You Only Live Once

1937

Action / Crime / Drama / Film-Noir

29
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 100% · 10 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 78% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.2/10 10 7587 7.6K

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Plot summary

Based partially on the story of Bonnie and Clyde, Eddie Taylor is an ex-convict who cannot get a break after being released from prison. When he is framed for murder, Taylor is forced to flee with his wife Joan Graham and baby. While escaping prison after being sentenced to death, Taylor becomes a real murderer, condemning himself and Joan to a life of crime and death on the road.


Uploaded by: FREEMAN
October 23, 2017 at 06:34 PM

Director

Top cast

Sylvia Sidney as Joan Graham
Henry Fonda as Eddie Taylor
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
598.34 MB
988*720
English 2.0
NR
24 fps
1 hr 26 min
Seeds 1
1.28 GB
1472*1072
English 2.0
NR
24 fps
1 hr 26 min
Seeds 11

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by mark.waltz 9 / 10

Society is so unforgiving.

Sylvia Sidney is the secretary to a public defender (or "offender" as one client refers to him as) who is in love with a convicted felon just about to be released from prison. Henry Fonda is that man, determined to make a new start, but unable to do so because of the judgments of society. Sidney and Fonda are married, but once they settle into a new apartment, are tossed out when the owners find out about Fonda's past. He quickly looses his job, being verbally assaulted by his boss for his past, and in desperation, tries to keep his wife from finding out. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time has him made out to be the top suspect in a bank robbery, and he ends up on death row. By this time, it is too late, and Fonda has turned into the animal that society already believed him to be, hatching an escape plan that can't lead to anything but doom.

Poetly brilliant, this has a moving scene between Sidney and Fonda where he comments on how a male and female frog will die almost immediately after the other one because they can't bear to be without the other. Fritz Lang followed up "Fury" with this equally magnetic drama on the wrongs that can happen to a man trying to get past his past, and how evil judgment and unforgivingness can be. Barton MacLane has a rare sympathetic role as Sidney's boss, obviously in love with her, while William Gargan is the prison pastor who tries to help the couple deal with their fates.

Look quickly for Margaret Hamilton as the landlady of the apartment building where Fonda and Sidney live, not even overnight, as well as a ton of wonderful character performers. This is one of those films that will stick with you long after its over, in both its comment on society and its spirituality, felt in a finale where the lovers strive to find peace on earth, but obviously won't. As their lives become more like Bonnie and Clyde, you can see why the desperation's of the 1930's have continued to be felt today.

Reviewed by claudio_carvalho 7 / 10

Love and Prejudice, In a Tragic Melodrama

Joan Graham (Sylvia Sidney) is the efficient secretary of a public defender Stephen Whitney (Barton MacLane) and is in love of the smalltime criminal Eddie Taylor (Henry Fonda). Her boss and friend Stephen helps Eddie to leave the prison on probation, Eddie promises to have a straight life and immediately get married with Joan. He finds a job as truck driver, but is unfairly fired on his first day. While trying to find another job, there is a heist in a bank with six victims and Eddie is accused. Joan convinces him to go to the court and prove his innocence, but based on circumstantial evidence and prejudice of the jury, Eddie is sentenced to the electric chair. On the night of his execution, the FBI finds the real criminal and Eddie grants an indulgence. However, Eddie is trying to escape from prison in a hostage situation, and kills his friend Father Dolan (William Gargan), who was trying to help him. Eddie meets Joan and together they try to reach the border and escape from justice.

"You Only Live Once" is the second American movie of Fritz Lang and a tragic melodrama. The depressive story of love and prejudice discloses a tough criticism to a very unfair, corrupt and hostile society, where losers do not have the chance to recover their dignity and common people are corrupt. The screenplay is visibly influenced by Bonnie and Clyde, who died on 23 May 1934, ambushed in their getaway car - therefore less than three years before the release date of this film. Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney show a great chemistry in good performances in this minor movie of this great director. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Vive-se Uma Só Vez" ("You Only Live Once")

Reviewed by bkoganbing 7 / 10

A Poignant story

You Only Live Once is Director Fritz Lang's second American film after leaving Nazi Germany. The first one Fury was a tale of mindless mob violence against an innocent man caught in circumstances not of his own making.

This one however has a career criminal trying to go straight, but with no one willing to give him a break. Arrested for a bank robbery that he didn't commit and the resulting deaths from same, Henry Fonda is on death row awaiting execution. His girlfriend, Sylvia Sydney helps him escape and in the escape, prison chaplain William Gargan is killed by Fonda. Gargan was one of the few friends he had and now Fonda and Sydney are fugitives.

To be sure there are some plot holes. For one thing I'd like to know just what Fonda had done before that made him a three time loser in the first place before the action of the story takes place. Nevertheless it's a good piece of film making and the stars register real poignancy in their performances.

This barely got made. Henry Fonda hated the dictatorial Fritz Lang during the making of this, almost walked out several times. Later on they had equally bad relations during the shooting of The Return of Frank James.

The real life exploits of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker influenced the writing of the screenplay. Of course the Barrow/Parker duo were hardly the innocents that Fonda and Sydney are. But then again this was the heyday of social liberalism during the New Deal when it was believed all of life's ills could be cured with the right government social program.

Barton MacLane as Fonda's attorney delivers one of his few performances as a good guy. During the Thirties and Forties MacLane played tough and ruthless gangsters and police officials, some of the latter quite corrupt. I'm so used to seeing MacLane as a bad guy this was something of a revelation to me.

It's a dated story, but full of poignant tragedy and worthy of a look.

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