Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Lancoor A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Martha Wilcox It's always good watching Maureen O'Sullivan before she went on to act in the 'Tarzan' films, and it is nice seeing her act alongside of Henry Fonda. It would've been good to see her in a film with Cary Grant. This film has shades of 'The Wrong Man' which Fonda would do seventeen years later with Hitchcock, but 'The Wrong Man' is the better film. Unfortunately, I don't think this is a good film even though it has a good cast. Whereas 'The Wrong Man' was cinematic, this film is not. Fonda didn't need to scream and shout in 'The Wrong Man' because you knew exactly what he was feeling through the music and Robert Burks' cinematography. Here, Fonda has to scream and shout to let you know what he is feeling. That's not cinema. That's theatre.

marcslope Very dark early-noir about a man wrongly convicted of murder (Fonda, rather overdoing the nice-normal-guy routine at the start) and sent to Death Row. The whole premise is a little contrived, and it's hard to believe that so many witnesses would band together and falsely identify him. The plot machinery that clears him--involving his girlfriend, Maureen O'Sullivan, and an honest cop who quit the force, Ralph Bellamy--stretches the outer limits of credibility, too. But this is an interesting, strange little B, way more cynical and damning of the system than most studio product of the time. It convincingly argues that the law has an interest in upholding a verdict so severe that even incontrovertible contrary evidence wouldn't allow it to turn back, and its happy ending isn't really happy. Yes, he gets cleared and he gets the girl, but his faith in the system is ruined forever, and he's a social outcast. It feels a little like "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang." And it's well shot.

bkoganbing Borrowing Maureen O'Sullivan from MGM, Harry Cohn gave her top billing over Henry Fonda in Let Us Live about a wrongly convicted man on Death Row. There are two wrongly convicted men, Fonda and Alan Baxter both cab drivers. But it's Fonda whose wedding plans get so rudely interrupted when he and Baxter get arrested for a pair of robberies and a homicide that resulted from one of them.The callousness of the 'system' will really get to you after a while. Fonda and Baxter are picked out of a lineup by victims and they do bear some resemblance to two of the trio of robbers and Fonda who was at the scene of one of the robberies earlier with O'Sullivan said something in a jocular vein that was used against him later. Still when a trio of men committed another armed robbery with fatalities in the same manner it wouldn't have impeded justice any to have issued a stay of execution. At least that's what Ralph Bellamy who was one of the original investigating detectives thinks. But the District Attorney Stanley Ridges wants finality and Bellamy and O'Sullivan have to race against the clock to find the real perpetrators.Fonda was cast in this film no doubt on the strength of his performance in Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once as a prisoner in a similar jackpot. Later on he would be in Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man in yet another mistaken identity situation. But in Let Us Live with his musings about his situation he reminds me of one of his greatest roles that of Tom Joad in The Grapes Of Wrath who if you remember was also an ex-convict.But while Fonda muses, the film is taken over by O'Sullivan and Bellamy who are a resourceful pair and enlist the help of some pretty good juvenile detectives to find crucial evidence.I'm not an opponent of the death penalty per se, but this film shows the callousness that it is sometimes applied and a judicial system devised by man is not perfect. Let Us Live is a real sleeper among the work of Henry Fonda and should be better known.

MartinHafer This was a very good film even though I initially had relatively low expectations. Part of this is because just before this, I saw a passable Henry Fonda film (SLIM) and I think it made me remember that like any actor, Fonda could make mediocre films. But LET US LIVE! is anything but mediocre, since it has a very thought-provoking script that might just get you to re-evaluate what you think of the death penalty. While I am generally in favor of it when there is absolutely no doubt, this film strongly and competently makes the point that innocent men CAN be convicted wrongly and that the system might be rather indifferent to correcting this even when doubt as to the justification for the conviction arises. Again and again throughout the film, supposedly good men seem indifferent to the possibility that Fonda and his friend could be innocent--and they convince themselves that the system cannot make mistakes or that people must allow the system to work everything out in the end! In spite of this indifference, Maureen O'Sullivan and Ralph Bellamy work their darnedest to prove that the men were wronged.As I said, the plot is very well-constructed and thought-provoking. While at times the performances might seem a tad overly melodramatic, considering what's at stake, it was forgivable. An excellent drama and one that makes you think. About the only negative was that O'Sullivan's Irish accent seemed a bit out of place, though her performance and Fonda's were just fine.