Saturday, September 17, 2016

1938 - YOU AND ME, Fritz Lang's very strange musical

Well here is one for the movie books.  The director of M, Fury and Metropolis attempts to direct a musical with music by Kurt Weill.  This is a very strange film and it is also a very mixed bag of a film.



Lang's film involves ex-convicts working in a department store attempting to go straight.  The film's message is literally "crime does not pay."  A point driven home by Sylvia Sidney literally given a lecture on a blackboard to a group of criminals the of which is "crime does not pay."



Fritz Lang directs George Raft and Sylvia Sidney 

Lang is at his peak deploying all of his visual noir camera angles throughout the film.  Just to make it interesting Lang also integrates some strange Kurt Weill songs throughout the picture which reminds me of the German Expressionist period in theater. 



The film was not a success when it was released to put it mildly.  However viewed now one has to admit it is a rather unique and weird film from one of the cinema's greatest directors.  Certainly worth a look.

90 minutes, screenplay by Virginia Van Upp.

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