Let's be realistic.

good back-story, and good acting

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

You And Me is an interesting experiment which falls way short in execution, but still is an interesting view.The closest American film I could compare it to is Al Jolson's Hallelujah I'm a Bum which utilized that same sing/talk rhythmic technique in many spots. Rodgers&Hart's efforts were not as butchered as Kurt Weill's were, my guess is that Paramount got cold feet and tried to salvage the film as they saw it by making it more of a typical gangster yarn.The story involves Harry Carey who as part of his payback to society hires freshly paroled convicts in his department store. The presumption is that he does screen them for employment. George Raft is one of those ex-convicts hired there and he meets and falls for Sylvia Sidney. She knows about him, but he doesn't know she is also on parole. Other prison pals working for Carey are, George E. Stone, Warren Hymer, Jack Pennick, Robert Cummings and Roscoe Karns.One very unregenerated crook, Barton MacLane, tries to get the whole crew of them to help knock over the store. What happens is the rest of the plot of the film.Perhaps You and Me might have been better done elsewhere. I'm thinking of Warner Brothers who specialized in these working class stories. Barton MacLane, George E. Stone, and Warren Hymer certainly all were part of Warner's gangster stable and George Raft moved to Warner Brothers himself a year after You and Me came out. Paramount just didn't go in for stories like these and the results show.Highlight of the film is Sylvia Sidney giving a lecture in economics about how crime doesn't pay. For heist guys like these when you deduct the expenses of a job, it really doesn't pay. Only the folks at the top really make out.By the way you might call what Kurt Weill tried to do musically and Fritz Lang brought to the screen as one long rap music video. You and Me may have been way too soon ahead of its time.Still it's probably worth a look if for no other reason than to see a joint collaborative effort of two expatriates from the Nazi regime, Kurt Weill and Fritz Lang.

This is one of the best film starring George Raft. Many character actors also show up at different parts of the films such as Greta Granstedt, Ellen Drew, George E. Stone, Bob Cummings, Barton MacLane, and others. Although the film gets a bit campy at times, this is first class entertainment. And Sylvia Sidney is a real peach !!!I am a great fan of the late director Fritz Lang. My very favorite film from him is the science fiction classic "Metropolis". A close second is "Frau I'm Monde". Other great films are "M", "Woman in the Window", and "1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse". This film with the music of Kurt Weill and the way the various characters are developed in the context of the modern workplace and the struggle to find happiness and thrive in a fast-paced society makes this one of Fritz Lang's best dramas.Dan Basinger

Fritz Lang had a reputation for disliking american actors and actresses, but he made three films with Sidney; sadly, because the reviews and receipts were lacking, it was their final film together. You And Me has some spectacular shots of machinery and late 30's office work that stands up even today, with a clear message about industrialization, the "modern" work-place, and american society in general. The film also features magnificent music and song from Kurt Weill. This may not be as riveting as Fury, or as depressing as You Only Live Once, but it is indeed, a masterpiece! And George Raft is just fine, too.

That doesn't fit with what most people think about Fritz Lang. He's generally a tragedian at this point in his career. You and Me is very similar in subject to his previous film, You Only Live Once, about an ex-con who can't get a break. Here, George Raft plays an ex-con working at a department store. Sylvia Sidney is his girlfriend. She also works at the store, and she has a secret: she's an ex-con, too. Raft has a bitter double standard and despises female ex-cons, so Sidney can't tell him the truth. Near the beginning, the film seems a bit clunky. The opening is kind of goofy, and, it being a Lang film, you might be confused about how you should take it. His other films aren't completely without comedy. Few films refuse to give us at least a couple of laughs along the way, perhaps close to the beginning. But You and Me just keeps getting sillier. I was finally won over by an extraordinarily stylistic sequence where a mob of criminals recall their days in jail with a musical number. After that enormously entertaining sequence had come and gone, I knew that anything could go. In fact, anything can go and does. The film ends up being one of the most original films ever made. No comedy is like this. You know, I don't want to swear to this, but You and Me is perhaps my favorite Fritz Lang film. I actually haven't seen any masterpiece (i.e., 10/10s) from him, including Metropolis and M. You and Me, like M and Fury, my other two favorites, gets a 9/10.