"You and me" begins a bit like "You only live once".It's the problem of reintegration of ex-cons .The first scene when Sylvia Sydney refuses to become an informer speaks volumes about her own past -which anyway would remain rather vague-.George Raft (miscast ;he is better in true films noirs) is California dreamin' but he chooses to stay to marry Sydney -who is not allowed to,cause she's still on parole,but he does not know it.Coming after "You only live once" and "fury" this is a rather disappointing work by highly talented Fritz Lang.There are only,IMHO,two good moments in the whole movie: the sequence when the ex-cons remember their time in jail,an unusually inventive way of introducing a flashback;then Sydney,in the department store,proving arithmetically (you read well) that crime does not pay.It doesn't for sure.

What a fascinating little film, on a variety of levels. There is an expressionism that would have made Elmer Rice proud as well as a distinctly European approach. It feels as if it could be either a German product or from much earlier in the '30s when Hollywood was still in an experimental phase of self-discovery. There is nothing quite like it out there.This is pure Fritz Lang, coupled perfectly with Charles Lang Jr.'s photography, with Kurt Weill's music jumping in abruptly to make you catch your breath. The blend of comedy and drama is smooth.The plot line is familiar to this cast. A businessman makes a point of hiring parolees at his department store, where some are clearly having trouble adjusting. Joe has abided by the strict demands of his parole and his time is at last up, freeing him to marry Helen. But she has never told him that she too is an ex-con and still has several months of parole to serve. She has to tell lie upon lie to cover up the secret. Meanwhile, his old gang is nipping at him to join up again in another heist scheme.Not for the last time, the film exposes the difficulties of staying straight, difficulties arising both from the system itself as well as peer pressure.Some plot points are similar to Pick-up, a George Raft-Sylvia Sidney film of a few years earlier, but this story is much stronger. At this time Raft was in the middle of a five-year era when he was at his best - relaxed and in character, willingly joining in the sometimes unusual proceedings. Sidney is beautifully sympathetic as a criminal, always hoping two wrongs will make a right. What a one-of-a-kind screen presence she was. Her work with Raft always seems like two pals getting together again. That makes the wedding night sequence and the around-the-world honeymoon all the more entertaining.The rest of the cast, from wonderful Harry Carey to cynical Roscoe Karns, turns in strong, imaginative performances. As odd as some moments might be, everyone is clearly "in on" Lang's vision.There is a great scene of the gang reminiscing about their prison days that displays that vision full force. This is what the film is all about.

Often Lang is able to interject his paranoid vision of the world -- with strange camera angles, romantic intrigues and suspicions, and farce. But just as frequently one feels the prudishness of thirties' Hollywood, forcing love, mercy, and optimism to rise implausibly from the traps the characters set for themselves. By turns subversive and banal. Worth seeing.

As a fan of both Sylvia Sidney and Kurt Weill, I have wanted to see this film ever since I read Leonard Maltin's description of it. It is apparently not available for home viewing, so Heaven bless the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which screened 'You and Me' a couple of weeks ago as part of its Kurt Weill centennial celebration (which continues as I write this).According to an edition of Stagebill that was made available to audiences at the screening, Weill composed 23 music cues for 'You and Me,' but the Paramount brass did not care for his work and used only nine of them. (This was typical of Weill's experience in Hollywood.) That's a genuine tragedy, and there's no question that it does diminish the film. 'You and Me' still rates a 10 in my book, however, for the outstanding performances from the entire cast and its anti-naturalistic approach to gritty, "realist" subject matter.The line between anti-naturalism and implausibility is a fine one, and the film crosses that line during its last 15 minutes or so. Still, I wonder if audiences in 1938 didn't understand that ending as a joke. They may have been more sophisticated than we are today.In any case, if you get a chance to see this film, grab it.