You Only Live Once
Directed by Fritz Lang
Written by Gene Towne and C. Graham Baker
1937/USA
Walter Wanger Productions
Repeat viewing
[box] Joan Graham: Anywhere’s our home. On the road. Out there on a cold star. Anywhere’s our home.[/box]
Fritz Lang continues with the man pursued by an uncaring society theme explored in M and Fury. While this does not hit the heights achieved by those films, it is very good and Fonda turns in an outstanding early performance.
Joan Graham (Sylvia Sidney) has waited three years for Eddie Taylor (Henry Fonda) to be released from prison. Eddie is a three-time loser and everyone warns Joan away from him but to no avail. Eddie emerges with a huge chip on his shoulder, convinced that the world has it in for him. This is despite the fact that Joan’s boss the Public Defender (Barton MacLaine) got him a job as a truck driver.
Joan’s love is the one good thing Eddie sees in his life and they marry immediately. But they are thrown out of their honeymoon hotel and Eddie loses his job when he fails to return to his dispatcher on time after a run. No one has sympathy for an ex-con. While Eddie is out looking for work, six people are killed in a violent bank holdup and Eddie’s hat is found at the scene. The rest of the film follows Eddie and Joan’s sad story as he is re-imprisoned and they go on the lam.
I have a couple of nits to pick but basically this is a powerful film. Fonda is just superb as a hardened criminal with a soft spot for his girl. He is so excellent as a tough guy that it is hard to understand where his noble persona came from. The escape through the fog and some of the other shots reflect Lang’s mastery of the expressionist style. Some have referred to this as an early film noir and it definitely has that flavor.
I think this film suffered particularly from the Production Code. I read that Lang was forced to tone down the violence and the ending comes out of left field. It also features a rather ludicrous birth without pregnancy. This stuff is minor, though. Recommended.
You Only Live Once is currently available to watch streaming on Netflix Instant and Amazon Prime Instant in the U.S.
Clip – prison escape – SPOILERS
