They Live By Night

1948, US, directed by Nicholas Ray

The big screen was a nice way to fill this gap in my cinematic knowledge, with the large-scale image especially notable in the opening sequences with its terrific helicopter shots. The doomed lover plot is a delicate structure around which to build a film, requiring a genuine delicacy of touch to avoid slipping too deeply into melodrama, and obviously Ray pulls the trick off -- while some of the local colour scenes are just terrific, especially the offbeat wedding scene...