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Let Us Live

1939 Directed by John Brahm

A love more powerful than any law that man could make!

When a confused eyewitness identifies New York City cabbie Brick Tennant as a killer, he is sentenced to death for a murder that he wasn't involved in. Though no one is willing to listen to the innocent prisoner's pleas for freedom, Brick's faithful fiancée, Mary, knows that her lover is innocent because she was with him when the crime was committed. As the scheduled execution draws ever nearer, Mary begins to investigate the murder herself.

Maureen O'Sullivan Henry Fonda Ralph Bellamy Alan Baxter Stanley Ridges Henry Kolker George Lynn George Douglas Phillip Trent Martin Spellman Ralph Remley Arthur Stuart Hull John Qualen William V. Mong Herbert Ashley Wright Kramer Charles Lane Harry Bernard Chuck Hamilton Tom Mahoney Edward Peil Sr. Emmett Vogan Billy Lee Frank Yaconelli Marshall Ruth Sammy Blum Bruce Mitchell Dick Rush Eric Alden Show All…

Alternative Titles

Antakaa minun elää, Alibi - annars döden, Lad os leve, Deixai-nos Viver, ¡Dejadnos vivir!, Culpas ajenas, Laissez-nous vivre

Genres

Thriller Drama Crime

Theatrical

29 Mar 1939

USANR

11 May 1939

21 Jul 1939

France

31 Jul 1939

Denmark

18 Nov 1939

Sweden

07 Mar 1940

Portugal

09 Jun 1940

Finland

01 Jun 1949

Digital

01 Sep 2019

Spain

Denmark

31 Jul 1939

Theatrical

Finland

09 Jun 1940

Theatrical

France

21 Jul 1939

Theatrical

Portugal

07 Mar 1940

Theatrical

Spain

01 Sep 2019

Digital

Sweden

18 Nov 1939

Theatrical

UK

11 May 1939

Theatrical

USA

29 Mar 1939

TheatricalNR

01 Jun 1949

Theatrical Re-release

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Popular reviews

Review by nora ★★★ 3

i admit i watched this because every time i see this poster i CACKLE (they look so stern!! LET THEM LIVE!!!!!) but turns out for a movie that's only a little over an hour long it's a quality indictment of the american judicial system! there's a bit where henry fonda calls a bunch of cops cowards and shouts at them to fight him and condemns the use of the death penalty!!! YES HENRY!!!
Review by Learic Life ★★½

This B-noir is limited by its plot-heaviness and lack of atmosphere. Henry Fonda is mistakenly identified in a police line-up and is convicted of murder. The movie then becomes a race to uncover evidence in time to save him from being executed. The screenplay is based on a real case of two Boston cab drivers who were wrongly identified by witnesses as the murderers of a man during a robbery. Apparently, there were plans to give this a much larger budget, but Columbia Pictures caved to political pressure being brought by the state of Massachusetts and the film’s financing suffered as a result.
Review by V. Lepistö ★★★½

Il Cinema Ritrovato (online) 2020 - film #17
Essential film for every fan of Henry Fonda. Without him the material could have fallen into oblivion or pure mediocrity but he really brings extraordinary aura to the theme of spiritual and moral death of an individual. Mass psychology and cynical law enforcement rule this pretty oppressive image of the U.S. where obsession in drawing clear lines between good and bad, right and wrong, guilty and innocent is taken to its extreme in the system that needs to solve the crimes as efficiently as it produces material wealth. This is already pretty purely film noir.
Review by PatrickFeeble ★★★ 1

In an inexplicable mania, Letterboxd (as of this writing) lists 102 actors for this 67-minute trifle of white-bread paranoia that dares to imagine a world where a fella who likes apples can be accused of murder. Meanwhile, The Longest Yard (original version) gets nine cast members listed, not even enough for the football team that is the central conceit. This isn't a review, of course; I'm just marveling at the arbitrary way things are slapped together in our fallen world. If there is a God why would he let this happen?
Review by Fint ★★★

A dry run for Henry Fonda in Hitchcock's The Wrong Man, with even a dash of Twelve Angry Men thrown into the mix. Fonda and Maureen O'Sullivan are the adorable couple whose bliss is annihilated when he is wrongly accused of a murderous robbery. It's well-shot and snappily directed by John Brahm. But it's too snappy. The just-over-an-hour long running time doesn't give room for shading and events cascade one on top of the other. It is noteworthy though for impassioned decency from Fonda, winning sweetness from O'Sullivan and a remarkably jaded and bitter take on the American justice system, despite the obligatory flag-waving to offset the cynicism.
Review by mattstechel ★★

