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.
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.