Manpower (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Raoul WalshRelease Date(s)
1941 (January 27, 2026)Studio(s)
Warner Bros. Pictures (Warner Archive Collection)- Film/Program Grade: B-
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: C
Review
Manpower, a drama with gripping moments, portrays risks taken by powerline trouble-shooters and the camaraderie that binds them as a team. Boisterous shenanigans, practical jokes, preposterous boasts, drinking—all serve to cement their friendship and trust in each other. These are men whose daily flirtation with danger makes that trust essential.
The close-knit unit consists of linemen Hank McHenry (Edward G. Robinson), Johnny Marshall (George Raft), Hank’s best friend; “Pop” Duval (Egon Brecher); Jumbo (Alan Hale); Eddie Adams (Ward Bond); and Omaha (Frank McHugh).
Small of stature and stocky, Hank is short-tempered and quick to lash out with his fists at any perceived slight. Johnny always intervenes whenever Hank goes too far. Yet Hank is also fun-loving, always kidding around with the boys, the first to hit the dance floor even though his movements are more comical than romantic. He enjoys all the horsing around and practical jokes but he’s all business when it comes to the job. He’s the team leader, warning the men to be careful of the live wires while assuring repairs get done efficiently.
Old-timer Pop keeps it a secret from everyone but Johnny that his daughter Fay (Marlene Dietrich) was in prison for stealing a customer’s wallet in a clip joint. On the day of her release, Johnny drives Pop to pick her up and take her home. Johnny is surprised to see that Fay is more interested in buying cigarettes and make-up than in her father, whom she regards as a bad parent.
Fay gets a job in the Midnight Club, a Los Angeles clip joint. When Pop is killed in a powerline accident, Hank takes pity on her and comes to pay his respects. He’s taken with Fay, and begins an awkward courtship and eventually proposes. Even when she tells him she doesn’t love him, Hank says they’ll learn to love each other. Sick of being exploited by the nightclub’s owner, she marries Hank and tries to be a good housewife. But after a few months, despite Hank’s generosity, she decides to leave him. Suitcase in hand, she stops in at her old nightclub to ask boss Smiley Quinn (Barton MacLane) for a lead on a possible job in Chicago. At that moment the police raid the club, mistake her for an employee, and arrest her with the rest of the staff.
Johnny bails her out and drives her to the site where Hank and the team are working on a dam project. When Fay confesses she’s fallen in love with Johnny, he refuses to have anything to do with her. Despondent, Fay tells Hank she’s leaving him to be with Johnny. This causes a climactic confrontation between Hank and his longtime friend.
Robinson adds elements of his gangster persona from earlier films when Hank’s quick temper kicks in. His bulldog looks can segue from clown to aggressor with a split-second expression change.
Dietrich, alluring, slinky, and sensual, is the nominal “bad girl” with compassion. She projects the tough aura of a woman battling to survive hard times, and is equally good at convincing us of her integrity when she refuses to take unfair advantage of Hank despite the urging of her fellow gal pals at the Midnight Club. When Dietrich is on screen, you can’t take your eyes off her. With an alluring expression, deep sultry voice, and surrounded by cigarette smoke, she’s sensuality epitomized.
Raft, with the least screen time of the three leads, is miscast as Johnny, the reluctant point of a love triangle. His screen chemistry with Dietrich should be electric but instead is indifferent. Johnny is supposed to be the moral voice of the picture, but he comes off stiff and holier than thou. in the name of loyalty to Hank. Raft’s Johnny is not very likable, since in every interaction with Fay he’s condescending and hurtful, having pegged her as a woman with a miserable past who can never change.
Eve Arden is under-used as as Dolly, Fay’s co-worker at the Midnight Club. She’s on hand to give cynical advice to Fay and issue a few well-tuned wisecracks, Arden’s specialty. It’s a shame her role couldn’t have been expanded. She has a wry way with a good line and always manages to deliver comic relief. Additional verbal humor is served up when the linemen hit a burger joint for lunch. As they give their orders to a harried counterman (John Harmon), he yells them to the short-order cook in quirky lingo. Director Raoul Walsh depends mostly on male bonding pranks to serve up humorous moments, but they grow tiresome pretty quickly.
