Let Us Live (1939) User Reviews (18)

A nice little sleeper that really makes you think

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 5 October 2007]

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.

Mass hysteria, entrenched bureaucracy, and the finality of the death penalty...

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 7 November 2015]

...are all examined here. Knowing that social relevance was important to Fonda throughout his career, and with him being a free agent at the time, I have to wonder if this is how Columbia persuaded such a big talent to star in this project. It's based on a true story that happened in Massachusetts, but in the real story matters don't get quite so dramatic as they did here.

Fonda plays cabbie Brick Tennant who is in business for himself, looking forward to marrying his girl, waitress Mary Roberts (Maureen O'Sullivan), and buying a modest house financed by the newly formed FHA. Great time is spent building up what an optimist Brick is and how content he is with his middle class lifestyle. When Brick's down on his luck pal Alan Baxter (Joe Linden) shows up, Brick lets him bunk with him and offers him a job driving the second cab he has just bought.

Meanwhile, three criminals wander into town - two of which bear a resemblance to Brick and Alan. First they rob the local police exhibition of all of its weapons and kill the night watchman, then they pull off a daring daytime robbery of a theater and kill someone in that crime too. Since the criminals escaped in a cab, the police decide to pull in every cabbie in the city and alibi them. Brick and Alan are among those who do not have a solid alibi, so they are put in a lineup among the movie patrons who saw the unmasked robbers. At first, nobody speaks up, but then one person says "that's him!" in relation to Brick. Soon they are all saying the same thing. Since Alan was at Brick's apartment alone during the hold-up, and the only person who can alibi Brick is his fiancée, nobody believes them and the wheels of justice grind to their inevitable conclusion. Both Brick and Alan are convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

Then a break. Normally a gang of criminals with somebody else convicted of their crimes would in these not so well information-connected times just move their show to someplace far away, assuming they are in the clear here. But although well organized they are apparently not that bright. They pull off a THIRD crime in the exact same town. This time it is a bank robbery, and they shoot it out with a cop in the street killing him. The lucky break - one of the bullets from the shoot out lodges in an apple that Mary buys for Brick to give to him during her visit at the penitentiary. She brings it to police Lieutenant Everett (Ralph Bellamy), and it is identified as a bullet from one of the same guns that were used in the other crimes.

Here's the dig. Nobody in authority thinks this is sufficient evidence to at least grant a stay of execution! Their excuse is that the third guy was never caught and he must have the gun. The prosecutor says his job is just to try cases - he's done that. The police say it is their job to collect evidence for open cases - there are none! You'd think that the possibility of two innocent guys being executed would be reason enough to break protocol. You'd be wrong. Only Everett, who sacrifices his career to do so, agrees to help Mary because that lone bullet makes him not so sure justice has been done. There is one more clue uncovered by Brick studying trial transcripts, but I'll let you watch and find out what that is and what happens.

Being released during the production code era, this film is rather surprising in its rather subtle indictment of the death penalty and not so subtle criticism of the sometimes robotic behavior of law enforcement, the follies of circumstantial evidence, and the reverse of the "bystander effect" in eyewitness identification. Maybe because Columbia was a small studio and there was no big build up of the film by the studio is the reason the censors did not react.

I'd recommend this one. If I have any criticism at all it is that Maureen O'Sullivan gives a rather shrill performance here. Maureen, the audience knows you are telling the truth and that time is running out, please calm down!

A strange little film right before the official start of films noir

[Handlinghandel · 7/10 · 5 October 2007]

This is a dark tale about two likable people. Well, three, if we count Ralph Bellamy: He is tossed at us in medias res and is not convincing as a police lieutenant.

The young lovers are Maureen O'Sullivan and Henry Fonda. He drives a cab. She works in a restaurant. He wants them to marry and is planning to buy a cab and maybe a few, to start a fleet.

Two decades before he starred in the Hitchcock film of this name, though, he is the wrong man. Not for the adoring (and lovely) O' Sullivan. No, he is erroneously arrested for a robbery -- and falsely identified by a pack of jackals who'd been at the crime scene.

One thing I noticed is the response O'Sullivan has when he takes her to look at some nice little homes. She's thrilled and grateful. It's amusing to contrast this to the scornful way the Audrey Totter character acts when Richard Basehart, her unwisely adoring husband in "Tension," takes her to see a little house in the suburbs he's picked out for them.

