Thieves Like Us - DaaVeeDee

Thieves Like Us (DVD) (*)

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Language Selections:
Dutch ( Subtitles )
English ( Mono )
English ( Subtitles )
Finnish ( Subtitles )
French ( Mono )
French ( Subtitles )
German ( Mono )
German ( Subtitles )
Italian ( Mono )
Italian ( Subtitles )
Spanish ( Mono )
Spanish ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
Germany ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
117 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.85:1)

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 1974 and produced in:
United States ( USA, Canada )

Directed By:
Robert Altman

Written By:
Robert Altman
Edward Anderson

Actors:
Keith Carradine ..... Bowie
Shelley Duvall ..... Keechie Mobley
John Schuck ..... Elmo (Chicamaw) Mobley
Bert Remsen ..... T-Dub Masefield
Louise Fletcher ..... Mattie
Ann Latham ..... Lula
Tom Skerritt ..... Dee Mobley
Al Scott ..... Captain Stammers
John Roper ..... Jasbo
Mary Waits ..... Noel Joy
Rodney Lee ..... James Mattingly (as Rodney Lee Jr.)
Arch Hall Sr. ..... Alvin (as William Watters)
Joan Tewkesbury ..... Lady In Train Station (as Joan Maguire)
Eleanor Matthews ..... Mrs. Stammers
Pam Warner ..... Woman in Accident

Synopsis:

Two convicts break out of Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1936 to join a third on a long spree of bank robbing, their special talent and claim to fame. The youngest of the three falls in love along the way with a girl met at their hideout, the older man is a happy professional criminal with a romance of his own, the third is a fast lover and hard drinker fond of his work. The young lovers begin to move out of the sphere in which they have met, a last robbery in Yazoo City goes badly and puts paid to the gang once and for all as a profitable venture, but isn't the end of the story quite yet, as all three are wanted and notorious men with altogether different points of view on the situation they are faced with.

Released in the same 12-month span as Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973) and Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express (1974), Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us (1974) also tells a story of doomed outlaws in love. Depression-era criminals T-Dub (Bert Remsen), Chicamaw (John Schuck), and Bowie (Keith Carradine) band together to rob banks after escaping from a prison farm. Hiding out with Dee Mobley (Tom Skerritt) and Keechie (Shelley Duvall), and then with T-Dub's in-law Mattie (Louise Fletcher) between bank jobs, the three crooks are a loyal group, but increasingly sensational news accounts of their bloodless robberies force them to split up before their next crime. After a car accident, Chicamaw leaves the injured Bowie in Keechie's care. Love blossoms between the two naïfs, compelling Bowie to find a way to balance his bond to Keechie with his loyalty to his friends and the need for money to head for Mexico. With the law closing in, Bowie and Keechie learn the hard way about the finite honor among thieves, and the need to survive. Adapted from the same Edward Anderson novel as Nicholas Ray's They Live By Night (1949), Altman, writers Calder Willingham and Joan Tewkesbury, and Altman's acting 'regulars' reworked not just the classical crime movie but also the 1967 hit Bonnie and Clyde, presenting a resolutely unglamorous portrait of this Coke-swilling outlaw couple and the survivors' stoic drive to carry on. With the radio providing soundtrack and commentary, and the newspapers sending a veiled warning, Bowie and Keechie cannot escape the outside world, but they also cannot transcend it into the realm of myth. Rather than turning the crimes into stylish exploits, Altman's camera remains outside most of the robberies, observing the banal action on the street; he saves the slow-motion in the climactic shoot-out for the witnesses rather than the dead. His zoom shots hover between fragments of emotion and place, while they maintain their observational distance. Unfortunately for Altman (and Malick and Spielberg), audiences preferred outlaw glamour to genre-bending introspection. Still, with its deceptively laid-back tone, eye for expressive detail, and ear for ironic juxtaposition, Thieves Like Us takes its place in Altman's exceptional body of early 1970s work.

Robbing 36 banks was easy. Watch what happens when they hit the 37th.

This product was added to our catalog on Thursday 09 February, 2006.

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