It’s very late, I had a much busier day than I anticipated, I’m tired, but I managed to watch one Sylvia Sidney film today. And boy, am I glad that I did.
You and Me (1938), dir. Fritz Lang
What we have here is a story of criminals in love. But if your mind is immediately going to the likes of Bonnie and Clyde or Natural Born Killers (both of which I love, by the way), this is something else. On the surface, You and Me seems like your classic slice of life melodrama, about people overcoming hardships of life. And in the centre of it all is a sweet, sweet girl Sylvia Sidney, a shopgirl. But she is a criminal! In fact, tons of employees in her department store are criminals, on parole. The owner of the store wants to help so he gives them jobs. The catch is, they do not know about each other. Mostly. George Raft is one of them. He likes Sylvia so much he wants to leave town to not „have bad influence” on her. But as he is about to leave, she proclaims she wants to marry him. And they do. But there is trouble to come.
I. LOVE. THIS. MOVIE. I cannot even put into words how much of a surprise this was. Why is it not considered one of the classics? Sylvia Sidney is just adorable and SO beautiful. In fact, I noticed she has a very modern look – with a different haircut, you could claim she was an Instagram model and it would be believable. Even George Raft, who is often a sinister presence in his film somehow seems cute here (even in scenes when he probably shouldn’t).
This movie has two WILD musical numbers, with elaborate „illustrations”. In fact, it begins with some sort of an… anti-capitalist song (that was my initial thought, as the time went on I realized it might have been something else but never mind all that). And whenever something happened that made me think that maybe a part of the film won’t work, it proved me wrong. For example, there is a part near the end that ventures towards didacticism, but the use of humour is so clever, it does not bother the viewer at all.
And it is a Fritz Lang movie after all: the camera work at certain parts literally made my jaw drop, the play with shadows is amazing. At first I thought the film-noir label was kind of a miss but I can definitely see parts of it. But it is not a straightforward crime film, I would call it a „sincere crime romance”. I loved it. I don’t care how naive people may call it, how sentimental. I am so happy to have received such a wonderful gift the evening.
Swingin' at the Seance 