The Informer (1935)

Too much of everything

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This is John Ford's look at 1930's Ireland and a foolish man (Victor McLaghlan) who had no principles. He becomes tired when the IRA has expectations and leaves them. He sees his true love, a prostitute being approached by a John. She needs money to go to America, and because he is shiftless and self-centered, he turns in a former brother in the cause for twenty pounds. Once he has the money, he throws it away on drink. This is a sad film about the despair of certain Irish in a time of horrible events. McLaghlan is likable at times, but really does little that is noble.

. . . 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.

Watching this for the first time its surprising the plaudits and Oscar nominations this film received at the time.John Ford directs this maudlin character study with Victor McLaglen paying an ex IRA man, down on his luck looking to find passage to a new life in the USA for himself and his girlfriend. The the only way he can do this is to rat out his friend, an IRA man on the run.The reward money spirals his descend. He arouses suspicion because he now spends money here and there when he had been unemployed for months. He should had got the first boat out and now the rest of his ex comrades are suspicious and are after him.McLaglen's Gypo is a brute of a man, more brawn than brains. Money does not sit well with him and ultimately causes his downfall. Gypo is such as pathetic figure you hardly feel any sympathy for him especially as he betrayed a good friend of his.The production value's is a Hollywood studio lot passing for 1920s Dublin. Its a spirited, overwrought tale with a lot of scenery chewing and of course looks very dated.

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.