You Only Live Once (1937)

Nice effects though.

Just perfect...

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

People writing most of the reviews must have seen a different movie than I did. This thing is God awful... I had a lot of fun laughing during the first 15 minutes in scenes that are meant to show the callous cruelty of the workaday world....the boss who fired Fonda...the Hotel managers wife etc...(I recognized her from Laurel and Hardy movies). In fact this movie would have made an excellent black comedy.But then the plot gets loose and fragments with holes you can drive through...or rather get a gun through. The metal detector gave away Sidney on the way into the cell with gun but is silent when Sidney walks back out still with the gun. The "metal detector" looks like a one of those automatic door openers using photo cells from the 50s.... and on and on this thing goes loose and boring... Lang has a couple Citizen Kane moments with good scary shadow work but this is the exception rather than the rule in this decidedly low budget looking film.The writing is terrible... the story unbelievable in the extreme...and then gets drawn out and boring and corny towards the end. Lang can pull off great movies if they let him....that was probably the problem here the studio wanted a heart throbber with violins playing and Lang liked the noir scenes with gas masks and murdered (thank heavens!) priests... I think that is probably over analysis giving a low rent story too much credit..this movie simply flops.Sylvia Sydney looks 10 years older than Fonda...but I looked it up to see = she was 27 when this was made and Fonda 32. She is a rather unattractive woman...I liked her hard sister better and best of all the Motel Manager's wife from Laurel and Hardy movies.Do not recommend unless you can treat the whole thing as a black comedy.

You Only Live Once is directed by Fritz Lang and written by C. Graham Baker and Gene Towne. It stars Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane, Jean Dixon and William Gargan. Music is by Alfred Newman and cinematography by Leon Shamroy. He has been pounding on the door of that execution chamber since the day he was born. One of Fritz Lang's first American productions is a cracker-jack proto- noir, a leading light (darkly shaded of course) in the sub-genre of fugitive lovers on the lam pictures. Story leans on the legend of Bonnie and Clyde and finds Fonda as three times jailbird Eddie Taylor. After strings are pulled and promises made, Eddie gets released into the arms of his adoring gal, Jo Graham (Sidney). Determined to go straight and settle down with Jo, Eddie finds a society not ready to forgive and forget, worst still, he's old comrades in criminal arms have cooked something up and it's not going to be good news for Eddie. Cue the Romeo & Juliet factor as two lovers love each other so much they will stop at nothing to be together and to try and make the other one happy. Lang brings his expressionistic bent to the tragi noir tale, drifting fogs, mists and spider web shadows across key scenes. Canted angles feature, reflections in a psychological eye also play their part, while the protection of animals theme – and the continuing frog motif - further strengthens the otherworldly – cum - nightmarish aura that so often permeated Lang's movies. The action scenes are deftly marshalled by the director, with a smoke grenade led robbery and a prison escape particularly worthy of luring you to the end of your seat. Lang also gets fine performances from his lead actors, Sidney is not done too many favours by the screenplay, where she is saddled with one of those compliant love interest roles, but she brings a quality to her scenes with Fonda that earns respect. Fonda is great in what is a two- fold role, shifting skilfully between a tender lover to an embittered man, he's a triumphant fulcrum for all the various strands that Lang is weaving together. It has been argued that it's a film that's too morally grey, but as film noir lovers will tell you, this is no bad thing, especially when Lang marries up his superb visuals with alienation, fatalism and pessimism. Historically important to film noir and Lang fans, You Only Live Once is an ambiguous gem. 9/10

This film is a bit heavy handed with social criticism; it seems as if the central message goes from being a warning to young people to stay away from the life of crime, to a critique of how harsh the system and many people in society can be to convicts who got some "bad breaks." It is a bit over the top when Eddie explains to his new wife how he got sent to reform school for beating up a kid who was torturing frogs. He gets punished for doing the good deed of fighting for the defenseless creatures, something that would get the sympathy of any audience, and establishes him as a "good guy." The authorities and straight society (including his sister-in-law) are all portrayed as a grim, loveless sort, but not quite as villains. The message here seems to be a critique of the conservative approach to dealing with criminals. The highest critique of the police is when the police put him in the gun-sight of a high powered rifle to shoot him in the back as he is trying to carry his dying wife to freedom across the boarder. Society is also critiqued as gas station attendants who are robbed of only gasoline then decide to rob the till and report the loss cash as being from the robbers (they are so nice they only rob what they need). But the film is balanced enough so that it is not just a critique of the heartless conservative society. It also shows how bad real criminals are in the prison, and the other message is that once you go down that road, you are in a sense "making your own bad luck" in the future ("that's what they all say" when Eddie proclaims his innocence). Once you make those kinds of friends and acquaintances, you are setting yourself up for other problems (like being used as a patsy and getting framed for a crime you didn't commit) and not being able to find employment, other embarrassing situations, like being kicked out of a hotel on your honeymoon, when the proprietor recognizes you from a crime magazine. Even though some of the situations and portrayals are way over the top by today's standards, this film is still worth viewing! I wouldn't say that it is an entirely accurate reflection of exactly "how things used to be," but you can extrapolate a lot about 1930s society by seeing what they were presenting as realistic fiction of that era.

In 1937 they knew how to make good movies, with story, characterization, et cetera. Indeed, 1937 was the start of Hollywood's true Golden Era, circa 1937-1941. In 2007, most movies don't bother much with silly ideas like plots and story. And in 2007 we ain't got no directors like FRITZ LANG.Henry Fonda knew the secret to getting and keeping a pretty girl: Get thrown in the slammer and when you get out take her to a few good bank robberies. She will love you forever. One of the best parts of this crime drama is the absolute lack of liberal political spin about how "society" supposedly mistreats criminals -- the typical spin of 1970 thru 1980. False, stupid and silly, such pictures "justified" crime and contributed to its increase.This picture was produced by Walter Wanger --- one of Hollywood's greatest independent film producers in the 1930's and 1940's. His studio went belly-up following the personal scandal that wrecked the box office of his big budget JOAN OF ARC. His film library was the very first A-list library to be sold to television. The current DVD has his company eradicated from the credits -- suddenly it's Castle Hill Productions --- but they missed his trademark marble eagle, coming on at the very end.Fritz Lang made better pictures, but this one holds up well after 70 years.