Thieves Like Us

There is not a single composed note in this film. Altman took all the music from the radio: New Deal speeches, 1930s programmes, advertisements. Gang Busters plays behind a bank robbery; a production of Romeo and Juliet is on the air while Keechie and Bowie have sex. Most of these do not comment on the action, they simply fill the room and build the period out of sound. The source is Edward Anderson's 1937 Depression novel, adapted by Altman, Joan Tewkesbury and Calder Willingham. Most of it was shot on location in Mississippi. Three escaped convicts go on robbing banks, and the relationship the youngest forms with a girl slows everything down. Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall play a couple who deliberately break the romantic template of the fugitive film. Who it is for: viewers who like crime stripped of heroism, with gangsters shown as clumsy and ordinary. Who it is not for: anyone expecting action. The robberies mostly happen off camera, and the film spends its real time on waiting and small talk.