They Live by Night
For the rest of the day Ray used the helicopter for other scenes of the movie. Making "They Live by Night" under Houseman and Schary's guidance remained probably the only time in Ray's career when he had complete creative control and not unlike Orson Welles's debut "Citizen Kane" (1941), also made at RKO for Houseman, Ray experimented with sound and cinematography. Ray's biographer notes that "Only Welles similarly tried to define acoustic and even verbal textures as much as the visual." Renowned film editor Sherman Todd also urged Ray to experiment and break rules. Exteriors were filmed both on location and at RKO's movie ranch in Encino but Todd blended sequences so well together that audiences didn't notice the difference.