Lucien Ballard was a marvelous cinematographer -- here and always. This movie has the feel of German Expressionism, which includes a Weill-like musical score. But I'm not sure how much of the Expressionism is intended and how much is a matter of budget: For example, there are several scenes in which snow falls. The snow has a highly unreal look. It really LOOKS like soap flakes. And in an early scene when O'Sullivan humors a drunk at the restaurant where she works, the other diners laugh in the oddest way: We're meant to feel they take it in a goodhearted manner. But it sounds for all the world like a laugh track or the audience at a vaudeville show.

The change in Fonda is very impressive. I really empathized with his feeling at the start that everything is going his way; that the world is a wonderful place to be. If this were a musical comedy, a song to that effect would have followed. But Fonda didn't make musicals. It's pretty clear that he's going to be disabused of this notion; I've been there too. And he is indeed.

A Jocular Jackpot

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 14 August 2011]

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.

The Poignant Title Tells It All

[dougdoepke · 4 February 2019]

Depression Era flick based on true story, but scaled down due to political pressure on Columbia studio (IMDB). O'Sullivan and Fonda are an all-American couple looking to marry. But then Fonda's mistakenly identified as one of three robber-killers, and sentenced to death. However, the deeply committed O'Sullivan refuses to give up and eventually enlists cop Bellamy to help. So, can they prove Fonda's innocence before his execution date.

The subtext pits "little people" like the leads against an unfeeling city bureaucracy more concerned with procedure than justice. Then too, eye-witness testimony is shown as faulty, along with miles of inflexible red-tape. The plight of ordinary folks is further suggested by the dumping of edible food the hungry need in order to drive up wholesale market prices, a not uncommon practice of the time. On the other hand, reference is made to FHA home loans as part of the New Deal's effort to ameliorate conditions. Fonda and O'Sullivan had planned their future around such a home loan. Much of this subtext, I believe, reflects common feelings of the time.

Acting-wise, O'Sullivan gets to run a gamut of emotions from dreamy eyed lover to wild-eyed desperation. That dreamy eyed first part where the couple plans their conventional future pulls us effectively into their later plight. Note, however, that the countdown to execution is not exploited in the fashion of similar crime films. The one real stretch is cop Bellamy risking his career by taking up O'Sullivan's cause. It does however show the potential feeling side to an impersonal bureaucracy, which probably helped assuage Columbia's censorship battle with Massachusetts, the locale of the actual occurrence.

Despite the obscurity, it's an interesting little film (68-minutes) that makes me wonder what the intended version would have been like.

an indictment against the death penalty

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 3 July 2012]

Maureen O'Sullivan and Henry Fonda star in "Let Us Live," a 1939 film also starring Ralph Bellamy. Fonda plays a cab driver engaged to O'Sullivan. He and the friend who is staying with him are arrested for a robbery/murder after being identified by witnesses in a lineup. They are convicted at trial and sentenced to death.

It falls to the investigating detective on the case (Bellamy) and O'Sullivan to work to clear the two men. Meanwhile, the two innocent men rot in jail with the clock ticking quickly toward execution.

This has to be the fastest trip to the gas chamber in history - we've all read the stories of people languishing on death row for 18 years. It seems like these guys only had a couple of weeks before their execution date.

The idea behind this film, though, is solid: The police believe they have the perpetrators, the DA doesn't want anything rocking the boat (even a similar robbery while the two men were in prison), and refuses to stay the executions.

I can never get over how much Jane Fonda looks like her dad when I see Fonda in early films. He gives an excellent performance here, that of a bitter, angry man convicted of something he didn't do. I always felt that Fonda as an actor became more internalized as he aged - I prefer the more emotional performances of his. O'Sullivan is energetic and determined as his fiancée, and Bellamy is good in the supporting role.

A dark, sobering film about the dangers of rushing to judgment.

The Wrong Men

[lugonian · 6/10 · 7 June 2015]

LET US LIVE (Columbia, 1939), directed by John Brahm, based upon the story by Joseph E. Dinneen, is an underrated melodrama starring Maureen O'Sullivan and Henry Fonda for the first and only time. Being one of many social dramas involving an innocent man, in this instance, two honorable citizens sent to prison for a crime for which they are innocent, LET US LIVE certainly falls into the class of earlier, yet stronger efforts of FURY (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1936) starring Sylvia Sidney and Spencer Tracy, and THEY WON'T FORGET (Warners, 1937) featuring Gloria Dickson and Edward Norris. Even the similar titled, YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (United Artists, 1937) where Sylvia Sidney and Henry Fonda star as victims of circumstance, LET US LIVE falls closely to the category of MGM's FURY, but without touches of mob violence and Fritz Lang's dark and tense direction.

