Sunday, October 15, 2023

Men Without Women (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Navy divers clear the torpedo tube of a sunken submarine.
Directed by John Ford. Starring Kenneth MacKenna, Frank Albertson, and J. Farrell MacDonald.

Men Without Women is a curious title for this film, because the women-less-ness of these men has no bearing on their plight. These men are, in fact, trapped in a submarine that is running out of oxygen, trying to communicate with the outside world. This is an early John Ford and while it's not as smooth as some of his later films, it definitely captures the claustrophobia of these men and how easy it is for their panic to lead them to make terrible decisions. It's been rare so far for my 1930 films to really capture much of a sense of tension, but this one is pretty effective at that, as well as helping us get to know some of the individual men trapped down here so we can be rooting for them on a personal level.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Men Without Women > Solaris (1968)
Men Without Women < Dark Passage
Men Without Women > The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
Men Without Women > Corrina, Corrina
Men Without Women < Nerve
Men Without Women < Marjorie Prime
Men Without Women > Wonder Man
Men Without Women > Friday the 13th
Men Without Women < Leave No Trace
Men Without Women > Superlopez
Men Without Women > The Post
Final spot: #1140 out of 3813, or 70%.

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