YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE
US, 1937, 85 minutes, Black and White.
Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton Mac Lane, William Gargan, Jerome Cowan. Chic Sale, Margaret Hamilton.
Directed by Fritz Lang.
You Only Live Once was Fritz Lang's second American film. He made his name in Germany with such classics as Metropolis, M, and the Doctor Mabusse films. It was said that Goebels wanted him to stay in Nazi Germany as a propaganda film-maker. He moved to the United States in the '30s. His first film was about lynchings, Fury with Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney. This film takes up a Depression story of people oppressed and resorting to bank-robbing to stay alive. It was based on the Bonnie and Clyde story. (It may be compared with Nicholas Ray' s version, They Live By Night, 1949, Arthur Penn's classic version Bonnie and Clyde, 1967 and Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us, 1973.)
Lang was to have a successful career in America, making a number of thrillers and westerns. Henry Fonda is effective in the central role and Sylvia Sidney gives sympathetic support. The settings look studio-bound and contrived - but, on the other hand, the film in its simple approach to its characters and issues seems more realistic, perhaps, than the elaborate Bonnie and Clyde. It is interesting as an outsider's view of the American society to which he had fled from Nazi Germany.
1. An interesting and entertaining drama? A drama of the '30s, creating its period? Themes of the American Depression, justice and injustice? Fritz Lang's transition from German film-making to Hollywood? The contribution of the stars?
2. Black and white photography, studio-bound sets? The atmosphere of prison, homes, the Mid- West, the few cars on the back roads etc? Musical score?
3. The well-known stories of the Depression and the ordinary citizens taking to robbing banks? Folk heroes and legends? Justice and injustice? A feel for the Depression and a sense of the oppression of ordinary citizens?
4. An introduction to the ordinary people of the '30s showing Steve and his work for justice, Joan as his secretary? Her involvement with Eddie and waiting for him? The importance of the man talking to Joan at the beginning of the film about getting justice? The audience alerted to the themes at once? Joan as an ordinary American girl? The irony that she was to live through the outlaw experience and finish up shot dead? The comparison with her sister Bonnie?
5. Henry Fonda's presence as Eddie? Showing him in prison, his friendships, his leaving. the farewells of the prisoners? The friendship with Father Nolan - and the irony of his later killing him? The film presenting Eddie as taking his chances of making his way in the world? Joan waiting for him? The friendship and help of Steve? The possibilities of making a new life and a marriage and family?
6. The lyrical aspects of Eddie and Joan together - the inn, their discussion about the frogs? The credibility of their love for one another -enough to make the audience believe that Joan would help him in prison, go with him, share his outlaw life and love, die with and for him?
7. Eddie and his trying to get work, his being late, his being fired - and audience feeling the oppression and injustice of the boss? Feeling Eddie's punching him? The robbery and the irony of Eddie being identified with it? His trying to tell the truth? His arrest and trial? His record going against him? The injustice of people using records against reformed criminals?
8. The background of the robbery - the style of the '30s? The pursuit? The car and the crash? The recovery of the car and the vindication of Eddie - too late? The visualising of robberies and the comparisons with those of Eddie and Joan later?
9. Eddie's return to prison, his bitterness? Joan and her visits? His wanting a gun? His manoeuvring the situation to get the gun, to get himself into isolation to escape? How credible was his desperate need to escape? His sense of injustice? Punishment and the prospect of his death? The film's oblique comments on the pressure of Punishment?
10. The melodramatics of his getting the gun, the siege? His taking the doctor and holding him hostage? The warden and his dilemma? The irony of the pardon coming through? Its being too late for Eddie to believe this - even to believe Father Nolan? His giving the time limit for his escape? The shooting of Father Nolan? His being wounded?
11. The familiar story of the criminal on the run - but audience sympathy for Eddie and his experience and the irony of his not believing his pardon was genuine? The possibilities of surviving, the car, stealing? The credibility of Joan going with him? The isolation of the roads, the few cars, the back roads and the farms? Joan's pregnancy and the birth of the baby? Their ability to elude the police for so many months? The visit to Steve and Bonnie? Steve and his laying his job on the line? Bonnie and her dislike of Eddie, her concern for Joan? Joan's giving the baby into safekeeping but her decision to go with Eddie? Sharing his experience to the end? Her gesture in getting the cigarettes and the irony of her being recognised? The phone call and the reward? The final chase, the shooting? The pathos of Joan's death? Eddie's death? The voice of Father Nolan - this seeming to be unreal to later decades but Fritz Lang declaring that this what people at the time actually believed and therefore his putting it in seriously? The theme of death as liberation from the oppression of this life?
12. Themes of justice and administration? Criminals and their reputation, the difficulty of rehabilitation, becoming victims? The inevitable bitterness? The film as a piece of Americana - what Eddie represented, what Joan represented? The film gearing all its sympathies to Eddie and Joan, even glorifying them? The impact of this kind of film during the Depression? Its insight for later generations to understand the dilemmas of this time?
