You Only Live Once (1937)

 Fritz Lang's "You Only Live Once"

After the success of his first American film, Fury, Lang adapted a Gene Towne and Charles Graham Baker screenplay into a film, You Only Live Once. Like Fury, You Only Live Once is a dark film about the nature of anger and vengeance. 

The film stars Henry Fonda as Eddie Taylor, who reformed ex-convict. He was sent to prison for theft, and is now released. He is trying to start a normal life with his gal, Jo, played by Sylvia Sidney. However, the two of them experience turmoil from others, who are disgusted by Eddie's ex-convict status. Eventually, Eddie loses his job. Around that time, Eddie is framed for a bank robbery he didn't commit. Wanting to go on the run, Jo convinces him to stand trial, thinking that surely the justice system will find his innocence. It does not, and Eddie is sentenced to prison, now facing a death sentence. Facing certain death, Eddie convinces Jo to leave a gun hidden somewhere. When he finds it, he breaks out of prison and goes on the run with Jo. They are eventually tracked down and killed, dying in each other's arms.

Lang always seems to paint people very cynically. Everyone is a hateful person, bigoted, or antagonistic. For example, everyone is harsher towards Eddie once they know he is an ex-convict. Everyone shows their ass; the owners of a motel shove Eddie and Jo out after discovering his picture in a crime booklet. Also, his boss takes pleasure in turning his back on Eddie and firing him. The bitter, hateful actions of the characters is what forces the protagonist to become the same hateful person, just like in Fury. Everyone is repulsed by him being an ex-criminal, but their open antagonism is what pushes him to the electric chair, leaving him no choice but to become a criminal anyway. 

Because of the open antagonism and hateful behavior by everyone around the protagonist, the viewer feels just as vindicated in their malicious outburst, rejoicing in punishing those who have punished us. The only lone character who is not malicious at their core is the priest who befriends Eddie and Jo. According to the priest, "Every man at birth is endowed with the nobility of a king, but the stain of the world soon makes him forget even his own birthright. Perhaps that's why they gave us death - just to give us another chance at remembering who we are before we're born again." This mirror's Eddie, who begins the film pure, only to be stained by the vitriol hurled at him, turning him cynical and hateful. He becomes so callused that he doesn't believe the priest when he tells him that he's been pardon, and kills him. Eddie kills the only man in the film who isn't outright morally corrupted. After the killing of the priest, the viewer becomes aware that you were swept up in vengeance. We become aware that Eddie, and us, are behaving irrationally. We relate to Eddie wanting to punish everyone for what they've done to him. Eddie, and we, have become the very murderers that they've accused us of being.

Many point to this film as being inspirational towards the American Film Noir movement half a decade later. This is perhaps because of the film's dark perspective. Lang paints everyone in the film as a bad person, even the protagonist, even you. This dark cynicism becomes the driving force for the noir movement, as every character, including the protagonist, has or develops a corrupted viewpoint. Not only this, there are many visual elements of the film that the noir movement borrows. As Eddie falls deeper and deeper into his hatred and spite, Lang displays more abundant visual darkness in the frames. When he is trapped in his cell, Lang shines a headlight over the cell to cast the dark shadows of the cell over the floor, creating the oppressively dark headspace through visuals. Also, once Eddie finds the gun and threatens death to the priest so as to escape, Lang implements pitch black night and fog to surround them, visually illustrating how low Eddie's soul has sunken. 

 

Overall, You Only Live Once was not a commercial success. The studio lost $48,045. However, many filmmakers and film historians look to this film as an incredible film in Fritz Lang's oeuvre. It provided inspiration for the cynical American Film Noir movement. It also demonstrated how the viewer of the film could fall prey to morally corruptible behavior, behavior they felt abhorrently towards in the beginning. Lang is reaching through the screen to tell the viewer that they are not above the bigoted and reprehensible Nazis he escaped from in Germany.