U 13

John Ford was taking some hesitant steps in his feature films from 1928 to 1931 with the advent of the talking motion picture. In Men Without Women there are bits of dialog, a lot of sound effects, some singing, but it is still mostly a silent picture. It's also a pretty good one, despite the suggestive title. Men Without Women refers to the crew on a US submarine between the World Wars and in this case the sub is on duty in the China Seas.

An accident at sea sends the submarine to the bottom with the only survivors the slightly more than a dozen men who are in the forward area of the ship. Command is now in the hands of the only surviving officer, Ensign Frank Albertson who just reported for duty in Shanghai on his first assignment. He's green and not really experienced for the job.

The one who holds the crew together is Kenneth McKenna the chief torpedoman who has a past. During the first World War McKenna was a British submarine commander who in some pillow talk with his enemy agent girl friend divulged he was taking a British Field Marshal on a secret mission. The submarine sank, but he survived and he never reported back. In fact the commander of the rescue ship which is British thought he recognized McKenna. All that could be rescued are rescued, but some don't make it, a lot like the Poseidon Adventure.

This has to be the most claustrophobic film John Ford ever did. Most of the last 60% of the movie is in that submarine forward room and Ford does a great job with his ensemble cast. I find it ironic though because Ford is identified with photographing those wide open spaces in Monument Valley for his westerns. This shows he could handle a closed in environment. Those submarines back then didn't even have the capacity to submerge as long World War II vessels did let alone modern subs.

There are some fine scenes of the sea rescue and you can even catch a glimpse of John Wayne as the radio operator on the rescue vessel. The Duke had one fine head of hair in those salad days, but he's unmistakable.

All in all one of the best early sound films from John Ford.

An American submarine crashes in to a cargo ship off the coast of China and the surviving crew members await rescue

Yeah you've seen this type of movie a few times before . This one is slightly different because it's set in peace time , is directed by John Ford and comes from 1930 which was an era when talkies were making a breakthrough

Actually you have to take onboard as to what films were like in those days. THE JAZZZ SINGER was the first talky but films didn't explode in to full length talkies until a couple of years later and films in the last year of the 1920s often used sound and dialogue as an aural impact aesthetic. In this case MEN WITHOUT WOMEN is somewhat typical featuring a few spoken scenes , sound effects and caption cards featuring dialogue

For the story itself a bunch of men trapped in in a slowly flooding submarine is a movie cliché but to be fair it wouldn't have been in 1930. Narrative wise it also contradicts itself by having a song and dance number featuring a female of the species . As it stands this early John Ford remains interesting for a number of reason including having John Wayne in an uncredited cameo without being any type of masterpiece

A submarine strikes another boa and sinks too fast for its crew to escape. Can help reach them in time? And what of Chief Torpedoman Kenneth MacKenna, who is hiding a very nasty secret?

John Ford's very early talkie survives at the Museum of Modern Art, whence copies have leaked, and they are most peculiar copies indeed; DP Joseph August's camerawork is very well preserved, full of smoke and fog, and tricks of the trade he had been plying since he was working for Thomas Ince. But the soundtrack has survived only in bits and pieces, or it was shot as a silent with a few stray lines recorded. The result is another of those incredibly talky silent movies, where every every shot, it seems is punctuated by a long title. The closest you come to well remembered actors are Stu Erwin and J. Farrell MacDonald -- John Wayne is supposed to be present briefly as a radioman, but as usual, I missed him. Still, it is a John Ford movie, which means something to completists, and August's images are beautiful. But I don't know what they would have done with women on the bottom of the ocean.

This film is of interest since it is in a period of transition between silent and sound pictures. The version shown on AMC has limited sound dialogue as well as title cards, and a few scenes have both! You hear John Wayne's voice before you see him in a small part.

Apparently, the full sound English language version of this movie no longer exists...but a hybrid version was just posted on The Criterion Channel..and this is the one I just saw. When I say hybrid, this is a film where music, some singing and sound effects were added...but the rest is essentially a silent film. This was the case with the supposed first full-length sound movie, "The Jazz Singer"...though it only had bits and pieces of sound within anotherwise silent film. It is odd to see a hybrid from 1930, as hybrid films mostly came out in 1927-29. By 1930 nearly all American productions had full sound. Perhaps Fox Studio held this one from release...and that would explain why Ford's first all-sound film actually came out a year before "Men Without Women".

There is a plot about a guy assuming a new identity following an accident in the navy. Well, this really isn't very important to the film. What is important is that the submarine he is on ends up colliding with another ship and sinking...and NOT in a normal or good way! What follows is a tense, harrowing and claustophobia-inducing portion of the film....exceptionally realistic and well made. In fact, I think this hybrid film is MUCH better than his earlier all sound movie, "The Black Watch". The best parts of the film are the direction and sets...they really are top notch.

By the way, if you do watch, keep a sharp eye out for John Wayne in a tiny role as a radio operator on the surface. Blink and you just might miss it!