As with FURY, LET US LIVE starts off with amusing moments, character introduction and plot development before getting to the purpose of its title. Set in the town of Springdale, Mary Roberts (Maureen O'Sullivan), a cashier at a local luncheonette, is engaged to marry John J. "Brick" Tennant (Henry Fonda), an ambitious young taxi driver. Prior to their upcoming wedding, Brick buys his own taxi as a start for his new business, Tennant Transportation Cab Company. Because his friend, Joe Lindon (Alan Baxter), is out of work with no place to go, Brick not only offers him his apartment as a place to stay but a job working for him driving his taxi during his off hours. The next day, Brick takes Mary to church, awaiting outside during her time of prayer for her deceased mother. Nearby, a crime is being committed where a watchman is killed in front of witnesses. Three robbers, one of them named Joe (George Lynn), escape in a high speed taxi passing the church. As the chief of police (Henry Kolker) cracks down to solve the latest crime problem, various cab drivers are investigated and questioned, but only Brick and Joe are arrested and identified in a police lineup by key witnesses as the robbers. Regardless of Mary's testimony on the witness stand, the jury finds Joe and Brick guilty, with the judge passing sentence for prison time and execution. It's now up to Mary, with the help of Police Lieutenant Everett (Ralph Bellamy), to work tirelessly proving the innocence of condemned two men before it's too late.

Other members of the cast include Stanley Ridges (District Attorney); George Douglas (Ed Walsh); Philip Trent (Frank Burke); Martin Spellman (Jimmy Dugan); Charles Lane, Clarence Wilson, Harry Holman and Ray Walker.

Although John Braham is no Fritz Lang nor master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, this virtually unknown or forgotten director does provide some good touches of camera angles and dark visuals usually associated with themes of this category. The transformation of Fonda's character during the latter half of the story is realistically done. Of all the Fonda films in his entire career, LET US LIVE happens to be his shortest in length (66 minutes). With situations depicted that could happen to anybody, Fonda would play an innocent man wrongly accused and convicted once more, to better advantage, under Alfred Hitchcock's direction in THE WRONG MAN (Warner Brothers, 1957), another fact-based story. While the Mary role might have been played in the usual manner of Sylvia Sidney, who specialized in these character types through much of the 1930s, Maureen O'Sullivan demonstrates her ability in heavy dramatics, showing she's not just plain Jane from the popular "Tarzan" adventure series she did on her home base for MGM (1932-1942). Alan Baxter, who began his film career playing a tough hood, breaks away from such type-casting this time around, while Ralph Bellamy assumes the arm of the law rather than the guy who loses the girl as he so often did starting with the comedy, THE AWFUL TRUTH (Columbia, 1937) starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, for which he was nominated as Best Supporting Actor.

Not as well known as Fonda's 1939 20th Century-Fox releases of JESSE JAMES, YOUNG MR. LINCOLN and DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK, overlooking some lack of logic an/or unbelievable coincidences, LET US LIVE is certainly fast moving, to the point, and holds interest throughout. Aside from numerable cable television broadcasts in past years, Cinemax (1987); Turner Classic Movies and GET-TV (with commercial breaks), LET US LIVE is also available on DVD.(***)

Wow, what a downer

[marcslope · 7/10 · 18 June 2012]

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.

let us live

[mossgrymk · 6/10 · 11 September 2022]

Director John Brahm and cinematographer Lucien Ballard do a good job of creating a Fritz Lang like atmosphere of urban corruption and injustice but it is never a good idea to remove your star and best actor (talking about Henry Fonda, of course) from over half of this movie and replace him with bland Ralph Bellamy and hysterical Maureen O'Sullivan in what has to be her most noisome performance. Would that Brahm had exercised even half the skills he exhibited with the visual atmospherics on toning down this eager screamer. And weeper. And gusher. Perhaps realizing how uncompelling a combo Bellamy/O'Sullivan were Brahm finished the picture in an hour and fifteen minutes. Give it a C plus.

