If you were to put all of Fritz Lang’s films together and make a new one from the aggregate, that film would very closely resemble 1937’s You Only Live Once.

Lang's concern, or obsession, was with the fact and the effect of human loneliness, and the ways in which we are all responsible for the creation, and the fate, of the isolated monster: whom we isolate because we recognize him as living within us.

It is a high tribute to Fritz Lang that although you know what is coming, he does keep you harrowed almost throughout the picture waiting for his inevitable dénouement.

What a great director can do with a stale story. This would be the usual killer-row and jailbreak episode were it not for Fritz Lang's amazing ability to vitalize whatever he directs.