You And Me

VHS, 90 minutes, MCA / UNIVERSAL

Director Fritz Lang's third American film - and his third in a row with Sylvia Sidney - is one of his most fascinating and off-beat. Projecting the message that "crime doesn't pay," it concerns a group of ex-cons working in a department store whose owner (Harry Carey) believes in rehabilitation. Two of them, Helen and Joe (Sylvia Sydney and George Raft) fill in love an marry. However, Helen's failure to tell Joe she's served time makes him leave her when he finds out. He rejoins the mob and pressures a group of the store's parolees to rob it. It remains for Helen to find a way to set things straight. Lang says he "wanted to make a picture that teaches something in an entertaining way, with songs." ("Fritz Lang In America" by Peter Bogdanovich). Basically a romantic crime story, the film is laced with both comedy and social commentary. Its montages and choral sequences marry Lang's German expressionist technique to Kurt Weill's music, resulting in exciting visuals, rhythmic delights - and cinematic joy.