I saw "You Only Live Once" in a film class 30 years ago. I wasn't taking the class but I did go to all the showings because, well, it was a free movie. I can't tell you how much my sister and I laughed at this movie. We howled in hysteria almost from start to finish. We didn't buy the melodrama for a second.
The students in the class wanted to laugh, but they couldn't because they knew how much the professor loved it. But when Sylvia Sydney stands in front of a big window with the word "DRUGS" in huge letters and then breaks the window, that broke it for the class. They laughed and yelled along with my sister and me.
The professor, in a rage, tried to get Annaliese and me barred from seeing the movies, but he couldn't do that because it was a public institution and anyone could audit any class he or she chose. So, he rescheduled the screening room, but we found out about it and showed up anyway. He forgave us when we were the only two that understood Werner Herzog's surreal quasi-documentary "Fata Morgana."
Anyway, it's been 30 years and I still remember scenes from "You Only Live Once" as if it were yesterday. Nothing that bad could stay in the mind that clearly. At least I don't think so. I've seen thousands of movies since and few have left that lasting an impression. I will have to look for it at the library to see what I would think of it now. I do enjoy most everything else of Fritz Lang's I've seen since.
