City Without Men 1943

July 1941, five months before Pearl Harbor, opens with a tense incident at sea involving Tom Adams. After spotting two Japanese men climbing from a rowboat toward his speedboat, the Coast Guard doubts his account and charges him with aiding the enemy. He is found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison.

Outside the prison, Nancy Johnson is determined to exonerate him. She learns that Michael Malloy is the brother of the head of the parole board and asks him to present Tom’s case to his brother. Nancy gets a job at the local laundry and moves into Maria Barton’s boarding house, whose tenants are the wives of inmates. There she meets Gwen, Winnie, and Billie LaRue.

On visiting day, Tom, embittered by his imprisonment, refuses to see Nancy. When he 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, but the parole board denies it.

Meanwhile, Winnie has secured a blueprint of the prison and plans to hide the convicts in bales, which would be loaded onto a boat for delivery. The wives decide to conceal their plans from Nancy and schedule 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 the prison break. Her husband asks Maria to warn the warden.

Meanwhile, a newspaper headline substantiates Tom’s story. Nancy brings the news to Michael Malloy and asks him to fight for Tom’s freedom. Michael barges into his brother’s office and makes an impassioned speech about the injustice that was done to Tom. His brother agrees to phone the warden on Tom’s behalf.

When the wives waiting at the shore for their husbands hear the prison sirens, they realize that the prison escape has failed. Later, after Tom is freed from prison, he reconciles with Nancy.