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You and Me

  • 1938
  • Approved
  • 1h 34m
IMDb RATING
6.8/10
2.1K
YOUR RATING
George Raft and Sylvia Sidney in You and Me (1938)
Film NoirCrime

An altruistic department-store owner hires ex-convicts in order to give them a second chance at life. Unfortunately, one of the convicts he hires recruits two of his fellow ex-convicts in a ... Read allAn altruistic department-store owner hires ex-convicts in order to give them a second chance at life. Unfortunately, one of the convicts he hires recruits two of his fellow ex-convicts in a plan to rob the store.An altruistic department-store owner hires ex-convicts in order to give them a second chance at life. Unfortunately, one of the convicts he hires recruits two of his fellow ex-convicts in a plan to rob the store.

  • Director
    • Fritz Lang
  • Writers
    • Virginia Van Upp
    • Norman Krasna
    • Jack Moffitt
  • Stars
    • Sylvia Sidney
    • George Raft
    • Barton MacLane
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.8/10
    2.1K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Fritz Lang
    • Writers
      • Virginia Van Upp
      • Norman Krasna
      • Jack Moffitt
    • Stars
      • Sylvia Sidney
      • George Raft
      • Barton MacLane
    • 35User reviews
    • 28Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win total

    Photos72

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    Top Cast70

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    Sylvia Sidney
    Sylvia Sidney
    • Helen Roberts
    George Raft
    George Raft
    • Joe Dennis
    Barton MacLane
    Barton MacLane
    • Mickey
    Harry Carey
    Harry Carey
    • Mr. Morris
    Roscoe Karns
    Roscoe Karns
    • Cuffy
    George E. Stone
    George E. Stone
    • Patsy
    Warren Hymer
    Warren Hymer
    • Gimpy Carter
    Robert Cummings
    Robert Cummings
    • Jim
    Adrian Morris
    • Knucks
    Roger Gray
    Roger Gray
    • Bath House
    Cecil Cunningham
    Cecil Cunningham
    • Mrs. Morris
    Vera Gordon
    Vera Gordon
    • Mrs. Levine
    Egon Brecher
    • Mr. Levine
    Willard Robertson
    Willard Robertson
    • Dayton
    Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams
    Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams
    • Taxi
    • (as Guinn Williams)
    Bernadene Hayes
    Bernadene Hayes
    • Nellie
    Joyce Compton
    Joyce Compton
    • Curly Blonde
    Carol Paige
    • Torch Singer
    • Director
      • Fritz Lang
    • Writers
      • Virginia Van Upp
      • Norman Krasna
      • Jack Moffitt
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews35

    6.82K
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    Featured reviews

    8planktonrules

    This Fritz Lang film apparently did poorly at the box office....and I'm not sure why.

    Joe and Helen (George Raft and Sylvia Sidney) both work at the same department store. The owner (Harry Carey) is a swell guy and hired them and a few other ex-cons in order to give them a second chance. As for Joe, his parole is now over and he plans on traveling out west. But instead, on the night he's leaving, he impulsively asks Helen to marry him and they do so. But there are two problems. First, while he told her he was on parole, she never did the same and as far as he knows, she's never had a past. Second, she's STILL on parole and one of the conditions of this is that she not marry....and she's just violated parole. Surely, bad things are going to come of this. See the film and see where it all goes next.

    This film was directed by German director Fritz Lang. His record of films in the States was spotty...with a few big successes (I adore his film "Fury" and "The Big Heat") and a few failures. Apparently, "You and Me" was a box office loser. But is it a bad film? Not at all. Apart from a terrible opening tune ("You Can't Get Money for Nothing"...which was FAR from subtle) it's quite good and I have a hard time imagining it being a box office loser...but stranger things have happened.
    9zetes

    A heck of a lot of fun!

    That doesn't fit with what most people think about Fritz Lang. He's generally a tragedian at this point in his career. You and Me is very similar in subject to his previous film, You Only Live Once, about an ex-con who can't get a break. Here, George Raft plays an ex-con working at a department store. Sylvia Sidney is his girlfriend. She also works at the store, and she has a secret: she's an ex-con, too. Raft has a bitter double standard and despises female ex-cons, so Sidney can't tell him the truth.

    Near the beginning, the film seems a bit clunky. The opening is kind of goofy, and, it being a Lang film, you might be confused about how you should take it. His other films aren't completely without comedy. Few films refuse to give us at least a couple of laughs along the way, perhaps close to the beginning. But You and Me just keeps getting sillier.