Walsh creates some exciting moments as the men work on live overhead wires. Two major sequences feature the linemen climbing tall towers in raging downpours to repair damaged power lines and a climactic scene atop a massive tower in a furious rain storm is the site of a confrontation between Hank and Johnny.
Manpower deals with masculine excess exemplified by rambunctious dialogue, sometimes a stream of colorful yarns and wisecracks and inept words at emotional moments. When Hank and Johnny bring word to Fay of her father’s death, Hank is lost for words and Johnny bluntly tells her how he died and delivers his things. In a film so dominated by men, Dietrich’s presence offers an infusion of femininity. However, when Fay expresses her love for Johnny, it’s literally out of left field. There’s no proper build-up to the revelation. It just happens, suggesting laziness in the screenplay by Richard Macaulay and Jerry Wald.
Shot by director of photography Ernest Haller on 35mm black & white film with spherical lenses and finished photochemically, Manpower is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.37:1. Black side mattes fill out the screen. The Blu-ray is sourced from a 4K scan of the original nitrate camera negative. Clarity and contrast are excellent, in keeping with Warner Archive’s reputation for quality restorations of older films. Blacks are deep and rich with grayscale capturing details such as driving rain, Dietrich’s flowing hair, the high tension wires and power poles, shrubbery, and decor in Fay’s apartment. A climactic fight is staged excitingly with riveting suspense. Special effects by Byron Haskin (The War of the Worlds) and H.F. Koenekamp include miniatures of electrical towers battered by rain and strong winds.
The soundtrack is English 2.0 mono DTS-HD Master Audio. English SDH subtitles are an option. Dialogue is clear and distinct, particularly in rain downpours, when dialogue and sound effects are well balanced. Other sound effects include crackling high tension wires, truck and car engines, bodies being pummeled during brawls, and ambient noise in the Midnight Club. When the men fool around during their down time, they’re loud and unfiltered, often fueled by booze. We hear only a brief bit of Dietrich vocalizing as she sings the last few bars of a song at the Midnight Club.
Bonus materials on the Blu-ray release from the Warner Archive Collection include the following:
- Snowtime for Comedy (7:15)
- Joe Glow the Firefly (6:49)
Snowtime for Comedy – In this 1941 Merrie Melodies Technicolor cartoon directed by Chuck Jones, a small, scrappy puppy and a much larger boxer dog playfully chase a bone through a winter wonderland but soon have confrontations with beavers and dangerous ice. There’s a lot of slipping and sliding, falling and crashing into objects. This is the third and final Two Curious Puppies films from Warner Bros.
Joe Glow the Firefly – Directed by Chuck Jones, this 1941 black & white Looney Tunes cartoon follows a small firefly with a miner’s lighted helmet exploring a sleeping camper’s tent and the assorted people-sized items that, from his perspective, are gigantic. Rather than Warner Bros. usual fast-paced gags, the almost-silent film focuses on the bug’s exploration and this efforts not to wake the camper. The firefly utters the cartoon’s sole line of dialogue. Voice characterization is by Mel Blanc.
Manpower is fast-paced. With a supporting cast of actors from the Warners stock company and sharp direction by Raoul Walsh, it delivers thrills. The film is engaging, with Robinson’s energetic performance the major reason. His Hank is a nice guy who hasn’t had success with the opposite sex. He elicits sympathy and we root for him. There’s so much practical joking to illustrate the men’s bond that it becomes tedious and slows the narrative. When the film turns into a romantic triangle, it loses traction and devolves into a failed attempt to escalate tension between Hank and Johnny. The ending is unsatisfactory both realistically and cinematically.
- Dennis Seuling