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'sYou 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 ofMandMetropolishad lost none of his edge.--Robert Horton