Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

You Only Live Once Blu-ray Movie Review

YOLO, decades before #YOLO.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 24, 2017

I’ve shared in another review how my often impudent sense of humor made me tell my wife, then my girlfriend, that the 1937 Alexander Korda epic Elephant Boy was a prequel to The Elephant Man, when she happened upon an old VHS copy of the Sabu spectacular and asked me what it was about. Several decades of married life has taught us both a thing or two, so there was no mention of You Only Live Once being a prequel to You Only Live Twice when it showed up and was added to my review queue. There may in fact be another 1967 film aside from that well remembered Bond opus that some viewers may be thinking of as they wend their way through this saga of star-crossed criminal lovers, at least one of whom has a shadowy past, and that film would be Arthur Penn’s iconic Bonnie and Clyde. Kind of ironically, another Henry Fonda film, the underappreciated Alfred Hitchcock outing The Wrong Man, may spring to mind for some viewers since Fonda’s character in You Only Live Once, a hapless type named Eddie Taylor, is the victim of a false accusation, much like the character portrayed in The Wrong Man. You Only Live Once was only the second film Fritz Lang directed after coming to the United States, and it bears a typically Langian dour outlook on the vagaries of life and fate.

There are a number of famous “three strikes and you’re out” laws in various states around our nation, but in the formulation of You Only Live Once, criminals evidently get a fourth “at bat”, at least as evidenced by Eddie’s past, which in fact includes three previous arrests and incarcerations. He’s about to get out of stir for the third time courtesy of some hard work on the part of his public defender Stephen Whitney (Barton Maclane). In one those conveniences that may strike some viewers as too convenient, Whitney’s secretary, Jo Graham (Sylvia Sidney), is Eddie’s main squeeze. With a beautiful woman waiting for him on the outside, and with Whitney’s arranging of a job at a trucking company also waiting for him, Eddie pledges to go straight, and to “never return to this hotel” (as he puts it).

While this was still relatively early in Fonda’s film career, it’s interesting to see Lang cast him as a putative ne’er-do-well with a wandering moral compass, something that’s certainly miles away from more noble characterizations evinced by the actor in such legendary films as The Grapes of Wrath. But in fact my hunch is Lang perceived Fonda’s inherent nobility, even if it hadn’t been demonstrated cinematically all that much by 1937, and he uses that seemingly inherent quality of decency to make Eddie a rather likable character, despite his obvious shortcomings. Once fate starts closing in on Eddie like a veritable reboot of the Book of Job, the “strong center” that Fonda always displays on screen becomes all the more effective.

Eddie does in fact attempt to live the straight and narrow life when he gets out, marrying Jo and going to work dutifully, though (in another interesting use of Fonda’s typically “cool and collected” persona) some anger outbursts ultimately put an end to his employment. Even when temptation intervenes, he holds fast, but in a typically Langian conceit, the world seems out to get Eddie, and he’s soon ensnared in a botched robbery which he in fact had absolutely nothing to do with. There’s circumstantial evidence which seems to implicate Eddie, and despite his denials and with his troubled past providing lots of newsprint for the tabloid journals of the day, Eddie is soon enough consigned back to that “hotel” he vowed never to visit again, this time with a death sentence as his figurative cellmate.

Things go from bad to worse in ways that won’t be fully detailed here, other than to say that Eddie has the chance for a reprieve, against all odds, but again fate intervenes, this time in terms of Eddie’s own disbelief and impatience. That leads to a prison break that ultimately puts Eddie and Jo on the lam and which in fact sucks Jo into Eddie’s criminal activities, if unwillingly (and kind of unavoidably, given the context of their togetherness). The final third of You Only Live Once is increasingly tragic, and it’s notable that this 1937 Hollywood production doesn’t exactly offer a “happily ever after” for its focal characters, in yet another example of how Lang subverts popular expectations.

There’s an inherent melancholy to this film which may account for its longstanding reputation as a progenitor of film noir. Lang’s stylistic flourishes are fully on display, with a number of inventive framings (the film was lensed by the legendary Leon Shamroy). Fonda and Sidney have two signature roles in Eddie and Jo, and their tragic romance generates some pretty significant angst as things become more and more troubled. The supporting cast is filled to the brim with those great character performers of the 1930s, with good turns by Jean Dixon as Jo’s sister Bonnie (I suspect not a coincidental name choice) and Jerome Cowan as a cowardly prison doctor. The film may have surprising emotional impact even for jaded younger viewers, one indication of the enduring artistry of Fritz Lang and the excellent cast he assembled for this outing.

You Only Live Once Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

You Only Live Once is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of ClassicFlix with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. The restoration comparison included on this Blu-ray as a supplement mentions hundreds of hours of work done on a 35mm element provided by the British Film Institute, so I am assuming this is a "new, improved" restoration that's different from the one that appeared on some international Blu-rays several years ago. The results here are generally excellent, and in fact when watching the restoration comparison and seeing some of the damage the original elements displayed, some may term it as near miraculous. The original version has pretty anemic contrast and pretty recurrent damage in the form of scratches and dirt, along with warped frames and the like. Virtually all of these anomalies have been ameliorated if not outright eliminated in this restoration. There are still recurrent (small) signs of age related wear and tear, and the overall appearance strikes me as just a tad dark, but the improvement is notable. Things still have a somewhat "dupey" look, with at times pretty heavy grain, but the general appearance is organic and natural looking, though detail levels are (understandably) nowhere near modern levels. Without having seen the restoration demonstration, I might have graded this closer to 3.5, but after having seen some of the issues that have been dealt with, I'm rewarding ClassicFlix with a bit of encouragement.

You Only Live Once Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

You Only Live Once features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track which doesn't have the luster of the video presentation, but which doesn't offer anything overly problematic. The entire track has the typically boxy and occasionally tinny sound of its era's recording technologies, and as a result some of the sound effects don't resonate with any particular force. Dialogue makes it through the age related gauntlet relatively fine, though there's occasional clipping in the upper registers.

You Only Live Once Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Author and Film Historian and Jeremy Arnold


• Restoration Comparison (1080p; 5:12)

You Only Live Once Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

For my money, this is the best release yet from ClassicFlix. The video restoration is largely quite impressive, and the commentary by Jeremy Arnold is also enjoyable and informative. The film itself is notable from any number of angles and should certainly appeal to cineastes with a taste for Lang or the film's iconic stars. Highly recommended.