YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE

German émigré director Fritz Lang's 1937 film YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (his second American film after 1936's FURY) is a compelling proto-noir that draws heavily on the then recent exploits of bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde for inspiration. But Lang and screenwriters Gene Towne and Charles Graham Baker, shape the material into something different, albeit every bit as doom laden. 

A very young and slightly baby faced Henry Fonda stars as ex-con Eddie Taylor. YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE was Fonda's eighth film after starting his cinematic career two years previously in 1935. At the time of YOU, he had yet to establish an identifiable screen persona. Here, he's just a young actor (indeed, a very good young actor), who clearly relishes the part he was hired to play. 

Taylor is released from prison (following his third time in stir) at the beginning of the film. He finds Joan Graham (Sylvia Sidney) waiting for him. The two marry and begin a new life together. But it's not long until things go wrong. Eddie loses his trucking job due to lateness caused by his purchase of the couple's first house. Unable to find work, Eddie contemplates returning to a life of crime. 

We are next witness to a brilliantly staged bank robbery sequence in which the audience is led to believe that Eddie is the culprit. He swears his innocence but is nevertheless convicted and sentenced to die (several police officers were killed in the robbery). On the night of his scheduled execution, Eddie stages a desperate escape attempt at the same time that his innocence is proved and he receives a pardon. But Eddie thinks it's all a trick and guns down Father Dolan (William Gargan), the prison priest who always tried to help him

Eddie, now a bonafide killer and a just pregnant Joan go on the run together. It's a miserable existence and after the baby is born, Joan turns the infant over to the care of her sister, Bonnie (Jean Dixon) and her husband, public defender Stephen Whitney (Barton MacLane). Eddie and Joan are determined to cross the Canadian border into freedom no matter what the cost. But a roadblock comprised of heavily armed state troopers spells a violent, bullet riddled end for the couple.

Bleak and downbeat, YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE features great performances by Fonda and Sidney and Lang indulges in several expressionistic flourishes in several sequences, most notably the fog shrouded nighttime bid for freedom from prison that ends so tragically for Eddie.

Lang, of course, went on to be one of the chief architects of the American film noir while Fonda had a long and impressive career playing mostly good guys (except for his appearance in Sergio Leone's masterpiece ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)).

YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE points the way for bigger and better things to come for all concerned but on it's own terms, it's a very good crime drama.

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