If Nicholas Ray makes a film about innocent people, then they have to be innocence personified - the only things they know must be the harsh realities of the world, so they can discover tenderness. So its equal parts a film tragic and beautiful - it's impossible for me not to be moved watching the paradise Bowie and Keechie find while hiding from the world, watching them gaze into each others eyes as though seeing things they never knew existed. Everything else reflects back on Ray's early days with Theatre of Action - it's a capitalist world, where a character even refers to Bowie himself as an investment - tenderness isn't even an exception, it cannot exist in this world. "They're thieves - just like us." Hawkins, the wedding 'peddler' states: "I won't sell you hope, when their ain't any." "No place for her and me?" "I don't know of any." Tenderness in a capitalist world is existential - I usually don't like to call a first movie by a director their best, but this remains my favorite film by Nicholas Ray.
