peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2025 01 27 TheInformer

The Informer (1935)

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A Victor McLaglen jag from Gunga Din. He got his Oscar for leading this. A somewhat early John Ford directorial effort. He also got Oscared. Adapted by Dudley Nichols (declined his Oscar) from a story by Liam O'Flaherty. The music also got Oscared.

The story is simple and told linearly in a tiresome, twistless manner. It's 1922 in Dublin. Poverty is rife, the revolution is incomplete, America beckons and all a bloke needs is 20 pounds to get there with the squeeze of his life. McLaglen plays Gypo Nolan as a bull of a man, absent any brains. Somehow forgiveness is not only possible but inevitable, even for Judas but not for the Black-and-Tans.

Andre Sennwald at the New York Times.