bkoganbing
It's unfortunate that City Without Men could not have been made post WWII. Sadly a lot of very dated flag waving gets caught up in what could have been an interesting story.Michael Duane is a tugboat captain who gets caught with a couple of Nipponese gentlemen on his craft and is arrested. He gets five years in prison for stuff I think a smart lawyer could have beaten even war time.His fiancé Linda Darnell moves to a boardinghouse to be near him run by Sara Allgood whose husband is in the same prison doing a life sentence. Among other roomers it are Glenda Farrell and Margaret Hamilton. It looks a whole lot like the theatrical boardinghouse in Stage Door with all the personalities. But there's no eager hope for a career with these women, they're down and outers and they know it.Darnell has her hopes pinned on drunken attorney Edgar Buchanan and that's not much.This was a somewhat interesting story done of course on the cheap. It lost me however when Edgar Buchanan started waving the flag and drawing illusions to the occupation of Manchuria to Pearl Harbor with this man's case. Today's audiences would be howling in laughter.Sadly some real potential is lost in wartime flag waving.
MartinHafer
In 1943, Linda Darnell was an up and coming star--destined to make quite a career for herself at Twentieth Century-Fox. However, as she hadn't yet had this big break, she appeared in smaller films--in this case a film for Columbia's B-unit. When you watch "City Without Men", it's pretty easy to tell that this wasn't a particularly distinguished film--with a plot that, at times, is VERY heavy-handed and even silly.The film begins with a new recruit for the US Navy getting pulled into the middle of a spy ring just before Pearl Harbor. Although he captures two evil Japanese spies, his superiors believe he was in league with them--and sentence him to five years in prison. His fiancée (Darnell) is determined to not only try to get him out, but she goes so far as to move into a rooming house near the prison. This place is full of other women whose men are behind bars (such as Sara Allgood and Glenda Farrell). Can she manage to get someone to look at her boyfriend's case and give him a second chance? The idea of the film isn't bad, but all the WWII jingoism is a bit hard to take. In particular, Edgar Buchanan makes a long speech about America, apple pie and the like and it just comes off as preachy and ridiculous. In fact, much of the film is pretty ridiculous--with silly one-dimensional characters and not much more. An odd film...and not a very good one.
mark.waltz
There's a lot of great actresses in "City Without Men", one of those "B" Columbia films about women in peril. But unfortunately, what they forgot about was getting a screenplay with a story, not touches of a plot here and there, surrounding the wife of a wrongly accused man who moves in with other prison wives to be near her husband. The men, of course, plot an escape, and there's enough cat-fights, card cheating and tragedy to go around. Sara Allgood gets acting honors as the sort of den mother to the girls, whose own husband has a life sentence. That fabulous "wicked witch" (Margaret Hamilton) seems to have fun every time she throws out a wisecrack or kicks a cheating wife in the butt. Unfortunately, she (like the majority of the others) isn't at all likable. Throw in Uncle Joe from "Petticoat Junction" (Edgar Buchannan) adding the same type of sympathy and wisdom he used in "Penny Senenade". This seems to take the plots of "The Big House", "The Women" and "Tender Comrade", throw them all together, and try to come up with something of quality. Unfortunately, they miss by a long shot.In reference to the DVD, I agree with other reviewers that this is not a high-quality transfer and much of the dialogue is difficult to decipher. Please keep this in mind when watching the movie which is hard to resist with that cast. (I must confess, I've watched it three times, hoping to find something worthwhile.)
sugar-bear
This movie was pretty good but the only part I kept rewinding and laughing at was when one of the girls in the house gets ganged up on and beat up. Margaret Hamilton (also known for her role as the Wicked Witch of the West a few years back) gives a great performance as the wise cracking-alcohol drinking-card game cheater who beats that woman senseless and now I really know why Dorothy never messed with her in Wizard of Oz. That scene was so priceless I couldn't help but watch it over and over. LOL!!! The movie is pretty poor quality but if your a fan then I suggest you watch it!! Especially that fight scene. It was a pretty good movie overall!!
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