L'Entraîneuse fatale

Everything about MANPOWER is highly improbable, including the casting of EDWARD G. ROBINSON as a lineman in love with the alluring clip-joint hostess MARLENE DIETRICH and the three-way romance that includes GEORGE RAFT as a jealous blue collar onlooker who warns Robinson about the pitfalls of marrying Dietrich.

Raoul Walsh directs it in his customary boisterous style, letting ALAN HALE, FRANK McHUGH, WARD BOND and BARTON MacLANE overdo the rowdy blue collar supporting roles. The comic relief offered by Hale and McHugh is below par this time and becomes tiresome long before the tale reaches a climactic storm scene.

Fans of the star trio will probably overlook these faults and find the film passable viewing, but it's nothing special and easily forgotten. EVE ARDEN gets to sling some one-liners in the kind of role she always played with verve and skill.

Linemen working on electrical wires at the height of a severe thunderstorm is stretching things a bit for the melodramatic climax.

Manpower, is typical of the Warner Bros. action films of the 40's. It's filled with drama, tension, comedy and action. There is a lot of memorable dialogue, which puts modern films to shame. Probably, the best feature of this film is the cast. Dietrich, Robinson and Raft are topnotch. The supporting cast of Alan Hale, Frank McHugh, and Ward Bond lend superb comic relief. Manpower is a fun film which deserves repeated viewings.

"Manpower", made for Warner Bros. in 1941, is one of the most exciting and pleasurable of all classic action adventures. It's great to see the positive reviews from fellow users; I have been looking forward to it for some time and I finally saw it. What a picture! I'm a huge Raoul Walsh fan and "Manpower" ranks with the director's greatest works - "Me and My Gal", "The Roaring Twenties", "Gentleman Jim", "The Strawberry Blonde", "Objective, Burma", "Pursued", et al. The film is extraordinary for a number of reasons, but the most obvious reason is a top notch cast: Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, George Raft, Ward Bond, Alan Hale, Eve Arden, and the lovable Frank McHugh, performing his hilarious shenanigans and slapstick.

The film concerns a group of emergency power repairmen who work on a high voltage power lines during ferocious storms. Throughout "Manpower", Walsh emphasizes group camaraderie and the strong bond of working class Americans. It is also filled with Walsh's trademark boyish gusto and unsophisticated Irish ribaldry, but it somehow lacks the bittersweet nostalgia and wistfulness of "Strawberry Blonde" and "Gentleman Jim".

The same way Walsh's "Strawberry Blonde" is a remake of a charming 1933 Gary Cooper vehicle called "One Sunday Afternoon", "Manpower" is a remake of Howard Hawks'1932 adventure "Tiger Shark", also starring Edward G. Robinson as a tuna fisherman. Here, Robinson plays power lineman who happens to be in love with an ex-con girl, sensitively played by Marlene Dietrich. Robinson's rival is George Raft and their climactic aerial duel amidst jolting electric wires are among the highlights of the film's stunning action scenes.

This original screenplay from writers Richard Macaulay and Jerry Wald is essentially a drama about California linesmen for the power company, two of whom (Edward G. Robinson and George Raft) get tangled up over a sultry woman just out of the pen (and a recent graduate of a local clip joint). Uneasily cast film with overlays of raucous comedy, brotherly roughhousing, static adventure...but oddly, no romance. Robinson and Marlene Dietrich end up married, but the union seems loveless (she's indifferent to him, while he stays mostly hungover). Dietrich sings one colorless tune and seems to fight a case of the blahs. Special effects are good, but the mostly male supporting cast quickly tire the ear with would-be lascivious stories of 'dames' and 'babes'. Eve Arden has some funny one-liners playing Marlene's hostess co-hort, and there's a wild bit of satire set in a hash-joint. **1/2 from ****

Power-line repairman Edward G. Robinson marries prostitute Marlene Dietrich, but she finds herself enamored by hubby's best friend and colleague, a gallant George Raft.

There is much to enjoy in Raoul Walsh's exhilarating melodrama, and although it adheres rather too strictly to a proved formula, Walsh, always a great master at this, gives depth and dimension to the action. Walsh paints a vivid and loyal picture of this blue-collar environment of camaraderie and pranks, and Alan Hale's repairman is the whole deal rolled into one, there is not ONE joke about high voltage that he doesn't know, or doesn't repeat, ad nauseam. Every workplace has one! 'Manpower' is full of the trademark Walsh dynamics, comparable to the electric power, the frequent thunderstorms and the high tempo. The action is engrossing, the film overall is smoothly produced, briskly edited, brilliantly lit, designed and photographed. Never did sleekly wet, black raincoats photograph more memorably.

Robinson and Raft are congenially cast, but Dietrich is a long-shot as the prostitute turned housewife. "How's this dame stacked up?", Robinson asks of Raft, before he is introduced to her. Raft, waveringly: "Oh, just a dame ...". Well, she photographs like a goddess, and is impossibly glamorous. And quite improbably so.

Don't expect another Walsh masterpiece, but brace yourself for a hugely enjoyable flic that just whirls by you.