Hommes sans femmes

John Ford was really good with endings, I'm beginning to realize. It's been obvious that his greatest strength up to this point in his career was bringing in a bunch of different narrative pieces into a singular set piece. The overall strength of the film really depended on the quality of what came before. Oftentimes the films are simply too short for the amount that goes in, but there's a very nice balance to be found in Men Without Women. The opening is very loose, but we get a surprisingly focused situation through the final half of the film that ends really well.

The only existing copy of Men Without Women left is an international edition. Filmed for sound in English, the copy left uses English intertitles (I believe they were recreated decades later) while the original sound is either gone completely or heavily muffled and out of synch with the picture. I was thinking of how the British film system had decided to film two copies of Alfred Hitchcock's Murder!, the German version being titled Mary (similar to the American and Spanish versions of the classic Dracula). It really seems like studios in the early talkie era really had no idea how to release films in markets with different languages. Subtitles would eventually come along, but until then, studios were going in all kinds of directions.

Anyway, the weird way this copy still exists doesn't really negatively affect the film overall too much. It's obvious that it was filmed for sound, and the worst part is when intertitles come up in conversations on film obviously directed for sound, breaking the flow of scenes in more pronounced ways than in naturally silent films.

Anyway, it's the story of a naval crew on a submarine leaving port from China. The first fifteen minutes or so is the crew ending their shore leave. This is the sort of side-character loving stuff that Ford had become well-known for. There are sailors buying vases for their mothers back home, some looking for good times with prostitutes (this was pre-Code), and generally just getting really drunk (again, pre-Code). It's lightly amusing stuff, but it obfuscates who this story is actually about. Our first clue to who the center of this story comes as the sub leaves dock and the captain of a battleship seems to recognize one of the sailors, the chief torpedoman Burke (Kenneth MacKenna). In addition, the character of Albert Price (Frank Albertson) from Salute appears, graduated as an ensign, as the newest member of the crew, coming aboard for his first voyage with the ship.

Something goes wrong very soon after they leave port. The engine room floods, killing everyone there and stalling the ship, keeping it from moving. There's also damage to both torpedo tubes, and the men cannot get off the ship. The bulk of the film is the crew on the submarine's bridge, left with Ensign Price as the senior officer, trying to buy time with their limited oxygen supply while the radio operator sends out S. O. S. Messages. The crew grows increasingly frantic with Burke keeping hold of the oxygen tank, trying to slowly dose out the gas to elongate the crew's ability to survive (I'm not entirely sure how doling it out in small bits would be great for survival, but sure). People go crazy, and one even needs to get shot.

The truth of Burke's past begins to come out at the same time. It turns out that he was a British officer, a captain of a ship that got sunk on a secret mission that, the court marshal determined, was either his fault or the fault of Burke's girl back home in England. He knows that he didn't give up the information, it was probably her. However, because the crown sees him as killed in action, they laid the blame on him. He then took on a new identity of join the American navy. Concurrently, we hear about Ensign Price's girl back home, and how he wants to go back to her.

Time goes on, and a destroyer receives their message and comes to rescue them. However, it is of course the ship captained by the man who could identify Burke's past and take him back to England. The torpedo tube gets cleared, allowing the surviving men to be released from the sub one at a time, but one man will have to stay behind to shoot the second to last man out, doomed to stay and die with the ship. Ensign Price, as the commanding officer, decides that it must be him who stays behind, however, Burke can't go up and not only face his own previous failings of not having gone down with his previous ship but also make it known that his girl back in England is a traitor. It's the kind of perfect little encapsulation of events that the movie rather adeptly builds up to. This conflict of duties in two men bound by duty is really well executed.

The first half is loose and sometimes hard to follow. The second half is clear-eyed and comes to a great conclusion. The health of the existing print means that we'll never see it as originally released in America, but I think it's good enough on its own. It's a solid story of men in the military, a favorite subject of Ford's, and I think it ends up working quite well.

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 sailors-trapped-in-a-sinking-submarine drama: Will they drown? Will the oxygen run out? Will they suffocate from chlorine gas? Will divers get to them in time? And what about that religious fanatic on board? John Ford skillfully ratchets up the tension, but some shaky special effects, unlikely characterizations and broad acting give an uneven effect, compared to later and slicker entertainments like RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP. However, this production has genuine historical value because it shows the difficulties in changing over from silent to sound,: sometimes it's a silent film with sound effects and [tinny] music. Other scenes have dialogue with one character actually speaking while another answers in silent intertitles. Most oddly, sometimes a character starts speaking, then an intertitle shows noticeably different lines, then the character finishes speaking. Not many movies have such a variety of expression.

The full sound version of this early talking John Ford film remains lost but thankfully this international work-print with inter-titles for dialogue and narration (and some sound) has survived and is preserved by the Museum of Modern Art. Up to now, this film was only available from VHS recordings of AMC's Film Preservation Festival from 1999.

After being called back to their ship during liberty in Shanghai, the sailors of the S-13 are struck by another passing vessel and sink to the bottom of the ocean. While waiting to be rescued and with oxygen levels dwindling, the men of the S-13 fight for their lives and sometimes each other in suspenseful anticipation to see who will make it out alive.

In addition to Ford's direction, the cast of characters makes the movie an enjoyable experience and makes you care for each of their fates. Kenneth McKenna as the Naval officer with a secret, young Frank Albertson as a rookie ensign who is unexpectedly thrust into being a leader for his men, Warren Hymer as a ruffian sailor hiding a heart of gold, young Stu Erwin as the S-13's radioman and Ford stock player J. Farrell McDonald as the old navy veteran. Be on the lookout towards the end of the film for young John Wayne as a radioman up on the surface.

The film has been restored for Fox's MOD DVD release and I've never seen it clearer and more beautiful. Kudos to everyone involved in getting this film restored and released because it's a true unsung gem in John Ford's very long directorial career.