Thieves Like Us (1974)

It's about time this DVD was released!

This was the first Robert Altman film I ever saw. The realistic re-creation of the period and the "no-acting" acting sucked me right in, thereby 'hooking' me on Altman (and Altman-ish) films forever.



The remarkable transformation of Shelley Duvall's "Keechy" from greasy-haired, floppy-eared picayune in the background to Leading Lady is one of the elements of the film which make it unforgettable.



Louise Fletcher is flawless as the matron Mattie, cautioning her children to mind their manners even as bad news looms darkly over the dinner table.



The DVD of "Thieves Like Us" came from seemingly nowhere -- Can "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean," "Welcome to L.A." "Remember My Name" and "Health" be far behind?



Bring them on!





June 19, 2007

Another Altman Gem

I would have loved the pitch meeting for this film. I'm sure the studio honchoes had "Bonnie and Clyde" dancing in their heads with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway and a ballet of bullets. Their jaws must have dropped when they got...Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall. All kidding aside this Depression era bankrobber saga is a great mood piece. Director Robert Altman isn't so much concerned with the visceral but with charaterization. Carradine and Duvall are certainly fine as our perfunctory "protagonists" but the real story is the supporting players. John Shuck is great as Carradine's moody hard drinking co-hort. Bert Remsen is even better as a gimpy banrobber who after every bank job adds five more to his running count. Louise Fletcher is understatement personified as a motel owner who shelters the crew. "Thieves Like Us" is definitely a picture worth checking out. Bring on "Brewster McCloud". As a sidebar, the cover photo on the DVD is sure misleading. I can't remember Shelley Duvall wearing anything but a dowdy dress throughout the whole movie. May 12, 2007

Slow-moving 'Thieves' finally captured on DVD

"Thieves" is getting its first U.S. release on DVD. Robert Altman convinced UA to finance the pet project by promising to do its country music project "Nashville" (which the studio later discarded!).

Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall star in the tale of some 1930s band robbers who are just plain folks, unless they're packing heat. The movie's leisurely narrative means a lot of the time we're lying low with the gang (Carradine, John Schuck and Bert Remsen), playing with the kids and watching the dishes get washed. In a great touch, the soundtrack is made up of radio shows from the era, like "The Shadow." "The pace is different than you'd do (today)," Altman says in an equally leisurely DVD commentary recorded in the mid-'90s. "Unless it was a film out of Europe or something."

Altman recruited cinematographer Jean Boffety, in part because the Frenchman actually was excited about photographing backwoods Mississippi. Altman went in for a lot of "screendoor" atmospherics and dewy greens. "It feels like an old movie," the director observed, watching it two decades later. Also, "These people (onscreen lovers Carradine and Duvall) weren't big stars." The story came from the novel by Edward Anderson, which Altman and screenplay collaborator Joan Tewkesbury followed closely. Then, it was off to "Nashville."

The DVD looks just OK. Audio is fine. May 4, 2007

Another Altman Classic

Nice to see this classic finally get a DVD release in the US. Altman was at the top of his game in the early 70s (between MASH and Nashville) and this movie fits in perfectly alongside such classics as McCabe & Mrs Miller, The Long Goodbye and California Split. Great performances from Shelley Duvall and Keith Carradine dominate this gangster film that's much more interested in the two young lovers than in bullets or blood.

A must-see for all Altman fans. For collectors, be forewarned by the short shelf-life of the California Split DVD and grab your copy now. April 17, 2007

One of the reasons Altman's considered a genius.....

This movie, a better rendition, if you ask me, of the whole "Bonnie & Cllyde" type of story, with Shelley Duvall practically owning the movie as Keechie, the quirky love interest of Keith Carradine's Bowie in this film, was made THIRTY-THREE YEARS AGO by the late, legendary Robert Altman. All things seem to come together nicely in this film: the art direction, something which Altman and his protegé Alan Rudolph were noted for on generally small budgets; the acting, by Duvall, Carradine, Remsen, Schuck and Fletcher; the cinematography, which is flawless and denouement, which flows like clear water to its final destination.

Remsen, Carradine and Schuck play bank robbers in this movie, but Altman takes pains not to portray them as monsters, with the possible exception of Schuck's character. Bowie is parlayed by Carradine as a sensitive, good-humored, "aw shucks" type who woos the rail-thin, down-home Keechie all through the movie. Remsen's character, "T-Dub", is portrayed as a bit of a randy old man, but essentially good natured. It is only Schuck's character that gets the standard "criminal [...]" treatment in the film, as a drunken, abusive and violent type. The upshot of this all is, BOWIE is the one who's a convicted murderer, but in the film, he's as gentle as a lamb with Keechie and the children he comes in contact with, all related to "T-Dub" and Louise Fletcher in one way or another.

Duvall's Keechie is her best role to date! Nobody can wield a rocking chair like her! Keechie falls for Bowie, (in fact, Carradine's Bowie is an awful lot like his character in "Trouble in Mind", a thief who wants to keep his family out of it,) and loses it when the inevitable happens at the end.

This was the kind of film Hollywood did beautifully in the 70s...the nostalgia movie that somehow managed to replicate earlier eras like they had somehow rigged up a time machine to transport whole audiences to the period. There isn't one anachronism or historical inaccurancy to speak of, and the radio shows, especially, some so obscure, I'm sure Newton Minnow would have had a hard time placing them, help establish the feel for the era.

A fitting tribute to a filmmaker whose later ouvre was a bit wanting. Joan Tewksbury also helped adapt this novel to the screen. Rent or buy...you can't lose. December 9, 2006

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