The Informer

Released May 9, 1935

1h 31m

Drama

List

94%

18 Reviews

Tomatometer

78%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Gypo Nolan (Victor McLaglen) is a former Irish Republican Army man who drowns his sorrows in the bottle. He's desperate to escape his bleak Dublin life and start over in America with his girlfriend (Margot Grahame). So when British authorities advertise a reward for information about his best friend, current IRA member Frankie (Wallace Ford), Gypo cooperates. Now Gypo can buy two tickets on a boat bound for the States, but can he escape the overwhelming guilt he feels for betraying his buddy?

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Al G

John Ford produced the great series of Irish and Irish-American movies. "The Informer" was one of the earliest and possibly the best. The twenty-first century is a century of civil wars and resistance movements in many nations. Even if you're not interested in Ireland, movies like "The Informer" is worth a second look.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/25/24

Full Review

Audience Member

Before director John Ford became known for his westerns, he was already a world class director. "The Informer" shows how he had command of the medium from the start. It tells the story of a former IRA fighter (Victor McLaglen) who anonymously informs on a former comrade which results in the comrades death. He collects the reward and then spends the night trying to regain his popularity among his neighborhood peers. What good is it to collect such a reward if you cant flaunt it and buy some new friends. McLaglen is not your typical leading man. He is ogre-like and a bit gruesome. That is partly why the film works so well. He seems as far away from Hollywood as you can get...an that is high praise. Thee film won four Oscars including Director and Actor.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/09/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A thought-provoking drama of desperate living, paranoia, and the consequences of one's actions, John Ford gives the film an appropriately dark atmosphere, and the sets have a nightmarish quality to them. As McLaglen stumbles half-drunk through the night, everything around him shows his feelings. His character tends to often feel guilty, but at other times he feels in the mood to celebrate. He is overcome by a wave of different emotions, upset from different things. McLaglen handles all of this very well, giving a startling realistic performance that is good enough to provide some compensation for Margot Grahame's over-acting. However, this is just the one character that is complex and fascinating. The supporting characters all are very thin, and the romance between Foster and Angel adds nothing to the tale. Even so, this is very effective film-making, with some clever use of dissolve editing and a haunting music score by Max Steiner. It is overall quite an effective film about moral play, desperation and responsibility.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/08/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Stereotypical rubbish. Easily John Ford's weakest film. A film obviously made to cater to American audiences, this film is painfully full of Irish stereotypes; that is admittedly funny at first due to the period it was made, but gets very boring as it goes on. McLaglan's performance of drinking a gazillion whiskies and shouting "Bartley meboy!" a million times gets boring real quick. The three actors in Mutiny on the Bounty deserved the Best Actor Oscar way more than McLaglan. There would be people who would say that that was due to the time it was filmed. However, all the Best Picture nominated films I have seen (Mutiny on the Bounty, Captain Blood, A Midsummer Night's Dream & Top Hat) were miles better than this film. The Oscar-winning directing and writing were also far inferior than Captain Blood and Mutiny on the Bounty. The one positive and impressive scene was the killing of Frankie McPhillips which was acted and directed very well. Overall, a stereotypical film that at first funny, gets boring and ridiculous very quickly.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/11/23

Full Review

steve d

Engaging enough but nothing special.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

This movie was pretty sad. It's a movie about Irish desperate people who do things I don't think they would do normally. Yet they wonder why Irish and Native Americans have alcohol problems. Maybe because other countries come in and change their whole way of life and they are barely surviving below the surface. Anyway the main character was hard to like because he does something inexcusable and lashes out at everyone as a result. However, you know why he does it. This is a gritty film, shot grittily in black and white. It's well-acted and like a bad trainwreck u don't want to keep watching but feel compelled to. Pretty good film for that time period.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

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John Ford

Director

Victor McLaglen

Gypo Nolan

Heather Angel

Mary McPhillip

Preston Foster

Dan Gallagher

Margot Grahame

Katie Madden

Wallace Ford

Frankie McPhillip

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Pare Lorentz

McCall's

The best picture of the season to date is The Informer, a terse, brutal story of the Irish revolution: a somber portrait of a rabbit-minded giant who betrays his best friend and is hunted to his doom against the leaden background of war-torn Dublin.

Oct 30, 2023

Full Review

Jorge Luis Borges

Sur

I consider it too memorable not to provoke a discussion and not to deserve a reproach. Several reproaches, really, since it has run the beautiful risk of being entirely satisfactory and, for two or three reasons, has not been.

Dec 15, 2021

Full Review

Mike Massie

Gone With The Twins

McLaglen is perfect in the lead - a mountainous, uncontrollable ruffian - in a destructive (and self-destructive), chaotic, downward spiral.

Rated: 8/10

Jul 27, 2020

Full Review

Meyer Levin (Patterson Murphy)

Esquire Magazine

The story is told in sheer cinema terms, with remarkable atmospheric handling. Full credit to director John Ford for the effect of the whole, and for such remarkable touches as the scratching sound...

Apr 17, 2020

Full Review

Ann Ross

Maclean's Magazine

Strongly handled, with no prettifying touches, The Informer is one of the most impressive pictures of the year.

Jul 22, 2019

Full Review

Helen Brown Norden

Vanity Fair

Certainly it is the best movie of the year so far, and it is doubtful if any subsequent one will be able to surpass it. I am inclined to believe, moreover, that it is the finest thing which the American movies have ever produced.

Jun 12, 2019

Full Review

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Synopsis

Gypo Nolan (Victor McLaglen) is a former Irish Republican Army man who drowns his sorrows in the bottle. He's desperate to escape his bleak Dublin life and start over in America with his girlfriend (Margot Grahame). So when British authorities advertise a reward for information about his best friend, current IRA member Frankie (Wallace Ford), Gypo cooperates. Now Gypo can buy two tickets on a boat bound for the States, but can he escape the overwhelming guilt he feels for betraying his buddy?

Director: John Ford
Screenwriter: Dudley Nichols, Liam O'Flaherty
Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures
Production Co: RKO Radio Pictures Inc.
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): May 9, 1935, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Oct 18, 2010
Runtime: 1h 31m
Sound Mix: Mono

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