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DVD You Only Live Once
Depression-era Hollywood produced a slew of movies about sympathetic criminals victimized by an unfeeling society. No other has the power of Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once, the director's second American film and a masterpiece of fatalism. Henry Fonda is the convict released to a new life (encouraged to go straight, he growls, "I will if they let me"--not a hopeful note); Sylvia Sidney is his new bride, convinced of his essential goodness. Their homely dreams are crushed by a hostile world, which Lang's scrupulously controlled direction turns into a series of dead ends. In particular, the last half of the picture--a prison break and cross-country ramble inspired by Bonnie and Clyde--is an exceptionally intense downward spiral, swift with predestined momentum. While Fonda and Sidney are unforgettable in their echt-Thirties forms, Lang is the star, proving the director of M and Metropolis had lost none of his edge. --Robert Horton
Fritz Lang's best films were already behind him when he arrived in Hollywood. He would not surpass the films he made in Germany, but his American films are almost always worth seeing and sometimes approach greatness. You Only Live Once is one such film. The story concerns sympathetic criminal Eddie (Henry Fonda) trying to go straight and the woman who has stayed by him, legal secretary Joan (Sylvia Sidney). Lang makes the audience root for Eddie, who is not a typical snarling thirties gangster, but a basically decent man who through bad luck and bad choices has found himself in a desperate situation. Fonda is perfect for this role, and gives a fine performance. Sidney is equally good as a woman fighting against friends, family and circumstances to stay with the man she loves. It is her performance which makes the film a terrific romance as well as a fine thriller.
The print on the Image DVD is fairly good. It shows quite a lot of wear and tear, but seems complete. There may be many scratches, but the black and white photography still looks stunning with good detail and clarity. The soundtrack unfortunately has a great deal of hiss and crackle. Occasionally this makes the dialogue quite hard to hear. Nevertheless the film is still perfectly watchable and the flaws present in the print and soundtrack did not spoil my enjoyment of what remains an excellent film. The DVD has no extras.
this may be fritz lang's best film
There may not be a more ironic scene in film than henry fonda's confrontation with the priest at prison's gate...or a more pungent line than his 'they made me a murderer'.....or a more fatalistic ending than you have here...the point is that the best ingredients of film noir are present in a film made 10 years before film noir's peak...that's how far ahead fritz lang's vision was...sure he went on to make 'the big heat' and scarlet street' among others...but 'you only live once' is his starkest glimpse at man's small place in a vast, oppressive society where good intentions are powerless.
The most famous and sublime treatment of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, John Ford's My Darling Clementine is by any measure one of the most classically perfect Westerns ever made. Henry Fonda plays a hard, serious Wyatt Earp leading a cattle drive west with his brothers when a stopover in the wild town of Tombstone ends in the murder of his youngest brother. Wyatt takes up the badge he had turned down earlier and tames the wide-open town with his brothers (Ward Bond and Tim Holt), all the while waiting for the wild Clantons (led by Walter Brennan's ruthless Old Man Clanton) to make a mistake. Victor Mature delivers perhaps his finest performance as the tubercular gambler Doc Holliday, an alcoholic Eastern doctor escaping civilization in the Wild West. Ford takes great liberties... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Henry Fonda - Linda Darnell Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 06 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Samuel Fuller's "Pickup on South Street" is easily one of his better films and as cynical and tough as crime dramas got in the 50's. Richard Widmark is excellent as a cocky pickpocket who swipes the wallet of sexy Jean Peters that contains microfilm of government secrets to be delivered to a Communist agency. Peters is unaware of the Communist angle and is only doing a "job" for her slimy ex-boyfriend Richard Kiley (who's also excellent). Getting mixed up in the mess to get back the microfilm is street peddler/police informant Thelma Ritter who sells information to whoever wants to buy it. The film is gritty and unsentimental and none of the characters are saints. New York City is depicted as a tough place to survive especially on the dirty waterfront where Skip McCoy (Widmark) lives and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Widmark - Jean Peters Director(s): Samuel Fuller DVD Release Date: Released the 17 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Even under the heavy censorship of 1946 Hollywood, Lana Turner and John Garfield's libidinous desires burn up the screen in Tay Garnett's adaptation of James M. Cain's torrid crime melodrama. Platinum blond Turner is Cora, a restless sexpot stuck in a roadside diner married to mundane middle-aged fry cook Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway) when handsome drifter Frank (Garfield) blows her way. It's lust at first sight, a rapacious desire that neither can break off, and before long they're plotting his demise--but in the wicked world of Cain nothing is that easy. Garnett's visual approach is subdued compared to the more expressionistic film noir of the period, but he's at no loss when he films the luminous Turner in her milky-white wardrobe. She radiates repressed sexuality and uncontrollable... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lana Turner - John Garfield Director(s): Tay Garnett DVD Release Date: Released the 06 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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In a way, Scarlet Street is a remake. It's taken from a French novel, La Chienne (literally, "The Bitch") that was first filmed by Jean Renoir in 1931. Renoir brought to the sordid tale all the color and vitality of Montmartre; Fritz Lang's version shows us a far harsher and bleaker world. The film replays the triangle set-up from Lang's previous picture, The Woman in the Window, with the same three actors. Once again, Edward G. Robinson plays a respectable middle-aged citizen snared by the charms of Joan Bennett's streetwalker, with Dan Duryea as her low-life pimp. But this time around, all three characters have moved several notches down the ethical scale. Robinson, who in the earlier film played a college professor who kills by accident, here becomes a downtrodden... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Edward G. Robinson - Joan Bennett Director(s): Fritz Lang DVD Release Date: Released the 19 February 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Yes, it's true: you can virtually see Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall falling for each other in this Howard Hawks variation on Casablanca but adapted from--as legend has it--Ernest Hemingway's self-declared "worst novel." (The story goes that Hawks told Hemingway he could make a movie of the author's least work, and Hemingway gave him the rights to this story.) The script by William Faulkner and Jules Furthman actually makes this one of Hawks's and Bogart's most interesting and often exciting films. Bogart plays a boat captain who reluctantly agrees to help the French Resistance while wooing chanteuse Bacall. Hoagy Carmichael, wry at the piano, adds a delicious accent to an already wonderful mood. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Humphrey Bogart - Lauren Bacall Director(s): Howard Hawks DVD Release Date: Released the 04 November 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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