THE INFORMER

When "The Informer" first appeared in 1935 it was hailed as a masterpiece and for many years was even thought of as one of the greatest films ever made. It won its director, John Ford, the first of his record-breaking four Best Director Oscars as well as a Best Actor nod for its star Victor McLaglen and there's no denying that at times it does touch greatness. The long, wordless opening is so incredibly good you wish the whole film were silent, (it's superbly shot by Joseph August in the style of the German Expressionists).

It's set in Dublin in 1920 at the time of the Black-and-Tans and the Irish 'Troubles' and it tells how Gypo Nolan, (McLaglen in a remarkably raw performance), betrays his friend Frankie McPhillips, ( a very good Wallace Ford), for £20 and is then wracked with guilt, Where it falls down is in the miscasting of Preston Foster as the IRA commandant and Margot Grahame as Gypo's girl. Grahame has the face of a soiled Madonna but neither she nor Foster could really act and the drag the film down. So, too, do the many scenes of Gypo going on a spending spree with the blood money he's earned which allows Ford to indulge in too many stage Oirishisms. But every now and then it lifts its head above the parapet and overall it's a powerful, elemental piece of work, maybe not the masterpiece it was first thought to be but an absolutely essential part of the Ford canon nevertheless and a key American movie of the thirties.