The Informer (1935) Film Review

The Informer (1935)  Director: John Ford

★★★★☆

A great psychological thriller about the paranoid betrayal of a killer, in The Informer we follow a man through the foggy, noir-like streets of Dublin, Ireland during the Irish War of Independence in the 1920s, based on the novel of the same name by Liam O’Flaherty. The Informer seems to be regarded as one of the first great films of John Ford, and it features many nods to the earlier German Expressionist movement of the silent era. The Informer was one of the biggest films of 1935. It was nominated for 8 Academy Awards and won several, including Best Actor (Victor McLaglen, a former boxer turned actor), Best Director (John Ford, one of his four Best Director wins), Best Writing Screenplay (Dudley Nichols), and Best Score (Max Steiner).

It tells the story of Gypo Nolan, a dim-witted and recent ex-IRA member, who is distraught and impoverished after he catches street girlfriend trying to pick up a John on the streets for money. She complains that she does not have enough to pay for the trip to America to start over. All she needs is 10 pounds. Gypo later runs into his friend, Frankie McPhillip, a known and wanted murderer. Frankie is on his way home to visit, as he is tired of living in hiding. Gypo decides to turn him into the police for 20 pounds, enough so both he and his girlfriend can go to America. The police close in on Frankie and kill him in a gunfight. Eventually the other IRA members find out it was Gypo who was the informant, and they take him to their court and imprison him, but Gypo escapes through a hole and is shot but he goes to beg for forgiveness to Frankie’s mother in a church. When she forgives him, Gypo dies at peace on the floor of the church. Thus ends this wonderfully dark tale of Ireland from the great John Ford garnering him his first Academy Award for Best Director.

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Credits:

• Director: John Ford
• Screenplay by: Dudley Nichols
• Based on: The Informer by Liam O’Flaherty
• Produced by: John Ford
• Starring:
  • Victor McLaglen…..”Gypo” Nolan
    • Heather Angel…..Mary McPhillip
    • Preston Foster…..Dan Gallagher
    • Margot Grahame…..Katie Madden
    • Wallace Ford…..Frankie McPhillip
    • Una O’Connor…..Mrs. McPhillip
• Cinematography: Joseph H. August
• Edited by: George Hively
• Music by: Max Steiner
• Production Company: RKO Radio Pictures