Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Konterr Brilliant and touching

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

l_rawjalaurence John Ford was a lifetime supporter of Irish Republicanism. THE INFORMER is one of his major works on the subject, where he analyses the nature of the movement: are its supporters loyal to themselves, their mates, or to the cause?Gypo Nolan (Victor McLaglen) is a loyal supporter of Republicanism, working with IRA man Frankie McPhilip (Wallace Ford): Frankie is the brains, Gypo the brawn. Things take a turn for the worse with the increased involvement of the Black-and-Tans, the British police force, and Gypo decides to shop Frankie out of self-preservation and a desire for money. This is a profoundly stupid decision with inevitable consequences, but one that director Ford implies is inevitable, in light of Gypo's lack of money. We are encouraged to sympathize with him, as he takes the reward money and spends it mostly on a night of pleasure, touring the pubs of Dublin and acquiring fair-weather friends who are only to willing to spend it for him. Accompanied by professional hanger-on Terry (J. M. Kerrigan), Gypo beats up anyone he dislikes, and reveals a sentimental love for romantic songs.The action is relentlessly studio-bound, but Ford creates atmosphere through oblique shots and plenty of smoke. Dublin, as represented in this film, is a narrow city full of small streets and alleys, where your enemy could be lying in wait at any time. Once the IRA have discovered who the informer is, Gypo doesn't have a chance.However Ford doesn't blame Gypo, as he has Frankie's widow Mary (Heather Angel), and girlfriend Katie Madden (Margot Grahame) both claiming that it was not his fault. during a time of severe economic hardship. Gypo is allowed to die in church, looking up at the image of God as he falls, signifying redemption.The filming is straightforward, centering mostly on the characters. McLaglen is memorable as the ursuline Gypo - an imposing figure lacking the expression to ensure his continued safety. He is ideally complemented by Kerrigan as Terry, an F. J. McCormick-like figure full of Irish clichés but with a perpetual eye on the main chance.

JohnHowardReid Director: JOHN FORD. Screenplay: Dudley Nichols. Based on the 1925 novel by Liam O'Flaherty. Photography: Joseph August. Film editor: George Hively. Music: Max Steiner. Art directors: Van Nest Polglase, Charles Kirk. Set decorator: Julia Heron. Costumes: Walter Plunkett. Make-up: Robert J. Schiffer. Music orchestrations: Maurice DePackh, Bernard Kaun. Special effects: Harry Redmond. Sound editor: Robert Wise. Sound recording: Hugh McDowell, Jr. RCA Sound System. Associate producer: Cliff Reid.Copyright 24 May 1935 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall 9 May 1935 (ran one week). U.S. release: 1 May 1935. U.K. release: October 1935. Australian release: 21 August 1935. 10 reels. 91 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Dublin, 1922. Irishman betrays a rebel to the police for the reward money.NOTES: Academy Award, Best Actor, Victor McLaglen (defeating a trio of nominees from Mutiny on the Bounty: Clark Gable, Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone).Academy Award, Directing, John Ford (defeating Henry Hathaway for Lives of a Bengal Lancer, and Frank Lloyd for Mutiny on the Bounty). Academy Award, Screenplay, Dudley Nichols (defeating Lives of a Bengal Lancer and Mutiny on the Bounty).Academy Award, Best Music Score, Max Steiner (defeating Herbert Stothart's Mutiny on the Bounty, and Ernst Toch's Peter Ibbetson). Also nominated for Best Picture (Mutiny on the Bounty), and Film Editing (A Midsummer Night's Dream).Best Motion Picture of 1935 — New York Film Critics. Best Direction, John Ford — New York Film Critics. Number 3 (after David Copperfield and Lives of a Bengal Lancer) on the Film Daily annual poll of U.S. film critics.Negative cost: $243,000. (Ford shot the entire film in 17 days).Re-make of a 1929 British silent starring Lars Hansen as Gypo, Warwick Ward as Dan Gallagher, and Lya de Putti as Katie Fox (Gypo's mistress with whom he wrongly suspects Frankie McPhillip is having an affair. This is the reason Gypo betrays Frankie to the police). The film, scripted by Benn W. Levy and Rolfe E. Vanlo, was directed by Arthur Robinson.Re-made in 1968 by director Jules Dassin as Uptight!COMMENT: Unfortunately, "The Informer" doesn't stand up terribly well. August's shadowy photography still looks marvelous, but we are less impressed by the over-use of symbolism (count up how many times we see the "Frankie McPhillip Wanted for Murder" poster superimposed over the Twenty Pounds), and the over-talkative, getting-no-place circular dialogue — especially when that dialogue is delivered by amateurish players like the stolidly stiff Preston Foster and the hammy Victor McLaglen (pronounced "mack-lock-len"). The opening scenes are saved by August's appealingly atmospheric photography and Ford's intuitive sense of drama and vibrant mise en scene. Fortunately, that charismatic actor, J. M. Kerrigan, is on hand for the middle portion of the film. But try as they might, neither Ford nor August can save the last third of the picture from Nichols' jejeune dialogue and McLaglen's excesses. Steiner's score too is at its most forceful in the first half and tends to overly "Mickey Mouse" the climax.

