Redeeming The Informer

Conventional wisdom about John Ford's The Informer goes something like this: The Informer is released,

wildly overpraised, wins Oscars for Ford and star Victor McLaglen. It spends a couple of decades on everybody's All-Time Ten Best List. Post-war, however, people look again, find it creaky, overwrought, and stickily sentimental about the IRA. Its reputa…