Just about the only Fritz Lang American-made film I'd not yet watched and what an unusual one it was. It's part gangster, part romance, part social-commentary, part comedy and even at odd junctures part-musical and there are probably even a few more body parts kicking about in there somewhere.
Lang himself called it "lousy", but I think he was being a bit severe. Yes, there's lots wrong with it, the plot is as disjointed as it is improbable (it's all right for George Raft's reformed criminal to date his supposedly nice young fellow shop-worker like Sylvia Sydney but not when the boot is on the other foot and he learns her dark secret), the pacing is weird, the dialogue clunky at times, the support acting decidedly mixed and in the first half, songs keep trying to interrupt the action, no bad thing considering the music is by Kurt Weill, with the whole thing ending up a real mish-mash.
And yet there are things to like. It could maybe have had an almost American "Threepenny Opera" feel to it if the musical interludes had been more accentuated, there's some arresting German Expressionistic photography to admire plus I've always enjoyed the work of Sydney in her 30's heyday when she was directed by such luminaries as Von Sternberg, Vidor, Hitchcock and Wyler. She's lovely in this, the moral centre of the movie who by her own moxy ends up winning back Raft's heart and getting the whole gang onside with her too. George's character is less likeable but at least he sees sense in the end plus I liked Harry Carey, for once not in chaps, as the big-hearted store boss.
Yes, the film would have undoubtedly have worked better if it had decided at the start just what kind of movie it really wanted to be, but sometimes it's fun and certainly interesting when you can see the different ways an admired director is conflicted when trying to make their own movie within the studio system.
Lang certainly made several better, more coherent movies, but I still kind of like the mixed-up shook-up kid that is "You and Me".
Lang himself called it "lousy", but I think he was being a bit severe. Yes, there's lots wrong with it, the plot is as disjointed as it is improbable (it's all right for George Raft's reformed criminal to date his supposedly nice young fellow shop-worker like Sylvia Sydney but not when the boot is on the other foot and he learns her dark secret), the pacing is weird, the dialogue clunky at times, the support acting decidedly mixed and in the first half, songs keep trying to interrupt the action, no bad thing considering the music is by Kurt Weill, with the whole thing ending up a real mish-mash.
And yet there are things to like. It could maybe have had an almost American "Threepenny Opera" feel to it if the musical interludes had been more accentuated, there's some arresting German Expressionistic photography to admire plus I've always enjoyed the work of Sydney in her 30's heyday when she was directed by such luminaries as Von Sternberg, Vidor, Hitchcock and Wyler. She's lovely in this, the moral centre of the movie who by her own moxy ends up winning back Raft's heart and getting the whole gang onside with her too. George's character is less likeable but at least he sees sense in the end plus I liked Harry Carey, for once not in chaps, as the big-hearted store boss.
Yes, the film would have undoubtedly have worked better if it had decided at the start just what kind of movie it really wanted to be, but sometimes it's fun and certainly interesting when you can see the different ways an admired director is conflicted when trying to make their own movie within the studio system.
Lang certainly made several better, more coherent movies, but I still kind of like the mixed-up shook-up kid that is "You and Me".