tostinati Like many people here, I started out finding my patience being tried by this film. By the end, I actually shed a few tears.It seems to be in the nature of most old films to drag for 7/8th length and then catch fire right at the end. Older film-goers learned to bide their time patiently through the slow parts, calm in the knowledge that the big payoff is on the way. But that isn't quite accurate. You see, to earlier audiences, what are to us the "slow parts" were the main body of the story. They watched and found anecdotal and thematic interest there. Modern audiences, post-Spielberg, are in a constant state of waiting to be hit with a small climax every two minutes when they see older films. It's the inflation problem of modern movies. Well, that isn't going to happen. It is not necessary to apologize for these films; it is simply that you have to adjust your expectations and personal rhythm when you watch them. At this point, the difference between Avatar and The Informer is like the difference between Euripides and a traveling production of Rent. Think about it for a minute or two. Not to strain at the obvious, but Euripides still deserves a hearing.The "exciting part", for most modern viewers, begins with the IRA tribunal scene and escalates to the final couple of minutes, which, if you are at all on board or even paying attention by that time, will tear your heart out. It's not some high-tone universal abstract plea for forgiveness; it's a plea from one dimwit, and those who feel sorry for the big lummox, for a little mercy. It's that personal, and that embarrassingly naked an appeal. For after being mad at Gypo, irritated at him, thinking this is the dumbest character of all time, you finally find yourself won over by the scene of Gypo's erstwhile girlfriend pleading to another woman to talk her man into going easy on him. The film may be sentimental, but the sentimentality is not cheap as some here have charged. There's a matter of life and death that plays out here, and as long as you take the proposition of one life to a customer seriously, it's sentimentality wrung out of the most serious stuff.8 of 10. And the fault for it not being 10 of 10 is my own and in some measure yours, if you are reading this. We have all asked for more, ever more, faster, ever faster until we cannot put ourselves in 1935 -- just yesterday, really -- as easily as we should be able.

barbb1953 Maybe it's because I looked up the history of the Irish troubles in the 1920s and then the sad Civil War that engulfed the Free State after the signing of the treaty before watching this movie. Anyway, the sudden turn at the end brought tears to my eyes.Victor McLaglen isn't as famous today as he was back then, and he should be better remembered. In this film, I think he's playing himself as he would have been without his innate talent and brains. For example, the scenes where his buddy in the crowd is challenging men to fight with him is probably quite reminiscent of what McLaglen actually did in earlier years, when he was a world-class bare-knuckles boxer. John Ford is partly responsible for that; the IMDb trivia section shows how he tricked McLaglen into getting a really bad hangover for the trial scene. This director also could bring out a lot in his actors, even without such tricks. Mostly, though, McLaglen is firmly in control, especially when his character is almost totally blotto (which is difficult for an actor to do believably), and he also plays Gypo Nolan with a depth and emotional power that is surprising for someone who has only seen McLaglen later in his career, in "The Quiet Man." I especially like the contrast between this role as an IRA man and the much more obviously controlled performance he gave as the IRA man Denis Hogan in "Hangman's House." In "The Quiet Man," of course, McLaglen is a country squire at odds with the local IRA. Victor McLaglen was big and bully, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, but he was a good actor, too, and capable of wide range and fine nuances of performance that we just wouldn't expect of a such a man today. It's a rather sad comment on our own set of expectations and prejudices.Ford, as usual, packs a lot into a little bit of film. All the characters are excellent (though the Commandant's mostly American accent is distracting) -- NOTE: There be spoilers ahead! -- Knowing that Gypo once drew the short straw and was ordered to kill a man but let him talk his way out of it instead, we really empathize with the man who draws the short straw for executing Gypo, and the humanity he shows, most notably when they go to take Gypo in Mary's room. John Ford really shows his genius here, taking what could have been a gruesome and yet expected outcome to the whole story and instead using it to set up a totally unexpected and yet very satisfying ending that makes us think not just of Gypo and the other characters, but of poor Ireland during that tortured time.