PS...Fonda would play the unjustly accused individual to better effect fifteen years later in Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man". And it's fascinating to see in this movie the 1939 version of "12 Angry Men" (and two women) in which Fonda wasn't on the jury to save Fonda.

the wrongly convicted

[SnoopyStyle · 8/10 · 3 August 2019]

Cab driver Brick Tennant (Henry Fonda) is a righteous man. He plans to marry his lovely waitress Mary Roberts (Maureen O'Sullivan). His friend Joe Linden is down on his luck and Brick gives him a job driving his newly purchased cab. A criminal gang uses a cab to rob a cinema. A man is killed. The police round up the cab drivers around town. Brick and Joe get mistakenly picked in a lineup. Mary is Brick's alibi but the police doesn't believe her. The men are convicted with only the eye witnesses' testimonies despite Brick's faith in the system. Mary vows to find the real robbers and exonerate her beloved.

This is based on a story about a real trial. It's actually a very harrow tale of the wrongly convicted. It may come off as melodramatic especially with the coincidences needed to get to a happy ending. Some of it is written melodramatically. Holding it together is Henry Fonda's boy scout nature and Maureen O'Sullivan relentless conviction. The two Hollywood legends add the needed gravitas to the pulpy material. It's a little over an hour. It's a short theatrical movie. It's a B-movie but it has the power of an A-movie.

Wonderful film, that is hard to watch as two innocent men make it to death row.

[cgvsluis · 8/10 · 26 October 2021]

This was horrible social commentary on our American legal system...that unfortunately hasn't changed too much since this film was made.

Maureen O'Sullivan and Henry Fonda are both fantastic and really make this film. Their cheerfully innocent characters make this even more of a tragedy. On the verge of their wedding, Henry Fonda's character is arrested for robbery and two murders that he didn't commit along with his friend. Maureen O'Sullivan who really did spend the morning with him provided him an alibi which the jury doesn't believe because she is the fiancé. The witness all misidentified our hero and friend after their were primed by the district attorney about how desperately we want to keep our city safe.

This works so well as Henry Fonda's character is almost Pollyanna like in his believe in the truth, justice and the American system, at one point he even tries to build up his grind before they are taken to death row by telling him what the American flag symbolizes. This makes his final breakdown even harder to watch and when he finally tells his fiancé Mary that there is no hope for the little guy...well no truer words have been spoken.

The contrast of the happy couple at the beginning and the shattered shambles at the end is amazing.

After having recently sat on a jury in my local district...I can sadly say this kind of thing is still happening and it is really disheartening to think that peoples' convictions are not swayed at all by "innocent until proven guilty". It is the prosecutions job to prove that they did it...even if you believe that they did, you can't convict without proof. Of course I firmly believe that the guilty should pay for their crimes...but the system is supposed to protect the innocent and I am afraid that it doesn't and a lot of procedures are just perpetuating the problem as seen in this film.

Soapbox aside this is a wonderful well acted film that you will enjoy watching on many levels no matter what your personal beliefs are.

How Many Wrongfully Convicted People are there Throughout American History?

[tr-83495 · 2/10 · 2 August 2019]

We can all marvel and be ashamed at what is happening today in certain cases across the country where the police maim and/or kill innocent people and never face a penalty for doing so. The police have become a scary brood of miscreants in the 21st century. Were they even worse in the 20th? We all hoped "modern" technologies, like DNA analysis, would stop the police from arresting innocent people. But it still goes on today. How many people right now, who are totally innocent, are locked in prisons? A majority? Maybe not, but it seems like this could be true because of police ineptitude and the inability of these forces to admit when they are wrong. This is scandalous.

It would have been better had Columbia totally ignored the protestations of Massachusetts and instead portrayed the entire story accurately. Maybe we wouldn't be in such a national quandary today if the institutions set up to protect us admitted their mistakes and planned to do things differently in the future. Police departments are still not at this point, believing that whatever they do is right and should not be questioned. Books should be written about all the cases on unjust convictions and people set up by the police -- who lose their entire lives because the police department will not reassess or take responsibility for work that is wrong. Because Columbia hid the truth from the public, this B-movie gets only two stars. They could have made this something big and positive, but caved in to political pressure.

1939 film, but relevant to today

[sixshooter500 · 9/10 · 6 March 2020]

In Henry Fonda's film career, this one is under the radar, and that's unfortunate, because it'a fantastic film that examines the system of law & order, and how it can screw up. There is a lot of grit and reality here, as often in real life, innocent people are convicted, and even executed. Often the state might have some reasonable suspicion that they may not be guilty, or may know their case isn't as strong as it should be, but they pursue and still get that verdict.

Eye witness testimony can often be a problem too... there have been cases where the science pointed in a different direction, but a jury went for an eye witness, and thus they were convicted. For example, how many people are in prison today for a rape they didn't commit? More than you might want to know.

