The Informer (1935)

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.

. . . and it's seldom been proved to be more true than here during THE INFORMER, when Witch Hunter Joe "Mad Dog" McCarthy's future star Stool Pigeon--INFORMER director John Ford--lays out his prospective back-stabbing perfidy for the World to see. This exercise in Preemptive Confession "earned" Ford the first of an unmatched four directorial Oscars, which stands as one of the best proofs for Satan's existence: How can you sell your Soul to the Devil, if He doesn't exist? Just as all Normal Americans realize that White House Resident-Elect Rump cried crocodile tears sobbing about "Rigged Elections," while his Breitbart Boys were doing exactly that, the yellow-bellied Rat Fink Ford offers just one more example that Money Talks in Hollywood, and most Oscars are doled out in Rigged Elections to individuals whose sympathies lie with the Fat Cat One Per Center Elites, and NOT Joe Blue Collar Union Label Average American. Ask yourself, how many Oscars did director William Wellman's masterpiece HEROES FOR SALE win? Hell will have to freeze over for the Greats such as Wellman to gain as much respect in our Dumbed-Down easily bamboozled America as thoughtless folks bestow on Fraudsters like Ford.

The Informer may have gathered a little rust over the years with some arch performances and ill fitting slapstick but the pointed theme of guilt and betrayal still resonates with passion and power. Given that a calmer but divided Ireland exists the roots and cause of the still active IRA remains fresh in memory to this day . IRA washout Gypo Nolan is broke and desperate. Quidless and without means of income he falls prey to the lure of turning in his former comrade and still best friend Frankie McPhilips (Wallace Ford) for the reward so he and his girl who has turned to the streets for work can start anew in America. Instead it turns into a drunken, dark night of the soul for Gypo.There is not an ounce of daylight in The Informer as John Ford creates a stifling and suffocating ambiance of fog and shadow in the dimly lit streets of Dublin not only as a metaphor for Gypo's logic but the state of Ireland as a whole. Cinematographer Joseph August does a powerful job of bringing mood to Ford's claustrophobic compositions in ghostly shadows and silhouette while Fritz Steiner's score accents the melancholy.The rock at the center of The Informer however is the purposely overbearing performance of Victor McLaglen. One note actor that he tended to be McLaglen is pitch perfect as the blustery, bombastic dim witted bully prone to sweeping mood swings of blotto euphoria and violent paranoia. One moment your furious with him, the next in sympathy. All consuming as his character is in the film there also remains enough room for little gems from JJ Kerrigan as a hanger on and one tension breaking scene by Donald Meek as an accused informer who in spite of his grave situation succumbs hilariously to his Irish gift of gab.Ford displays a touch of heavy handedness with a wanted poster leitmotif and he does allow his actors to get a little strident at times but overall The Informer captures the grinding sense of desperation of a people caught in the fog of oppression as well as present the sodden Gypo's lurching road to redemption with a conviction that still retains much of its power seventy years later.

Victor McLaglen's performance is one of the finest in film history.I think we can all feel for "Gypo" because we've all struggled with what is right and what isn't and been wrong. This was one of the first art-house pictures to be released by a major American movie studio (RKO Radio Pictures).Joseph H. August's cinematography is at its very best here. However, August's stunning portion was mostly overlooked; he didn't receive the Oscar nomination he rightly deserved.This is a psychological drama, with thought, philosophy, sadness, all conveyed with as little words as possible.