DbcultAccessing Vault...
5.7/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.7/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. All Men Are Enemies remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Honestly, only if you're deep into the 1930s studio style or have a weirdly specific interest in how movies handled the aftermath of WWI back when the paint was still fresh on the history books. If you want something snappy or modern, skip it. If you like watching people look mournfully at fireplaces for long stretches, you'll be fine.
It’s not exactly The Benson Murder Case in terms of pace, that’s for sure. It moves like a tired horse.
The whole thing feels like it's trying to be a massive epic on a pocket-change schedule. You get these sweeping scenes of romance that feel like they were filmed in someone’s living room. The transitions are jarring. One minute we're in pre-war innocence, the next we're in the trenches, and the movie never quite balances the two.
There's a specific shot of Helen Twelvetrees staring out a window that goes on for a solid forty seconds. I counted. It wasn't profound, it was just... long. ⏳
It's definitely melodramatic. Every line of dialogue is delivered like it’s being read from a crumbling letter found in a dusty trunk. Sometimes it works, mostly it just feels like a theater play that forgot to leave the stage.
I found myself thinking about Gambling in Souls, because at least that one knew exactly what kind of movie it wanted to be. All Men Are Enemies feels like it's having a mid-life crisis about its own plot.
Is it a bad movie? Not really. It’s just... very 1934. It’s got that polite, slightly stiff quality that makes you want to reach through the screen and tell the characters to just talk to each other like normal human beings for once. But hey, if they did that, we wouldn't have a movie, right? 🤷♂️
I’m still not sure if the title refers to the soldiers, the lovers, or the people who had to sit through the final cut in the editing bay. Probably all three.
