City Without Men

City Without Men
Movie poster
Directed by	Sidney Salkow
Produced by	Samuel Bronston B.P. Schulberg
Screenplay by	W.L. River
Starring	Linda Darnell Edgar Buchanan Michael Duane Sara Allgood Glenda Farrell
Music by	David Raksin
Cinematography	Philip Tannura
Edited by	Al Clark
Production company	B.P. Schulberg Productions
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	January 14, 1943
Running time	75 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

City Without Men is a 1943 American drama film starring Linda Darnell, Edgar Buchanan, Michael Duane, Sara Allgood and Glenda Farrell. The film was directed by Sidney Salkow and is based on an original story written by Albert Bein and Aben Kandel. It was released by Columbia Pictures on January 14, 1943. A group of women lives in a boarding house near a prison where the residents are the wives of the prison inmates.

The film opens with the prologue: July 1941--five months before Pearl Harbor, but already the coming events were casting their shadows before.

At sea, Tom Adams order two Japanese men into his speedboat after seeing them climbing into a rowboat from an English ship. When Tom is approached by the Coast Guard they refuse to believe his story and charge him with aiding and abetting the Japanese. Tom is found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. Nancy Johnson (Linda Darnell) Tom's girlfriend is determined to exonerate him. Outside the prison, Nancy meets Michael Malloy (Edgar Buchanan) and learns that his brother is the head of the parole board. She asks Michael to present Tom's case to his brother. Nancy gets a job at the local laundry, and rents a room in Maria Barton's (Sara Allgood) boarding house, whose tenants are the wives of the prison inmates. She meets other tenants, Gwen (Leslie Brooks) Winnie and Billie LaRue (Glenda Farrell).

On visiting day, Tom who has become embittered and disillusioned by his imprisonment refuses to see Nancy. When Tom learns about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he asks for a chance to defend his country and petitions to be paroled into military service. Other prisoners also join Tom on the petition. However, the petition is denied by the parole board. Meanwhile, Winnie has secured a blueprint of the prison and plans to hide the convicts in bales, which would then be loaded onto a boat for delivery. The wives decide to conceal their plans from Nancy and scheduled the prison break for Friday night. On Friday morning, Maria is told that her husband, who is also in prison is at the hospital. She rushes to the hospital and learns that he was stabbed for threatening to inform the prison warden about a prison break. Her husband asks Maria to warn the warden.