When three-time loser Eddie Taylor (Henry Fonda) is about to be released from prison, his lawyer assures the warden that Eddie will make good. Eddie adds skeptically, "I will-if they let me." Like many of Lang's films, You Only Live Once depicts a struggle between individual will and socially determined destiny; atypically for the director, it's also a moving and sincere love story. This has often been cited as the original lovers-on-the-run movie. But the relationship between edgy, fragile Eddie and sad-eyed Jo (Sylvia Sidney) feels less like amour fou à la Bonnie and Clyde than like a tragic, transcendent partnership borrowed from a Frank Borzage melodrama. Harrowing scenes of prison and pursuit are rendered in a starkly expressive visual style; but the bleak atmosphere ultimately gives way to pastoral lyricism, suggesting a possibility of spiritual if not social redemption. Asked about the ending, Lang said, "You may laugh, but don't forget, I was born a Catholic."-Juliet Clark