Capturing “Thieves Like Us”

In the wake of the critical and popular success of 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde, Hollywood was suddenly hungry for other films that featured young lovers on the lam. I will not soon forget 1973’s Badlands, a fictionalized version of the real-life murder spree of two very young sweethearts. (That film marked the directorial debut of Terrence Malick, and introduced many moviegoers to Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen.) In the following year, Robert Altman—best known at the time for M*A*S*H and The Long Goodbye—tried his hand at a period crime drama, Thieves Like Us. I sought it out as part of my personal farewell to the late Shelley Duvall, and found it both imaginatively conceived and surprisingly moving.

 Thieves Like Us is based on a 1937 novel that had previously been adapted into a noir classic, They Live By Night, which marked the directorial debut of Nicholas Ray. While that 1948 film bowed slightly to the moral requirements of its era, having its lovers marry and showing the male protagonist struggling with his conscience, Altman’s work is more matter-of-fact about the impulses that drive Bowie (well played by Keith Carradine) into an ongoing life of crime. Apparently, a tragic boyhood landed him in prison at a very young age. Now he’s busted out, along with the erratic Chickamaw (Altman favorite John Schuck), and they’ve teamed up with would-be-comedian T-Dub (Bert Remsen) to rob a series of local banks. This all takes place in rural Depression-era Mississippi, and Bowie’s partners-in-crime seem to have a steady stream of local friends and relatives who’ll put them up (or put up with them) if need be.

 Bowie seems happy enough to go along with the schemes of his more experienced pals. But an auto accident puts him out of commission, and he finds himself being tended by Keechie, a shy young woman (Shelley Duval) who could badly use a little affection in her life. Needless to say, they quickly become lovers, and their destinies are forever changed. She wants a future based on happy domesticity; he’s not about to give up the only source of income he knows. And he’s a bit proud, to be honest, that his gang’s exploits are now making the local papers, complete with big photos and $100 bounties in store for those who bring then in, dead or alive.  You can guess where all this leads.

 Part of the film’s charm is Altman’s canny use of audio design. In place of a musical score, he relies on radio broadcasts of the era to set the ongoing mood. Everyone’s life seems to revolve around the radio, whether they’re at home or in their cars. In the course of the film, we hear snatches of crime dramas (Gangbusters! The Shadow!) as well as FDR’s Fireside Chats and Father Coughlin sermons. At one point there’s a snatch of something called The Royal Gelatin Hour. And the film’s big sex scene erupts while Keechie and the bed-ridden Bowie are listening to a solemn Theater of the Air presentation of snippets from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This of course sets us up for the film’s inevitable tragic ending.

 The other detail that helps communicate time and place is the fact that green glass bottles of Coca-Cola are present in almost every scene. But I’ll leave the final message to Chickamaw, who—when all is said and done—wishes he’d paid attention in school and become a doctor, a lawyer, or a banker. If so, “I coulda robbed people with my brain instead of a gun.”