The Informer

The Informer (1935) is John Ford's bleak crime drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Fog-bound Dublin, early 1920s. Former IRA man Gypo Nolan dreams of sailing to America but can't scrape together the fare.

There's a reward out for his best friend Frankie, on the run from the British — twenty pounds. Exactly the price of two boat tickets to the States. Gypo gives up the address. What follows is worse than any manhunt: the money burns a hole in his pocket, whiskey loosens his tongue, and the whole city seems to read the betrayal on his face. Victor McLaglen plays the lumbering, none-too-bright Gypo as a man cornered by his own conscience.

Ford shoots it almost like a silent film — heavy shadows, drifting fog, faces held in close-up — with cinematographer Joseph August and composer Max Steiner pulling toward one suffocating mood. Adapted from Liam O'Flaherty's novel, the picture swept four Oscars, among them the directing prize for Ford and the lead-acting award for McLaglen. It's one of those 1935 films that still cuts sharper than most modern thrillers about guilt and the bill that comes due. Stream The Informer (1935) online on iFILM.