Laissez-nous vivre

In Henry Fonda's film career, this one is under the radar, and that's unfortunate, because it'a fantastic film that examines the system of law & order, and how it can screw up. There is a lot of grit and reality here, as often in real life, innocent people are convicted, and even executed. Often the state might have some reasonable suspicion that they may not be guilty, or may know their case isn't as strong as it should be, but they pursue and still get that verdict.

Eye witness testimony can often be a problem too... there have been cases where the science pointed in a different direction, but a jury went for an eye witness, and thus they were convicted. For example, how many people are in prison today for a rape they didn't commit? More than you might want to know.

That's what this movie makes you think about, as the system nearly leads them to their death. Henry Fonda may be a white man, but you could put any man or woman in this story and it still works, they can be black, or white, or any other race, and it still works.

Because this story reveals the truth, the system has flaws, the system is not perfect. Innocent people live out their lives in prison, or are executed. In 1939, the year this movie came out, there were 161 executions. How many of them were actually guilty? That question, is the very power of this film.

Maureen O'Sullivan and Henry Fonda star in "Let Us Live," a 1939 film also starring Ralph Bellamy. Fonda plays a cab driver engaged to O'Sullivan. He and the friend who is staying with him are arrested for a robbery/murder after being identified by witnesses in a lineup. They are convicted at trial and sentenced to death.

It falls to the investigating detective on the case (Bellamy) and O'Sullivan to work to clear the two men. Meanwhile, the two innocent men rot in jail with the clock ticking quickly toward execution.

This has to be the fastest trip to the gas chamber in history - we've all read the stories of people languishing on death row for 18 years. It seems like these guys only had a couple of weeks before their execution date.

The idea behind this film, though, is solid: The police believe they have the perpetrators, the DA doesn't want anything rocking the boat (even a similar robbery while the two men were in prison), and refuses to stay the executions.

I can never get over how much Jane Fonda looks like her dad when I see Fonda in early films. He gives an excellent performance here, that of a bitter, angry man convicted of something he didn't do. I always felt that Fonda as an actor became more internalized as he aged - I prefer the more emotional performances of his. O'Sullivan is energetic and determined as his fiancée, and Bellamy is good in the supporting role.

A dark, sobering film about the dangers of rushing to judgment.

Depression Era flick based on true story, but scaled down due to political pressure on Columbia studio (IMDB). O'Sullivan and Fonda are an all-American couple looking to marry. But then Fonda's mistakenly identified as one of three robber-killers, and sentenced to death. However, the deeply committed O'Sullivan refuses to give up and eventually enlists cop Bellamy to help. So, can they prove Fonda's innocence before his execution date.

The subtext pits "little people" like the leads against an unfeeling city bureaucracy more concerned with procedure than justice. Then too, eye-witness testimony is shown as faulty, along with miles of inflexible red-tape. The plight of ordinary folks is further suggested by the dumping of edible food the hungry need in order to drive up wholesale market prices, a not uncommon practice of the time. On the other hand, reference is made to FHA home loans as part of the New Deal's effort to ameliorate conditions. Fonda and O'Sullivan had planned their future around such a home loan. Much of this subtext, I believe, reflects common feelings of the time.

Acting-wise, O'Sullivan gets to run a gamut of emotions from dreamy eyed lover to wild-eyed desperation. That dreamy eyed first part where the couple plans their conventional future pulls us effectively into their later plight. Note, however, that the countdown to execution is not exploited in the fashion of similar crime films. The one real stretch is cop Bellamy risking his career by taking up O'Sullivan's cause. It does however show the potential feeling side to an impersonal bureaucracy, which probably helped assuage Columbia's censorship battle with Massachusetts, the locale of the actual occurrence.

Despite the obscurity, it's an interesting little film (68-minutes) that makes me wonder what the intended version would have been like.

This is a dark tale about two likable people. Well, three, if we count Ralph Bellamy: He is tossed at us in medias res and is not convincing as a police lieutenant.

The young lovers are Maureen O'Sullivan and Henry Fonda. He drives a cab. She works in a restaurant. He wants them to marry and is planning to buy a cab and maybe a few, to start a fleet.

Two decades before he starred in the Hitchcock film of this name, though, he is the wrong man. Not for the adoring (and lovely) O' Sullivan. No, he is erroneously arrested for a robbery -- and falsely identified by a pack of jackals who'd been at the crime scene.

One thing I noticed is the response O'Sullivan has when he takes her to look at some nice little homes. She's thrilled and grateful. It's amusing to contrast this to the scornful way the Audrey Totter character acts when Richard Basehart, her unwisely adoring husband in "Tension," takes her to see a little house in the suburbs he's picked out for them.

Lucien Ballard was a marvelous cinematographer -- here and always. This movie has the feel of German Expressionism, which includes a Weill-like musical score. But I'm not sure how much of the Expressionism is intended and how much is a matter of budget: For example, there are several scenes in which snow falls. The snow has a highly unreal look. It really LOOKS like soap flakes. And in an early scene when O'Sullivan humors a drunk at the restaurant where she works, the other diners laugh in the oddest way: We're meant to feel they take it in a goodhearted manner. But it sounds for all the world like a laugh track or the audience at a vaudeville show.

The change in Fonda is very impressive. I really empathized with his feeling at the start that everything is going his way; that the world is a wonderful place to be. If this were a musical comedy, a song to that effect would have followed. But Fonda didn't make musicals. It's pretty clear that he's going to be disabused of this notion; I've been there too. And he is indeed.

Cab driver Brick Tennant (Henry Fonda) is a righteous man. He plans to marry his lovely waitress Mary Roberts (Maureen O'Sullivan). His friend Joe Linden is down on his luck and Brick gives him a job driving his newly purchased cab. A criminal gang uses a cab to rob a cinema. A man is killed. The police round up the cab drivers around town. Brick and Joe get mistakenly picked in a lineup. Mary is Brick's alibi but the police doesn't believe her. The men are convicted with only the eye witnesses' testimonies despite Brick's faith in the system. Mary vows to find the real robbers and exonerate her beloved.

This is based on a story about a real trial. It's actually a very harrow tale of the wrongly convicted. It may come off as melodramatic especially with the coincidences needed to get to a happy ending. Some of it is written melodramatically. Holding it together is Henry Fonda's boy scout nature and Maureen O'Sullivan relentless conviction. The two Hollywood legends add the needed gravitas to the pulpy material. It's a little over an hour. It's a short theatrical movie. It's a B-movie but it has the power of an A-movie.