Herzen in Flammen

Edward G. Robinson and George Raft are a couple of linemen. Robinson is the foreman of the crew and a bit of a lug when it comes to the opposite sex. Raft however is a smooth operator.

They both meet Marlene Dietrich at a clip joint, the Code euphemism for a bordello. Robinson falls for her and Dietrich's looking for a way out of the working life. They marry, but she starts getting a yen for Raft and that brings on trouble.

Manpower has a place in film history having nothing to do with the content or the quality of the movie. While visiting his good buddy George Raft on the set, one Benjamin Siegel was introduced to Virginia Hill as depicted in the film Bugsy. There's a scene where Raft gets into a brawl with Barton MacLane that is depicted in Bugsy.

And if that wasn't enough, Raft and Robinson got into a real brawl over Marlene just like in the film. It seems as though Dietrich was involved with Raft during the production. But Raft was not the most educated of men.

Edward G. Robinson came from a slum background like Raft, but he'd educated himself and in fact was a well known art collector. Dietrich was no dummy herself and she and Eddie got friendly on the set, talking about stuff that Raft didn't have a clue about. Of course this got George jealous and they had a knock down drag out over her. You couldn't buy that kind of publicity. Lucky for Robinson Raft didn't call on Ben Siegel for his services.

So Manpower entered its place in Hollywood lore. Too bad the film wasn't any great masterpiece. It's entertaining enough though with a good cast of Warner Brothers regulars supporting Ms. Dietrich and her gentlemen friends. It seems though just about every film Warners made back then had either Alan Hale or Frank McHugh in it, in this case both. They're always entertaining. Add to that Eve Arden in her usual role as the wisecracking best friend of the heroine.

Not the greatest film ever made, but a historic one and not bad on the entertainment scale.

"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.

Is the movie a comedy with melodramatic overtones or a melodrama with comedic overtones. Sometimes it's hard to tell since exaggeration appears the way director Walsh has decided to pitch the material. The storms, the comedic byplay, Robinson's good-hearted working man—all are spread on pretty thickly and much of the time, I'm afraid, to a fault. At times there's almost a frenetic undercurrent as though the audience won't get the point unless it's shoveled on. Contrast Walsh's approach here with his tightly controlled direction of High Sierra (also 1941).

All in all, it's a strange movie. For example, when I think "daughter of the American working class", I don't think of a 40-year old with a German accent, even if she does pop gum in one scene. Just how that queen of continental glamour Marlene Dietrich wound up in a Warner Bros. programmer is puzzling, to say the least, especially when the studio had that supremely soulful blue-collar girl, Ida Lupino, under contract. Too bad that the wooden Dietrich adds to the phoniness of a movie that already has too much.

Of course, there are the thunder and lightning scenes that show what special effects in those days could do with a carefully lit soundstage. The storms are impressive, but they also make you doubt the sanity of anyone clambering around on 1,000 volt power lines. Falling appears to be the least of the hazards. Anyway, the movie's many conflicting parts produce an oddly awkward result, even if the very last shot achieves a kind of baroque poetry. Somehow, I suspect there's an inside story behind the making of this concoction that may be more compelling than the film itself.

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.

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.