tieman64
A bizarre mixture of crime drama, comedy and social message movie, "You and Me" is another of Frtiz Lang's anti-capitalist experiments. He'd cite Brecht as the film's chief influence, but the film's avant-gardism is mostly played for laughs. The plot? Sylvia Sidney and George Raft play a pair of criminals on parole and working at a luxurious department store. The store owner has hired a band of similar cases - all ex convicts and petty thieves - to manage his business, a decision he may or may not regret. Much commotion ensues."You and Me" was destroyed by critics upon release, but today offers a number of interesting moments: the bustle of department stores, the clatter of cash registers, "You Can't Get Something For Nothing" warbling on the soundtrack like an anti-musical refrain. Elsewhere, clerks and businessmen are all safe-crackers or thieves, criminal heists echo police confiscations, Lang uses a number of distancing effects and the film's plot seems like a perverse reversal of Lang's earlier "Metropolis", Lang's criminals defending workplace exploitation as being more rational than outright theft.Much of Lang's plot follows a pair of clandestine lovers who break parole restrictions by getting married. Lang tries his hand at comedy, but he's best when solemn. Nevertheless, great shots abound – two lovers fleetingly touching hands whilst riding an escalator, the mirror image of gangster's crushing palms – including several musical sequences which blindsided contemporary critics. As is expected, Lang continues to shoot architecture well, most of which is Art Deco or sports modernist trimmings. The film's noir shadows suggest a crime movie, but the comedy and champaign suggest something else. What's going on? Lang called the film his Threepenny Opera.7.5/10 – For Lang fans only.
OldAle1
After the very intense and downbeat Fury and You Only Live Once, Fritz Lang's third American film seems something of an anomaly for the director: a semi-comic hoodlum farce with musical moments, some of them courtesy of an (uncredited) Kurt Weill, and starring early tough-guy stalwart George Raft and the leading lady of the two previous Hollywood Lang pictures, Sylvia Sidney. An odd combination of elements, with even some Capra-esquire screwball thrown in, and yet on the whole it works. Raft and Sidney are both ex-cons trying to go straight working in a big department store owned by kindhearted Mr. Morris (Harry Carey) who fall in love; but Raft doesn't know that Sidney's a parolee, while Sidney knows his secret. They have to keep their eventual marriage quiet from everyone, and humor ensues with Sidney's efforts to do so; eventually Raft is lured into a plot by some of his ex-con buddies to rob the store that has helped them out so much and Sidney has to come in to save the day.And odd film, as I say, with a proto-feminist very strong female lead by the always wonderful Sylvia Sidney, great photography by Charles Lang, and a noirish downbeat feel pervading an often sunny and humorous plot line, the Langian inevitability of fate and of returning to one's worst impulses never more than a heartbeat away. Unjustly neglected, seen on a decent enough quality rental VHS.
wdbasinger
This is one of the best film starring George Raft. Many character actors also show up at different parts of the films such as Greta Granstedt, Ellen Drew, George E. Stone, Bob Cummings, Barton MacLane, and others. Although the film gets a bit campy at times, this is first class entertainment. And Sylvia Sidney is a real peach !!!I am a great fan of the late director Fritz Lang. My very favorite film from him is the science fiction classic "Metropolis". A close second is "Frau I'm Monde". Other great films are "M", "Woman in the Window", and "1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse". This film with the music of Kurt Weill and the way the various characters are developed in the context of the modern workplace and the struggle to find happiness and thrive in a fast-paced society makes this one of Fritz Lang's best dramas.Dan Basinger
sba71
Often Lang is able to interject his paranoid vision of the world -- with strange camera angles, romantic intrigues and suspicions, and farce. But just as frequently one feels the prudishness of thirties' Hollywood, forcing love, mercy, and optimism to rise implausibly from the traps the characters set for themselves. By turns subversive and banal. Worth seeing.
AD
