Although I don't consider THIEVES LIKE US to be a great movie, it is one of the few that I enjoy revisiting time after time. I think it succeeds on the strengths of its parts rather than on the impact of the piece as a whole. Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall have always been intriguing to me in whatever they do, and this little scene exemplifies that.

Writer/director Robert Altman is more interested in character and setting than in story, and thus his plots are not always satisfying in a traditional sense. Critic Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, wrote: "Altman's comment on the people and time is carried out through the way he observes them; if you try to understand his intention by analyzing the story, you won't get far. Audiences have always been so plot-oriented that it's possible they'll just go ahead and think this is a bad movie, without pausing to reflect on its scene after scene of poignant observation. Altman may not tell a story better than any one, but he sees one with great clarity and tenderness."

The film was based on the novel by Edward Anderson, which was also the source material for the 1949 film THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, directed by Nicholas Ray.