You Only Live Once Movie Review

Director Fritz Lang escaped Nazi Germany in the nick of time, leaving behind his considerable fortune. Upon his arrival in America, he immediately addressed OUR social problems on film, starting with Fury’s exploration of public lynchings. A lesser-known film, but in many ways, far more uncompromising, is 1937's You Only Live Once, made for independent producer Walter Wanger. Both Fury and You Only Live Once star Sylvia Sidney, the quintessential Depression-era actress whose dahlia-like appearance belied her deep emotional strength. Henry Fonda, with his gaunt, lean features, was her male equivalent, far more successful at conveying ‘30s angst than Fury’s well-fed Spencer Tracy. The perspective in You Only Live Once is in direct opposition to the one in Fury, which went out of its way to show that the system would eventually address social evils. In You Only Live Once, all good-intentioned liberalism is ineffectual. Fonda plays Eddie Taylor, a loser trying to buck his fate with the love and support of Jo Graham, played by Sidney. But he can NOT buck it; the couple can't even have a proper wedding night together—they are tossed out after their motel manager discovers Eddie's identity. Eddie tries to get and keep a job, but his past catches up with him and he is fired. He is unjustly accused of a crime he did not commit and cooperates with authorities upon Jo's recommendation. The attorney who is Jo's employer tries to help him, a priest tries to help him, and when Eddie rejects them, it is clear that he is rejecting a society that has always rejected him. Even as the real criminals are caught, Eddie is already in existential flight along with Jo, who abandons her well-ordered life to join him. Lang treats the couple and everyone else in his sightline with understanding and sympathy. There are no real saints or sinners in You Only Live Once, only an overall atmosphere of despair. In the war that was to come, Lang would show other seemingly doomed couples in Manhunt and Ministry of Fear, as they struggled, not always in vain, against their destinies. But in You Only Live Once we see a rare time capsule that makes it clear the New Deal will not supply Eddie and Jo's salvation, only a grim acceptance of their fate.

1937 86m/B Henry Fonda, Sylvia Sidney, Ward Bond, William Gargan, Barton MacLane, Margaret Hamilton, Jean Dixon, Warren Hymer, Chic Sale, Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, Jerome Cowan, John Wray, Jonathan Hale, Ben Hall, Jean Stoddard, Wade Boteler, Henry Taylor, Walter DePalma; D: Fritz Lang; W: C. Graham Baker, Gene Towne; C: Leon Shamroy. VHS