Fritz on Fridays: You and Me

On the first Friday of every month, this column by critic Joshua Polanski will feature a short review or essay on a film directed by Fritz Lang (1890-1976), the great Austrian “Master of Darkness.” Occasionally (but not too occasionally), Fritz on Fridays will also feature interviews and conversations with relevant critics, scholars and filmmakers about Lang’s influence and filmography.

Perhaps no actor in film history enjoyed as easy a path to artistic glamour over any three-year period as Sylvia Sidney did in the late 1930s. Between 1936 and 1938, Sidney acted in six movies. One of those six (the first at that) is The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, a forgettable Western from genre journeyman Henry Hathaway. The other five were directed, in order, by Fritz Lang (Fury), Alfred Hitchcock (Sabotage), Lang again (You Only Live Once), William Wyler (Dead End) and Lang once more (You and Me).

Sidney’s final film with Lang marked a turning point in her career, and once the 1950s rolled around, she rarely acted in more than one film a year, and sometimes even fewer, until the 1970s. You and Me (1938) may not have the same prestige around it that much of Lang’s earlier work does, but it’s a marvelous romantic thriller, a satirical musical and a downright sexy noir. It’s also a film that takes place from Thanksgiving to Christmas, making it a fitting time to run for this month’s column.

Joe Dennis (George Raft) and Helen (Sidney) both work in a super-sized department store for Mr. Morris (Harry Carey), a benevolent employer with a heart for ex-convicts. He employs so many of them in his store that his wife bemoans him for collecting thugs instead of stamps. Joe might be the worst of them, too. His crimes are supposedly so intense that Lang reveals them slowly as if he’s using a crockpot, although they end up being pretty run-of-the-mill stuff even for the Hays Code era, and Mr. Morris is proud to see him turn his life straight.

Continue reading on the Midwest Film Journal.