Directed by Fritz Lang • 1938 • United States
Starring Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, Harry Carey

One of the most delightfully offbeat Hollywood films of the 1930s, this unclassifiable and often overlooked gem from director Fritz Lang blends crime, comedy, romance, and songs by Kurt Weill into a Brechtian, almost avant-garde satire of capitalism in the midst of the Great Depression. At a department store whose owner believes in giving ex-convicts a fresh start, parolee Joe Dennis (George Raft) finds romance with fellow employee Helen Roberts (Sylvia Sidney)—unaware that she is also an ex-con. Can their relationship survive revelations about their pasts, as well as his temptation to find out if crime really does pay?