Story of movie You And Me 1938 Film : You and Me is a 1938 American crime film noir directed by Fritz Lang starring Sylvia Sidney and George Raft. They play a pair of criminals on parole and working in a department store full of similar cases; Harry Carey's character routinely hires ex-convicts to staff his store. The movie was written by Norman Krasna and Virginia Van Upp.
| You and Me | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Fritz Lang |
| Produced by | Fritz Lang presented by Adolph Zukor |
| Written by | Virginia Van Upp |
| Based on | a story by Norman Krasna |
| Starring | Sylvia Sidney George Raft |
| Music by | Kurt Weill |
| Cinematography | Charles Lang |
| Edited by | Paul Weatherwax |
Production company | Fritz Lang Productions |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 94 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Screenplay
Mr Morris runs a department store which specialises in hiring former inmates who want to assimilate into civilian life. Two of his employees, Joe and Helen, have fallen in love. Joe is planning on leaving for California.
They decide to get married.
- Sylvia Sidney as Helen Dennis
- George Raft as Joe Dennis
- Barton MacLane as Mickey Bain
- Harry Carey as Jerome Morris
- Roscoe Karns as Cuffy
- George E. Stone as Patsy
- Warren Hymer as Gil Carter aka Gimpy
- Robert Cummings as Jim
- Adrian Morris as Knucks
- Roger Gray as Bath House
- Cecil Cunningham as Mrs. Morris
- Vera Gordon as Mrs. Levins
- Egon Brecher as Mr. Levins
- Willard Robertson as Dayton
- Guinn Williams as Text
- Bernadene Hayes as Nellie
- Joyce Compton as Curly Blonde
- Carol Paige as Torch Singer
William Le Baron of Paramount asked Norman Krasna if he could come up with a vehicle for George Raft. Krasna agreed provided he was allowed to direct. Then Carole Lombard read the script and wanted to be involved; Krasna says Paramount did not want first-time director Krasna to be entrusted with a Lombard-Raft film and tried to force Krasna off the project. In 1936 it was reported the film would be delayed because Raft did not want Krasna to direct. There was some talk John Howard might replace Raft. Arline Judge was going to star alongside Lombard. Raft was put on suspension and $24,000 of his salary was withheld. However the film did not go ahead.
Then several months later B.P. Schulberg, who was producing a number of films for Paramount, decided to re-activate the project. He replaced Lombard with Sylvia Sidney and the male lead went to John Trent. Richard Wallace was meant to direct.
Eventually Raft - who had made a film with Sidney, The Pick Up (1933) - did the film. By May 1937 Schulberg was no longer producer and the director was Fritz Lang who had just made Fury and You Only Live Once with Sidney.
Lang used a musical score from Kurt Weill. He used it in an expressionistic style. Lang says he was influenced by Bertolt Brecht, who had developed a style of theatre called Lehrstucke, theatre that teaches. "I wanted to make a didactic picture teaching the audience that crime doesn't pay," said Lang. "Which is a lie, because crime pays very well. The message was spelled out at the end by Sylvia Sidney on a blackboard to a classroom of crooks.
Lang says Weill "had nothing to do just then." They worked together and Weill composed introductory music for certain scenes. Lang later said the scene where prisoners were nostalgic for prison was "stupid".
- "Song of the Cash Register"
- "Knocking Song"
- "The Right Guy for Me"
- "Romance of a Lifetime"
- "The Song of the Lie"
- "We're the Kind of People Who Sing Lullabies"
Box office
The film was a box office flop. "It was - I think deservedly - my first real flop," said Lang.
Critical
Jonathan Rosenbaum calls the film "among Lang’s most unjustly neglected Hollywood pictures - not an unqualified success by any means but interesting, imaginative, and genuinely strange."
Lang later called it a "lousy picture".
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