Manpower Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Manpower Blu-ray Movie Review

A real high-wire act.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III February 5, 2026

An odd mixture of melodrama and comedy with questionable casting, Raoul Walsh's Manpower comes in a decisive fourth place when ranked alongside the other three films he directed in 1941: Strawberry Blonde, They Died With Their Boots On, and especially High Sierra. Though entertaining in spurts thanks to rapid-fire dialogue and impressive set pieces, its wild mood swings and ever-shifting tone never fully come together in a satisfying way.

Things start off well enough, with long-time friends and co-workers Hank McHenry and Johnny Marshall (Edward G. Robinson and George Raft) called back to work after a long shift at the power company; a fierce nighttime storm has led to yet another dangerous bout with active lines... and before he knows what hit him, Hank sustains a nasty leg injury that leaves him with a permanent limp and a new nickname: "Gimpy". While he recovers at the hospital, "the boys" -- including "Jumbo" (Alan Hale, Sr.), Omaha (Frank McHugh), and Pop Duval (Egon Brecher) -- deliver a bit of good news: Hank's been promoted to foreman, which includes a nice pay raise and time on the ground.

The hard-working, skirt-chasing rhythm of their boys' club is soon interrupted by Fay Duval (Marlene Dietrich), Pop's daughter who's just been released from prison for petty theft and now works at a seedy "clip joint" (a night club, and one with female escorts). Hank is immediately smitten with her -- Johnny, not so much -- so he chases Fay more aggressively than most dames, but things go south when Pop is fatally injured on the job during an ice storm and she hits a rough patch. Johnny sees Fay as a distraction (and possible trap) that his pal Hank doesn't need, and he even attempts to bribe her $200 to leave him. But with very little self-confidence despite customers constantly throwing themselves at her, Fay digs her heels in and agrees to marry and move in with Hank, even though she doesn't love him; it's purely due to financial security and the fear that there's no one better for her out there.

Their arrangement almost works. Fay has been domesticated but is growing increasingly miserable, and the situation takes yet another turn when Johnny is also injured at work (see a pattern here?) and the newlyweds take him in for a month. Out of nowhere, Fay now sees Johnny as an alternative, possibly even an escape route, and confesses her love awkwardly. Not wanting to break up his friend's marriage (especially since he doesn't seem too keen on her anyway), Johnny bides his time as the lopsided love triangle sags heavily on one side and Fay grows restless. With job stress and trouble at home on the horizon, it won't be long before Hank's dreams of domestic tranquility will be over.

Manpower is a lot of things. It attempts to be a serious melodrama, one strangely laced with a lot of comedy (which occasionally works, but grows tiresome as the film lumbers along), and the stressful work scenes arrive whenever they feel like it. Typically shot at night under heavy rain, they add suspense to the production but these moments seem to only exist to drag the plot forward with another personal injury or other predictable development. The performances are fine within reason, but the casting is questionable: Robinson and Dietrich have virtually zero chemistry together, which I guess is kind of the point, but Dietrich feels like she's acting in the wrong film entirely. She's playing her usual disinterested self, and that works fine enough in the early going, but she really struggles with some of the dialogue and is in no way believable as the daughter of a blue-collar laborer. This severely undercuts a good portion of Manpower, which builds to an exciting climax but ultimately rings hollow on the "romantic drama" side of things.

Nonetheless, it at least stays entertaining most of the way. The dialogue and production design do a lot of heavy lifting, and Robinson and Raft serve as solid friends and foils for large portions of the plot to build around. Collectively, though, Manpower owes an awful lot to Howard Hawks' 1932 film Tiger Shark (coincidentally also starring Robinson) and a few other films that followed, enough so that originality certainly isn't one of its strong suits. But it almost works and will at least cater to die-hard fans of its cast and especially director Raoul Walsh who, as usual, skillfully imbues Manpower with the kind of crisp visual proficiency that still stands out 85 years after its theatrical debut, when it did respectable business but earned mixed reviews. Nonetheless, Warner Archive's new Blu-ray plays to the film's clear-cut strengths, thanks in large part to a nicely appointed new restoration that polishes its cinematography to a shine.

Manpower Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sourced from a new 4K scan of the original nitrate camera negative (with a few inserts from secondary sources, from the looks of it), Manpower looks exceptional on Blu-ray and, like Warner Archive's recent treatment of Red Dust, is fine work for what must have been a challenging restoration. Both films feature a few prominent scenes shot at night during heavy rain, and the boutique label's proprietary manual cleanup process has removed almost all signs of dirt and debris while leaving all those devastating downpours intact. Fine detail and textures are uniformly outstanding, only wavering slightly during those few scenes and shots where suspected secondary sources were used, and thus collectively it's as consistently strong as you'd expect from Warner Archive. As usual, they've also authored the film on a dual-layered disc and it runs at a high and supportive bit rate, effectively eliminating all signs of compression problems, and only a small number of trace source-related issues remain like lightly pulsing black levels and sporadic noise. Under the circumstances, this is first-rate restoration work and likely far outpaces their own 2010 DVD edition.

Manpower Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mix follows suit with a clean and crisp presentation of Manpower's original mono audio, which as usual has been split evenly into a two-channel track for wider playback that still sounds authentic. Dialogue and effects are cleanly rendered and well within expectations for this era of sound recording, while composer Adolph Deutsch's original score -- which is appropriately tense at all the right moments -- sounds very good as well. No age-related wear-and-tear remains, aside from trace levels of hiss that indicate a lack of noise reduction applied.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during the main feature only, not the extras listed below (which are 99% dialogue-free, incidentally).

Manpower Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with poster-themed cover art. A pair of restored 1941 Looney Tunes / Merrie Melodies cartoons, both directed by Chuck Jones and making their digital home video debut, are also included.

• Snowtime for Comedy (7:15) - Two playful pups battle for a juicy bone in a winter wonderland before beavers and dangerous conditions spoil their fun.

• Joe Glow the Firefly (6:49) - A curious lightning bug explores a campground and its lone occupant (reportedly a caricature of Jones himself) at night in this stylish black-and-white short.

Manpower Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Raoul Walsh's Manpower is a patchy but entertaining slice of melodrama that's oddly infused with comedy... but almost everyone seems to be on board with it, and that helps. Marlene Dietrich is the outlier here and feels mostly wrong for her part, yet fans of its cast and director should still enjoy themselves. As usual, Warner Archive's new Blu-ray plays to the film's strengths and its new 4K-sourced restoration is a thing of beauty, boldly supporting Manpower's impressive visuals with a first-rate transfer that makes the film shine like new. Recommended to the right crowd.