That's what this movie makes you think about, as the system nearly leads them to their death. Henry Fonda may be a white man, but you could put any man or woman in this story and it still works, they can be black, or white, or any other race, and it still works.

Because this story reveals the truth, the system has flaws, the system is not perfect. Innocent people live out their lives in prison, or are executed. In 1939, the year this movie came out, there were 161 executions. How many of them were actually guilty? That question, is the very power of this film.

Short but very sweet.

[g-hbe · 9/10 · 15 August 2019]

We watched this film for the very first time last night and what a surprisingly good film it is. Of course with a young Henry Fonda in the lead part, we should have known. Fonda plays 'Brick' Tennant, a young man who is working as a taxi driver and saving hard to marry his sweetheart. Through a series of co-incidences and the lack of a hard alibi, he is suspected - and eventually found guilty of - robbery and murder. It's a classic 'wrong man' thriller, made all the better by the careful character introduction and set-up early on in the film. If the film has a message, it is that the death penalty is a dangerous thing, especially when careers and promotions are on the line. There's no slack in the film, and its short 68 minute running time whizzes by. A little gem of a film, and a story which Fonda would tell again in Hitchcock's 'The Wrong Man' of 1956, another cracker.

I'm a patient man but...

[scrabbler · 4/10 · 6 April 2021]

... I just could not keep from laughing. And that's something I rarely do at a movie that tries to be sincere. I love Henry Fonda and I love a movie where the good guy wins, but the writing, acting and direction were SO hokey and unbelievable, even for this era, I couldn't stop myself. The police chief with his head trembling with rage, the DA whose only job is to convict people, the lieutenant screaming at the DA and the chief, Maureen Sullivan's intermittent accent, etc, etc. Just couldn't take it. There are far better films in this style.

Short and excellent drama

[searchanddestroy-1 · 8/10 · 21 October 2022]

I don't know you, but me, I always confound this film with YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE, made by Fritz Lang two years before and also starring Hank Fonda. Admit that both topics are nearly similar. Many elemnts in common in those films, though not the same stories either. Of course. In the John Brahm's feature, you have less despair and gloominess. I prefer of course the Fritz Lang's film. Here the cast is OK, Maureen O'Sullivan surprisingly good between two TARZAN films. You have suspense in this short film, but there is no surprise in the end, that's where I renounce to prefer it over the Fritz Lang's movie. Such a shame.

Henry Fonda as a persecuted innocent

[dwknuj · 10/10 · 20 August 2022]

This movie is a fine piece of filmmaking that I can recommend to any classic film fan. If you're a Henry Fonda fan, like me, you may find this a missing link in his impressive body of work. It's an essential piece in a pattern at the heart of his career. It is a part he would play in several other films.

The following year he starred in "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940) about the unjustly persecuted Joad family and their search for justice in Depression America. In 1942 he starred in "The Ox-Bow Incident" about a stranger trying to stop a lynching. In Alfred Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man" (1956) we see many echoes of his part in "Let Us Live." The following year, in "12 Angry Men" he fought to free a wrongly accused youth. Even in 1964's "The Best Man" it could be argued that Fonda was once again the innocent victim of an attack.

Much of it seems rooted in a race-based attack that he witnessed, as a teen, in Omaha, Nebraska. It was the Red Summer. More than 60 anti-Black race riots took place across the U. S., killing an unknown number of people. One of those murdered was a young man named Will Brown. In a futile attempt to stop the mob the mayor confronted them and said, "If you must hang somebody, then let it be me." They put a noose around his neck and hanged him from a traffic signal. Before his final breath he was taken down by a police officer. He eventually recovered after several weeks.

Mr. Brown was hung from a street light. His body was eventually taken down and burned. It was paraded around town for hours.

Young Henry Fonda and his father witnessed all of this from their printing plant. Fonda later said, "It was the most horrendous sight I'd ever seen. . . . We locked the plant, went downstairs, and drove home in silence. My hands were wet and there were tears in my eyes. All I could think of was that young Black man dangling at the end of a rope.

On that terrible night Henry Fonda, the champion of social justice, was born. He never lost sight of it. From what I can tell "Let Us Live" is the first time that this passion for justice and the rights of the wrongly imprisoned was given voice.

If you like Henry Fonda, if you just like well made films, you need to see this picture.

Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Sullivan

[marthawilcox1831 · 3/10 · 5 July 2014]

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.