Nicholas Ray's widow, Susan Ray, will be present at the screening!

After his years in New York left-wing theater and on the road with Alan Lomax, Nick Ray went to Hollywood to work with his friend Elia Kazan. John Houseman brought Ray to RKO, then owned by Howard Hughes, and in 1948 the young director made one of the most striking debuts in American cinema. Adapted from Edward Anderson’s 1935 novel Thieves Like Us (which would be revisited in 1974 by Robert Altman), They Live By Night is at once innovative (the film opens with the first genuinely expressive helicopter shot), visually electrifying, behaviorally nuanced, and, in the scenes between the young Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell, soulfully romantic. This film was restored by Warner Bros., in association with The Film Foundation and The Nicholas Ray Foundation.