Texas Rangers.)
- Keith Carradine as Bowie
- Shelley Duvall as Keechie
- John Schuck as Chicamaw
- Bert Remsen as T-Dub
- Louise Fletcher as Mattie
- Tom Skerritt as Dee Mobley
This film has no traditional score. All music in the film is diegetic music or "source music," usually presented as coming from a radio.
The film features a large number of small-town people as extras. Thieves Like Us was largely filmed on location in Mississippi.
- 2002: AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – Nominated
- 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10:
- Nominated Gangster Film
- List of American films of 1974