You Only Live Once (1937)

My Review

“You Only Live Once” is a film noir movie about an ex-con who has difficulties getting hired on to a regular job, and is subsequently forced to return to a life of crime. The melodrama proceeds from there, with plenty of twists and turns in the plot, well-orchestrated by German director Fritz Lang, in only his second motion picture in America. The excellent screenplay was penned by Gene Towne and Charles Graham Baker.

Henry Fonda delivered a good performance in the lead role. This was an early film in his career, as Sylvia Sidney received top billing in the credits, playing Fonda’s wife. Co-stars include Barton MacLane, Jean Dixon, William Gargan, Jerome Cowan, Chic Sale, Jack Carson (in an uncredited part), and Margaret Hamilton, two years before her most famous role as the antagonist in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939). “You Only Live Once,” not exactly escapist programming popular in Depression Era movie theaters, was a box office bomb for producer Walter Wanger and United Artists.