Oh, human nature- how can it stand side-by-side with the Law, which is exacting, unforgiving, but always on the side of fact? Human beings tend to be impulsive, and very easily led along when becoming followers of the pack. Is this more to truth or fiction, writer/director Fritz Lang might be asking. This film, for it's time, is a rather complex kind of moral drama, swerving into (good) melodrama at times, but also with the ideal of an early film-noir. What's the Joe Nobody who minds his own business got going for him in the world? While one could even go as far as to look at the philosophical nature behind the film, it's really a simple story that dwells in the dark times of the depression. At the same time, it has that incredible pull of Lang's best German-set films (and what a magnificently raging use of crowds).
It starts off even more deceptively simple, with its curve-balls getting warmed up. It's got the love story element right away, with Spencer Tracy as the lead Joe and as his love and fiancé the notable Sylvia Sydney in one of her earliest roles as Katherine. They'll get married soon, once Joe's got enough money. But he gets spotted out in the midst of a kidnapping investigation by the police and thrown into jail. Then in a virtuoso kind of brick-by-brick storytelling, we see how the town grows into its frenzy. Not only is it realistic for its time, but it crosses past those imaginary boundaries by the current kind of dramatic film-making that says more elaborately 'emotional' music and overtly big and slow-motion angles get the job done. That it just lays down its medium shots and brief pans works up the momentum. But then a certain twist keeps the second half of the film- following the burning of the jail-house- into a tight suspension.
In a way I found an immense pull into the film because I realized what Lang took forth with the subject matter. This is the opposite of the town and man-in-question scenario in M- this time the story brings together the Law not as a procedural, but as something to gnaw on hard. Where's the humanity in vengeance, one might ask? The courtroom scenes are fantastic in the duality of it- who do you side with more, defense or prosecution, and how will Lang's (solid) manipulation of the story work out? It comes down to an ending that was possibly expectable, maybe not as well written as other parts of the script, but it is a strong one. And through this the emotional drive in the host of character actors is on the note, even for its early sound times. Tracy, as well, seems to somehow show if not layers then at least some soul in his performance. He makes this man, who reveals just as the mob does the split between good and evil, and their calculating extremes, all the more human.
And like M there are some good twists that work in favor of the crises facing both lead and supporting characters; I felt the same rush in some scenes as I did in that great moment when the blind balloon vendor comes into play again. Again, possibilities for manipulation. But Lang controls it into something potent and unsentimental at the same time. It's a kind of 'social' drama, reflective of issues that are possibly closer than one may think in its period, and makes points that are universal, and rather important. It also doesn't pander to its crowd wanting a good Hollywood story of love in times of peril. It's lean, memorable Golden-age cinema.
It starts off even more deceptively simple, with its curve-balls getting warmed up. It's got the love story element right away, with Spencer Tracy as the lead Joe and as his love and fiancé the notable Sylvia Sydney in one of her earliest roles as Katherine. They'll get married soon, once Joe's got enough money. But he gets spotted out in the midst of a kidnapping investigation by the police and thrown into jail. Then in a virtuoso kind of brick-by-brick storytelling, we see how the town grows into its frenzy. Not only is it realistic for its time, but it crosses past those imaginary boundaries by the current kind of dramatic film-making that says more elaborately 'emotional' music and overtly big and slow-motion angles get the job done. That it just lays down its medium shots and brief pans works up the momentum. But then a certain twist keeps the second half of the film- following the burning of the jail-house- into a tight suspension.
In a way I found an immense pull into the film because I realized what Lang took forth with the subject matter. This is the opposite of the town and man-in-question scenario in M- this time the story brings together the Law not as a procedural, but as something to gnaw on hard. Where's the humanity in vengeance, one might ask? The courtroom scenes are fantastic in the duality of it- who do you side with more, defense or prosecution, and how will Lang's (solid) manipulation of the story work out? It comes down to an ending that was possibly expectable, maybe not as well written as other parts of the script, but it is a strong one. And through this the emotional drive in the host of character actors is on the note, even for its early sound times. Tracy, as well, seems to somehow show if not layers then at least some soul in his performance. He makes this man, who reveals just as the mob does the split between good and evil, and their calculating extremes, all the more human.
And like M there are some good twists that work in favor of the crises facing both lead and supporting characters; I felt the same rush in some scenes as I did in that great moment when the blind balloon vendor comes into play again. Again, possibilities for manipulation. But Lang controls it into something potent and unsentimental at the same time. It's a kind of 'social' drama, reflective of issues that are possibly closer than one may think in its period, and makes points that are universal, and rather important. It also doesn't pander to its crowd wanting a good Hollywood story of love in times of peril. It's lean, memorable Golden-age cinema.