You and Me

Sylvia Sidney Director: Fritz Lang Fritz Lang

Overview

This film is one of acclaimed director Fritz Lang's less noted achievements, a mixture of romance, comedy, drama, and satire. It includes three songs by the famed Kurt Weill, including "The Right Guy for Me." George Raft plays Joe Dennis, an ex-convict working in a department store. The store's boss, Mr. Morris (Harry Carey), likes to hire ex-cons. Joe falls in love with Helen (Sylvia Sidney), who hides the fact that she is on parole until after they marry. Since parolees can't wed, the marriage is illegal. Distraught, Joe organizes a gang to rob Morris' store. Helen intervenes and tries to convince the gang members that the potential take isn't worth the risk of returning to prison. ~ Michael Betzold

Product Details

Release Date:	05/22/2015
UPC:	0025192245763
Original Release:	1938
Source:	Universal
Time:	1:30:00
Sales rank:	35,053

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Sylvia Sidney	Helen Dennis
George Raft	Joe Dennis
Robert Cummings	Jim
Barton MacLane	Mickey
Roscoe Karns	Cuffy
Harry Carey	Mr. Morris
George E. Stone	Patsy
Guinn "Big Boy" Williams	Taxi
Carol Paige	Torch singer
Bernadene Hayes	Nellie
Vera Gordon	Mrs. Levine
Egon Brecher	Mr. Levine
Paul Newlan	Bouncer
Joyce Compton	Curly blonde
Hal K. Dawson	Information Clerk
Matt McHugh	Newcomer
Margaret Randall	Shoplifter
Sam Ash	Floorwalker
Jack Mulhall	Floorwalker
William B. Davidson	N.G. Martin
Ethel Clayton	Woman
Paula DeCardo	Actor
Richard Denning	Actor
Greta Granstedt	Actor
John McCafferty	Policeman
Louise Seidel	Hat Check Girl
Archie Twitchell	Actor
Blanca Vischer	Flower Girl
Philip Warren	Secretary
Marion Weldon	Actor
Harriette Haddon	Cigarette Girl
Helaine Moler	Actor
Marie Burton	Actor
Lola Jensen	Actor
Yvonne Duval	Actor
Barbara Salisbury	Actor
Barbara Jackson	Demonstrator
Jack Hubbard	Actor
Max Barwyn	German waiter
Harlan Briggs	McTavish
Cecil Cunningham	Mrs. Morris
Dorothy Dayton	Girl
Jane Dewey	Clerk
Ellen Drew	Cashier
Jimmie Dundee	Bus driver
Fern Emmett	Mother
Julia Faye	Secretary
Joe Gray	Red
Roger Gray	Bathhouse
Kit Guard	Gangster
Oscar G. Hendrian	Lucky
Arthur Hoyt	Mr. Klein
Warren Hymer	Gimpy
Gwen Kenyon	Hat check girl
Joyce Mathews	Clerk
James McNamara	Big shot
Adrian Morris	Knucks
Carol Parker	Girl
Edward Pawley	Dutch
Jack Pennick	Gangster
Juanita Quigley	Girl
Willard Robertson	Dayton
Ruth Rogers	Salesgirl
Harry Tenbrook	Bartender
Cheryl Walker	Girl
Ernie S. Adams	Nick, the Waiter
Sheila D'Arcy	Perfume clerk

Technical Credits

Virginia van Upp

Fritz Lang	Director,Producer
Hans Dreier	Art Director
Ernst Fegte	Art Director
Ralph Freed	Songwriter
A.E. Freudeman	Set Decoration/Design
Frederick Hollander	Songwriter
Norman Krasna	Original Story
Charles B. Lang	Cinematographer
Boris Morros	Score Composer,Songwriter,Musical Direction/Supervision
Virginia van Upp	Screenwriter
Paul Weatherwax	Editor
Kurt Weill	Score Composer,Songwriter

Editorial Reviews

You and Me combines elements of the musical, romantic comedy, and crime film genres in a bizarre experiment that left audiences and critics at the time baffled. Not surprisingly, it was a spectacular failure at the box office and remains one of Fritz Lang's most ignored films. Neither a misunderstood masterpiece nor a misguided mess, this unclassifiable oddity comes across today as a thoroughly enjoyable, undeniably weird film made all the more charming by its eccentricities. It begins in a department store, with a montage of consumer items, cash registers, and money changing hands accompanied on the soundtrack by a Brechtian songspiel on the theme of capitalist exchange called "You Can Not Get Something for Nothing." The department store, it turns out, is staffed entirely by ex-cons who are now on the straight-and-narrow. Star George Raft -- well-known at the time for his gangster roles -- is first seen extolling the qualities of a "racket" he's trying to sell somebody on. The camera pulls back to reveal that he's a salesman in the sporting goods department, and the racket pushing is of the tennis variety. Raft's Joe discovers, just as he's about to quit his job and move to California, that he's in love with co-worker Helen (Sylvia Sidney), and they impulsively get married on the night that he's supposed to leave. Helen, however, is still on parole, and therefore forbidden to marry. Her attempts to keep both her secret from Joe and her marriage secret from her parole officer eventually sends Joe into a rage and back to his prison buddies (and fellow department store workers) who develop a scheme to rob their place of employment. Their plan is hatched during one of the film's strangest scenes, which involves a spontaneous rhythmic chant by the group that leads into a surreal flashback of the gang's prison days. It plays just like a musical number -- only without the music. You and Me is by far Lang's quirkiest movie. Besides the almost-musical numbers, it also includes a mathematical demonstration by Helen, complete with blackboard and chalk, explaining why crime doesn't pay. It's light touch makes it stand out in Lang's normally doom-laden oeuvre, and probably accounts for its often being dismissed as a misstep in his career. Like a lot of Hollywood movies that defy easy genre categorization, it tends to fall through the cracks. But Raft and Sidney's charming, droll performances, and the sheer good-natured weirdness of it all make it more than a mere curiosity.

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