IMDb RATING
7.2/10
7.8K
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The public defender's secretary and an ex-convict get married and try to make a life together, but a series of disasters sends their lives spiraling out of control.The public defender's secretary and an ex-convict get married and try to make a life together, but a series of disasters sends their lives spiraling out of control.The public defender's secretary and an ex-convict get married and try to make a life together, but a series of disasters sends their lives spiraling out of control.
Charles 'Chic' Sale
- Ethan
- (as Chic Sale)
Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams
- Rogers
- (as Guinn Williams)
Earl Askam
- Corridor Guard
- (uncredited)
Hooper Atchley
- Teletype Operator
- (uncredited)
Allen Black
- Baby Taylor
- (uncredited)
Stanley Blystone
- Rafferty - Guard
- (uncredited)
Ward Bond
- Casey - Guard
- (uncredited)
Wade Boteler
- Pat - Policeman with Package
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaWhile his previous film Fury (1936) -- his first American film -- had gone down well with critics, the Hollywood brass were unsure what to make of Fritz Lang and his politicized films. To the rescue came his Fury star Sylvia Sidney, who loved working with him and urged her producer Walter Wanger to consider him for the directing job on this film. Ironically, Lang gained a reputation on this film for being difficult to work with, resulting in his not working for another 18 months.
- GoofsAt about the 30 minute mark, Eddie is looking out the window of the flophouse with a cigarette between the fingers of his right hand. A man enters, telling him that there's a phone call for him. Eddie flicks the cigarette out the window, but the next shot shows him running down the stairs with it still between the fingers of his right hand where it remains for the entire phone conversation until he drops it to the floor.
- Quotes
Joan Graham: Anywhere's our home. On the road. Out there on a cold star. Anywhere's our home.
- ConnectionsEdited into Dillinger (1945)
Featured review
This is quite a well known film with Henry Fonda playing three time loser Eddie Taylor. Much of the plot is improbable, indeed the prison bust-out is Fantasy Island stuff because even in the 1930s security for a man under sentence of death in the United States was an order of magnitude stronger than depicted here, but this is a film that was clearly produced as a social document as much as for entertainment.
Eddie Taylor is a most unappealing character, one whom even an actor of Fonda's stature cannot inject with empathy, added to which if he'd had so much as a shred of decency he would never have dragged down his girl with him, would probably not have married her in the first place. Nevertheless, the question remains, how does society deal with even the repentant habitual criminal? Seventy and more years on, little if anything has been done to address that problem, certainly in America with its enormous prison population and the continued destruction of unskilled jobs which reduce almost to nothing the prospects of the underclass – criminal or otherwise – of making an honest living.
Eddie Taylor is a most unappealing character, one whom even an actor of Fonda's stature cannot inject with empathy, added to which if he'd had so much as a shred of decency he would never have dragged down his girl with him, would probably not have married her in the first place. Nevertheless, the question remains, how does society deal with even the repentant habitual criminal? Seventy and more years on, little if anything has been done to address that problem, certainly in America with its enormous prison population and the continued destruction of unskilled jobs which reduce almost to nothing the prospects of the underclass – criminal or otherwise – of making an honest living.
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Three Time Loser
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $575,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 26 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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