Sometimes a film disappoints you for what happens on the screen. Sometimes a film disappoints for what it could have been. A movie starring Edward G. Robinson, George Raft, and Marlene Dietrich that was directed by Raoul Walsh should have been a masterpiece. Sadly, it is not. It is rather dull if I’m being honest. So instead of being a beloved film celebrated by classic-movie enthusiasts everywhere, it has been mostly forgotten. What could have been, is sadly not what it actually is.
Buy Manpower Blu-rayIt isn’t all bad. There are a few thrilling scenes involving our heroes, electrical linemen, trying to fix electrical outages with live wires during terrible thunder and ice storms. Walsh, as always, has a great eye, and the cinematography is gorgeous. Dietrich continues to sizzle. But the screenplay is lusterless. It fails to excite with its action or engage us in the romance.
Robinson and Raft play Hank McHenry and Johnny Marshall, respectively. In an early scene, and one of the film’s most exciting, they are working on a power line during a terrible storm. Johnny is knocked unconscious by some falling wood, and Hank accidentally steps on a live wire trying to save him, giving him a permanently gimpy leg.
Both men are single and spend most of their downtime out on the town looking for love, or at least some sex. It must be said at this juncture that this is a deeply sexist film, even for the 1940s. Or at least its characters are complete chauvinists who are rarely, if ever, called out. In the locker room, the boys talk like…well, boys in a locker room. Out on the town, they pinch and squeeze every woman who walks by. Hank harasses and forces kisses on more than one poor woman. And in the hospital, the boys are forever chasing nurses around the beds.
Marlene Dietrich plays Fay Duval, the estranged daughter of Pop Duval (Egon Brecher), the foreman of the lineman crew. She’s a woman who knows what’s what. She’s been around the block and back again. She recently spent some time in prison. When Pop’s killed by some falling ice, Hank seeks her out to inform her of what happened. Hank immediately falls head over heels for her.
At first, Johnny warns Hank off of her. He thinks he knows her game. He knows she did some time. He’s seen her working at a dive bar that overcharges its customers when it knows dames like Fay are distracting them from the check. He figures she’s only pretending to like Hank because he keeps buying her presents. Despite all this, Hank asks Fay to marry him. She reluctantly agrees. She’s upfront with the fact that she doesn’t love him, but he doesn’t care. She tries to be a good wife. But before long the tables turn. Fay falls in love with Johnny. Now there’s a love triangle that’s destined for tragedy.
There’s a kernel of something that could be great in that story. Fay could be tormented by her desire for Johnny and her feelings of duty toward Hank. Johnny could be torn between lust and friendship. Hank could face struggles with his injury. But the film does very little with any of this. We never feel any real drama, no emotional conflict between these characters. They just kind of drift through the film.
It does more with the few action scenes. Every time our linemen are called out, it seems to be during a terrible storm of some sort. Walsh never feels comfortable during the domestic scenes, but he shines when our heroes are climbing up poles being sloshed about by heavy winds and rain. But since we never really care about who these characters are, it is difficult to care about whether they live or die.
Dietrich looks great as always, and she does her best with some weak material. Robinson is one of my favorite classic actors, and he too does what he can with what he’s given, but it’s not enough to make this film interesting. I like George Raft, but a great actor he is not, and outside his great gangster pictures, the man just struggles.
I’m not sad I watched this film. I’m always happy when I can fill in some gaps in my classic-film knowledge. But I can’t help but wonder what this film could have been with a better script.
Warner Archive presents Manpower with a new 4K restoration from the original camera negative. Extras include two Warner Bros. animated shorts, “Snowtime for Comedy” and “Joe Glow the Firefly.”