So-so story of Henry Fonda getting arrested and convicted by a jury and sent to jail and sentenced to die for a crime he didn't commit. Maureen O'Sullivan plays his stalwart fiancee whom after getting frustrated by the cops refusal to re-open the investigation after she finds credible proof that someone else committed this string of robberies that he was thought to have done, she decides to take matters into her own hands and enlists a former cop played by Ralph Bellamy to help prove that Fonda's the wrong guy. (and yes that is the title of a move he would go on to make)
This is fairly well made but it's super generic, you'll see every single plot point…
Review by C ❥

maureen o’sullivan is so gorgeous i’m going to bash my head against the wall
Review by hellohildy ★★½

Maybe it's just 2022 and I'm completely over having my sense of justice manipulated, but I find it hard to get into films that are all about central characters having injustices heaped on them, being wrongly accused, etc. Are we supposed to get riled up, feel indignant for them, only to have everything work out in the end? Is that the entertainment of it? Real life is too full of this shit for me to find it enjoyable. Or maybe it's just the heat making me cranky.
This kind of movie has been done better by others, but this isn't without merit. Fonda is great, and some directing choices were interesting. Bellamy's role is underdeveloped, and he seems to be trying to fill in the gaps with plenty of overacting.
Review by PUNQ ★★

Modified version of another Henry Fonda movie. You Only Live Once (1937) which he did with Fritz Lang. Let Us Live (1939) is done with another German born director. A guy called John Brahm, who had yet to direct any good pictures. And there are a lot of faults with this one which becomes his fault. Taming the actors. Maureen O'Sullivan just looks hysterical all the time. Ralph Bellamy is totally hammy as the detective helping them. And the prison sequences are almost laughable with it's exaggerated clichés. Looking past that, the story is solid enough. Worked before, so why not once more. Plus Fonda doesn't embarrass himself. A lot could have been better, but Let Us Live (1939) is more then a watchable B-movie from Colombia Pictures.
Review by Vadim Rizov ★★★

A gloomy unintentional follow-up to You Only Live Once: Henry Fonda once again becomes less likably lanky and earnest and more stone-faced and prone to unpleasant shouting as he comes up against The System, except this time he really didn't do anything. Fonda repeatedly protests that you can tell he's not a murderer because he's a good, plain, honest citizen, a smug self-justification reiterated by girlfriend Maureen O'Sullivan, who doesn't see the flaw in her argument even as he's tried, convicted, and nearly executed for a crime he didn't commit. It's a severe lesson in the importance of never assuming that a clean-living apple-chomping honest fellow is immune from random misfortune — i.e., an earnest to pay attention to fellow…
Review by Jim

The archetypal “innocent man convicted for murder he didn’t commit saved from Death Row at the last minute due to the dogged efforts of his loyal wife who never stopped believing in him” picture, but with some interestingly barbed-wired shadings. The innocent man in question is Henry Fonda, who plays up the “aw shucks” eternally optimistic belief in the system quotient in the first half, all the better to provide contrast for when he later becomes angry, cynical, hollowed-out, and dead-eyed by the way that belief has utterly failed him (Fonda handles the transformation marvelously). The film pulls no punches in its depiction of mob mentality, the highly impressionable “eyewitnesses” convincing themselves of Fonda’s guilt under a cloud of mass…
Review by Lowbacca ★★★

It's pretty rich that this film, in its final form, was cut down because the state of Massachusetts pressured the studio against making this because it made the police and judicial system of the state look inept. Of course, that is because the movie is about two innocent men who were found guilty and nearly executed in the state in 1934, and covered by Harper's. So it seems the state was more concerned about the movie that it was about innocent people being punished for a crime they didn't commit. Quite arguably, a stance that the state would continue to hold as Massachusetts imprisoning innocent people for murder would continue to be depicted in film, with 2010's Conviction coming to…

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Let Us Live

Synopsis

A love more powerful than any law that man could make!

Cast

Director Director

Producer Producer

Writers Writers

Editor Editor

Cinematography Cinematography

Art Direction Art Direction

Composer Composer

Costume Design Costume Design

Studio

Country

Language

Alternative Titles

Genres

Theatrical

29 Mar 1939

11 May 1939

21 Jul 1939

31 Jul 1939

18 Nov 1939

07 Mar 1940

09 Jun 1940

01 Jun 1949

Digital

01 Sep 2019

Denmark

31 Jul 1939

Finland

09 Jun 1940

France

21 Jul 1939

Portugal

07 Mar 1940

Spain

01 Sep 2019

Sweden

18 Nov 1939

UK

11 May 1939

USA

29 Mar 1939

01 Jun 1949

Popular reviews

Director

Producer

Writers

Editor

Cinematography

Art Direction

Composer

Costume Design