    I was finally won over by an extraordinarily stylistic sequence where a mob of criminals recall their days in jail with a musical number. After that enormously entertaining sequence had come and gone, I knew that anything could go. In fact, anything can go and does. The film ends up being one of the most original films ever made. No comedy is like this. You know, I don't want to swear to this, but You and Me is perhaps my favorite Fritz Lang film. I actually haven't seen any masterpiece (i.e., 10/10s) from him, including Metropolis and M. You and Me, like M and Fury, my other two favorites, gets a 9/10.
    Joel I

    A real oddity

    This collaboration by Fritz Lang and Kurt Weill is one of the oddest films ever made. It's part gangster story, part comedy, part soap opera, part leftist propaganda...and part musical! Perhaps Weill was trying to find the cinematic equivalent of what he did in the theater with Bertolt Brecht. In any event, the experiment is a failure but a noble failure and in parts quite interesting. It's definitely worthy seeing for two montages set to rhythmic voiceover narration, for Sylvia Sidney's sympathetic performance and for the fact that you'll never see anything else quite like it.
    6bkoganbing

    Crime Doesn't Pay

    You And Me is an interesting experiment which falls way short in execution, but still is an interesting view.

    The closest American film I could compare it to is Al Jolson's Hallelujah I'm a Bum which utilized that same sing/talk rhythmic technique in many spots. Rodgers&Hart's efforts were not as butchered as Kurt Weill's were, my guess is that Paramount got cold feet and tried to salvage the film as they saw it by making it more of a typical gangster yarn.

    The story involves Harry Carey who as part of his payback to society hires freshly paroled convicts in his department store. The presumption is that he does screen them for employment.

    George Raft is one of those ex-convicts hired there and he meets and falls for Sylvia Sidney. She knows about him, but he doesn't know she is also on parole. Other prison pals working for Carey are, George E. Stone, Warren Hymer, Jack Pennick, Robert Cummings and Roscoe Karns.

    One very unregenerated crook, Barton MacLane, tries to get the whole crew of them to help knock over the store. What happens is the rest of the plot of the film.

    Perhaps You and Me might have been better done elsewhere. I'm thinking of Warner Brothers who specialized in these working class stories. Barton MacLane, George E. Stone, and Warren Hymer certainly all were part of Warner's gangster stable and George Raft moved to Warner Brothers himself a year after You and Me came out. Paramount just didn't go in for stories like these and the results show.

    Highlight of the film is Sylvia Sidney giving a lecture in economics about how crime doesn't pay. For heist guys like these when you deduct the expenses of a job, it really doesn't pay. Only the folks at the top really make out.

    By the way you might call what Kurt Weill tried to do musically and Fritz Lang brought to the screen as one long rap music video. You and Me may have been way too soon ahead of its time.

    Still it's probably worth a look if for no other reason than to see a joint collaborative effort of two expatriates from the Nazi regime, Kurt Weill and Fritz Lang.
    6blanche-2

    Sidney and Raft play two ex-cons

    Sylvia Sidney and George Raft star in "You and Me," a 1938 film.

    The owner of a large department store believes in second chances, so some of his staff are ex-cons, Joe Dennis (Raft) being one. His parole is almost over, and he's determined to keep his nose clean, despite former gang members trying to get him back in with them.

    Joe has a friendly relationship with a woman who works at the store, Helen Roberts (Sidney). When he's about to leave town to get away from bad influences, he realizes he loves Helen, gets off the bus, and the two marry and move into Helen's apartment house.

    Helen tells Joe that the boss at their store does not want his employees married to one another, so they have to keep quiet about it. The truth is that Helen is an ex-con as well, on parole, and forbidden to marry, although she does not admit this to Joe and continues to hide it.

    When Joe learns she has been lying to him, he leaves her and returns to his old friends, who want to rob the store.

    Interesting movie, due to a "cell block tango" that the criminals do - where they speak in unison, in hushed voices, using a sing/talk rhythmic technique, by Kurt Weill.

    Sidney and Raft are terrific, and you are really pulling for them. The denoument is wonderful and the ending is sweet.

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    Related interests

    Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946)
    Film Noir
    James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Sharon Angela, Max Casella, Dan Grimaldi, Joe Perrino, Donna Pescow, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Tony Sirico, and Michael Drayer in The Sopranos (1999)
    Crime

    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      The author of the original story, Norman Krasna, saw "You and Me" as an opportunity to direct, but original stars George Raft and Carole Lombard objected. Raft was suspended and by the time he was reassigned, Sylvia Sydney had replaced Lombard with Richard Wallace as director. Sydney, who had starred in Fritz Lang's first two American films, successfully lobbied to have Lang replace him.
    • Goofs
      When the cell-mate looks out of the window as Number One escapes, the bars go from vertical with crossbars (looking from the inside) to just vertical (looking from the outside.)
    • Quotes

      Cuffy: Funny. Last Christmas I was on the inside lookin' out and thinkin' I'd go bats if I couldn't get outside. And now I'm out... I don't know. Come to think of it, it was kinda cozy in that little cell.

    • Connections
      Referenced in The Phantom (1996)
    • Soundtracks
      Song of the Cash Register
      Music by Kurt Weill

      Lyrics by Sam Coslow

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    FAQ16

    • How long is You and Me?Powered by Alexa

    Details

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    • Release date
      • June 10, 1938 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Wonderful
    • Filming locations
      • Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
    • Production company
      • Paramount Pictures
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Budget
      • $789,000 (estimated)
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      • 1h 34m(94 min)
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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