I am often surprised by the direct power of many covers designed by Würth. The drawing for the ‘Pals, just Pals‘ fox-trot is deceivingly simple. With a few elements, sober colouring and small gestures the image relays the mild mood of an intimate and relaxed conversation between two long-time friends. Or do you imagine the two naval officers being more than friends?

‘Pals, just Pals‘ is the theme song of the silent film Submarine directed by Frank Capra in 1928. It tells the story of the friendship between two sailors in the US Navy. The nautical best friends accidentally pursue the same woman, and through this triangular love situation their friendship comes to an end.

The film comes to the heart of the matter when both ex-friends get involved —one as a victim the other as the saviour— in a submarine disaster. The denouement of this tragic experience is that their old friendship will renew, and for the better!
The film is inspired on the catastrophe of the U.S. submarine S-51 in 1925. There even exists a dedicated webpage about this accident at sea. The one and a half hours Capra film is on YouTube (type ‘submarino‘ for your search) but a short extract of the movie will do in order to appreciate its male flavour.

For the rest of this post, I will entertain you with other masculine friendships.

Now these two last gentlemen have a very Gilbert and George attitude. The perfect reason for us to look at a short documentary on their Living Sculpture performances.
The song ‘Underneath The Arches‘ is at 1:30. How very moving it is to hear and see them singing this 1932 Flanagan and Allen ‘Great Depression’ tune.