While ‘You and Me’ Is Not One of Fritz Lang’s Best, It Is Nonetheless a Fritz Lang Film

Fritz Lang’s “You and Me” (1938) “confounded audience expectations at the time of its release,” a breathless scribe at Powerhouse Films writes. Some 80 years later, one suspects that it will do much the same for contemporary audiences. Even viewers primed for director Lang or, maybe, Sylvia Sidney will find it an odd affair. The movie failed at the box office. Lang thought it a “lousy picture.”A lumpy picture is more like it. “You And Me” is a movie of several minds. Romantic comedy? Gangster flick? Marital melodrama? Prison reform PSA? At a couple of points during the film, you almost expect George Raft and Sylvia Sidney to start tripping the light fantastic like Fred and Ginger. Often the actors don’t seem to know what tone needs to be established. The plot repeatedly pivots on a dime, unsure of where it is heading. Powerhouse has released a 2K restoration of Lang’s film, a package that comes with a requisite set of bonus features.Has “You and Me” become a “critical favourite” over the years? The film’s patchwork nature likely seems less jarring in these 21st century days of mash-ups and post-modernist bait-and-switches. Still, ascribing contemporary standards on such an entertainment simultaneously sells it short and oversells it. To enjoy “You and Me,” one needs to forgive its collage-like structure, so a general recommendation isn’t in the offing. Those familiar with the film’s players will find it a welcome diversion.So what do you need to know about “You and Me”? That Raft was an actor of limited range who made the most of a flinty demeanor and a snappy sense of fashion? That leading lady Sidney finished her days on the set of a television series, “WKRP in Cincinnati,” and had a cameo in Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice” (1988)? That one of the composers of “The Threepenny Opera,” Kurt Weill, was on hand because he “had nothing to do just then”? Lang, of course, is among the cinema’s most innovative directors: He made “Metropolis” (1927) and much else besides.“You and Me” has two segments that highlight Lang’s gifts to winning effect. The first is an introductory montage extolling the virtues and responsibilities of capitalism. An unnamed and overripe vocalist trills his R’s to stirring effect over artfully choreographed scenes of cash, cash registers, and the luxury items that cash can buy — these include “cheese and roses and snowshoes and statues.” We ultimately learn that only a chump thinks he can get something for nothing.The other scene is similarly anomalous. A picturesque cadre of former gangsters sit around a table on Christmas Eve, pining for the good ol’ days in the hoosegow. What begins as a hooligan’s indulgence turns into an avant-gardist recounting of a jailbreak. Lang orchestrates this reminiscence by keying it to a rat-a-tat-tat rhythm and festooning the prison environs in a lush, romantic light. Fans of the director will be reminded of the chiaroscuro grotesqueries seen in one of his masterworks, “M” (1931).In the end, “You and Me” is a love story between ex-cons setting out to live a law-abiding life. Raft plays Joe Dennis, a hoodlum with a violent past. Sidney is Helen, another ex-con — though she does her utmost to hide it from Joe. They work at a department store run by an owner who believes that every person deserves a second chance, Mr. Morris (Harry Carey). Problems arise when a band of bad guys rope Joe in for a return to a life of crime. Oh, and Helen doesn’t tell Joe that she’s with child. His child.In a wonderful scene toward the end of the picture, Helen gives Joe and his gangland cronies an accounting lesson proving that crime does not pay. It’s a clever moment well-played by Sidney and is a minor miracle of comedic dogooderism. “You and Me” is less than perfect but not overly worried about it — which is both its abiding charm and chief drawback. In other words, caveat cineaste.

While ‘You and Me’ Is Not One of Fritz Lang’s Best, It Is Nonetheless a Fritz Lang Film

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