The Informer

Continuing our look at John Ford, tonight we tackle The Informer (1935), a wonderfully dark, gritty, expressionistic drama. Although the story is predictable and the drama fairly didactic, it remains a compelling work of art seventy-five years later, due to Ford's excellent direction and a fine central performance by Victor McLaglen. It's a far cry from Ford's super-optimistic Westerns of the time period, with a dark, violent and pessimistic depiction of Ireland gripped by revolution. At heart, of course, it's the tragedy of a simple man tempted to treachery by the best of motives - an Irish Judas.

Gypo Nolan (Victor McLaglen) is a half-witted, two-fisted drunkard who washes out of the IRA during the height of the Irish War for Independence. Penniless, outcast, and hoping to support his lover Katie's (Margo Graham) dream of fleeing to America, Gypo turns in IRA friend Frankie McPhillip (Wallace Ford) to the police. Frankie is killed in a shootout with the Black and Tans, and Gypo is recruited by IRA leader Dan Gallagher (Preston Foster) to root out the informer. After fingering Mulligan (Donald Meek), a hapless tailor, Gypo throws all of his money away in a night drunken carousing, and is soon enough discovered by his former comrades.

The Informer is a hoary morality tale well-told. It makes obvious but effective use out of its Judas parallel; Gypo sells out his colleagues for the noblest of reasons, but the seductions of drink and self-gratification cost him to fritter away even that. Gypo is easily tempted by an ever-present wanted poster, prodded into action by the plight of his lover Katie, who (it is implied) is prostituting herself, and pisses the money away buying food and drinks for strangers; that he finds himself in the midst of the Irish Revolution is a misfortune which leaves at least a dozen people dead. When everything unravels, he lacks even the wit to defend himself, his only defense admitting to his foolishness. Gypo's final redemption is problematic, as he never committed treason as such; but like many a tragic hero, he lets his fortune (however ill-gotten) slip away, making his actions essentially meaningless - no matter what the final church scene would like us to think. Ford suggests that Gypo has been redeemed, seeing the errors of his way before dying, but on the basis of what came before it's hard to credit this.

For a movie of 1935, The Informer is surprisingly dark, gritty and morally ambiguous. Dublin is a dark, fog-shrouded, vice-ridden, amoral den of revolutionary activity, with only a thin line of morality separating the IRA thugs from the brutish Brits. While a film like Hangmen Also Die! would make it a simple tale of virtuous freedom fighters against cruel oppressors, Informer shows both sides capable of violence and atrocity, even if Ford's sympathies clearly lie with the Irish. Even in more recent films on the subject, this level of nuance is rare, let alone a movie from 1930's Hollywood. When Ford next returned to Ireland, it would be in The Quiet Man (1952), a lush, beautifully photographed but vapid fantasy which showcased Ford at his worst and most self-indulgent. Not to unduly knock Ford's customary optimism - in the right film it's quite endearing - but he is quite wise in subduing it here, and the film's dark, ambivalent (if not quite realistic) tone is quite refreshing.

Ford directs the movie as virtually a silent film, with and looming shadows (particularly the menacing Black and Tans), long pauses, lengthy, almost self-contained vignettes, cavernous, gloomy sets, double-exposure images to express thoughts and fantasies and theatrical acting gestures. Filmed entirely on sets, the film has an appropriately nightmarish, claustrophobic feel, accentuated by Joe August's marvellously expressionistic photography and Max Steiner's dramatic score. The film would inform the Irish flashback scenes of Sergio Leone's Duck You Sucker!, and the final scene would feature in Martin Scorsese's The Departed.

Victor McLaglen is a revelation as Gypo. Ford usuaully used McLaglen as a broad comic relief character, most notably in his Cavalry Trilogy, and much of that is present, but here McLaglen balances the bumptiousness with the more serious aspects of the character. McLaglen portrays Gypo as a well-meaning brute, too dumb to even go through with his treachery; his theatrical style and ad-libbing are put to brilliant use as Gypo unravels, breaks down and pleads for forgiveness. The rest of the cast is fairly interchangable, though Preston Foster and Ford regulars Donald Meek (Stagecoach) and Wallace Ford (The Lost Patrol) stand out in small parts.

The Informer is a fine bit of work that, for all its dated qualities, remains a potent, well-told drama. If any further proof were needed, it's more evidence that Ford was a cineamtic genius, and that I'm lousy at writing decent conclusory paragraphs.