They Live By the Night

(Nick Ray, 1949).
Ray’s first feature is one of the most impressive directorial debuts in movies. Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell are lovers on the run in a work its director described as “not an underworld picture…it’s the romance of two kids who have never been properly introduced to the world.” The film with the least troubled production history of Ray’s career, this moving and somber work is a first-rate job of moody storytelling.

Wed., July 29, 1:30, 5:15 & 9 p.m.; Thu., July 30, 1:30 & 5:15 p.m., 2009