1940s

  • Georges Rouquier – Le Tonnelier (1942)

    1941-1950DocumentaryFranceGeorges RouquierShort Film

    A short documentary about the life and craft of a French cooper. The main focus is on the two-day process of creating a wine barrel, from nada to completion. Interspersed throughout are little snippets concerning the life of the cooper whose work we follow, like mentioning his daughter’s marriage and his being involved in WWI.Read More »

  • James A. FitzPatrick – Glimpses of Florida (1941)

    1941-1950DocumentaryJames A. FitzPatrickShort FilmUSA

    Quote:
    This Traveltalk entry starts in Miami, which at the time of filming was still a small vacation community. We then go to Hialeah to watch the thoroughbred horses race. After short stops at The Everglades and Cypress Gardens, we are taken to Silver Springs, named after its pristine waters. Mr. Ross Allen, director of the Silver Springs Reptile Institute, is shown catching alligators and milking a poisonous snake of its venom. The venom is sent to pharmaceutical companies to manufacture snakebite serum.Read More »

  • Billy Wilder – A Foreign Affair (1948)

    USA1941-1950Billy WilderComedyRomance

    Quote:
    Phoebe Frost (Jean Arthur), an upright Iowa Republican member of Congress, travels to Berlin to look into reports of corruption among the occupying American forces. She enlists an Army captain (John Lund) in her crusade and finds herself falling for him, unaware that he’s the man romantically involved with a German cabaret singer (Marlene Dietrich) who can lead army investigators to a high-level Nazi war criminal. The post-war public was not ready to accept such a witty expose of American and German hypocrisy during its original release but A FOREIGN AFFAIR is now considered one of Wilder’s most underrated and iconic films. The black and white cinematography by Charles Lang and the screenplay by Wilder, Charles Brackett and Richard L. Breen received Oscar® nominations.Read More »

  • Joseph H. Lewis – The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1942)

    1941-1950ClassicsHorrorJoseph H. LewisUSA

    Synopsis:
    A mad scientist is forced to leave San Francisco when his experiments become known. He lands on a tropical island, takes control and terrorizes the local populace. The survivor of a shipwreck washes ashore on the island, sees what is happening and determines to free the natives from his rule.Read More »

  • Carlos Hugo Christensen – Dieciséis años AKA Sixteen (1943)

    1941-1950ArgentinaCarlos Hugo ChristensenDramaRomance

    Plot
    An early CHC melodrama produced by Lumiton in 1943. Based on the British play Sixteen by Aimée & Philip Stuart.

    A naive teenager faces a distressing reality when her widowed mother finds love anew 12 years after her first marriage ended.Read More »

  • George Cukor – The Philadelphia Story (1940) (HD)

    1931-1940ComedyGeorge CukorRomanceScrewball ComedyUSA

    Quote:
    With this furiously witty comedy of manners, Katharine Hepburn revitalized her career and cemented her status as the era’s most iconic leading lady—thanks in great part to her own shrewd orchestrations. While starring in the Philip Barry stage play The Philadelphia Story, Hepburn acquired the screen rights, handpicking her friend George Cukor to direct. The intoxicating screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart pits the formidable Philadelphia socialite Tracy Lord (Hepburn, at her most luminous) against various romantic foils, chief among them her charismatic ex-husband (Cary Grant), who disrupts her imminent marriage by paying her family estate a visit, accompanied by a tabloid reporter on assignment to cover the wedding of the year (James Stewart, in his only Academy Award–winning performance). A fast-talking screwball comedy as well as a tale of regret and reconciliation, this convergence of golden-age talent is one of the greatest American films of all time.Read More »

  • Robert Siodmak – Criss Cross (1949)

    USA1941-1950CrimeFilm NoirRobert Siodmak

    Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) returns home after a few years of knocking around the country following his divorce from good-time girl Anna (Yvonne De Carlo). Getting his old job back driving an armored car, and not even convincing himself that he’s making a new start, he also wants his old wife back.Read More »

  • Rafael Gil – Don Quijote de la Mancha (1947)

    1941-1950ClassicsComedyRafael GilSpainSpanish cinema under Franco

    Quote:
    The first sound film version in Spanish of the great classic novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. A huge undertaking for Spanish cinema in its day, it was the longest film version of the novel up to that time, and very likely the most faithful, reverently following the book in its dialogue and order of episodes.Read More »

  • Gordon Douglas – Zombies on Broadway (1945)

    1941-1950ComedyGordon DouglasHorrorUSA

    Two inept press agents are ordered to the island of San Sebastian to get a zombie for an opening night publicity stunt of a nightclub. They find a likely source in Dr. Paul Renault, who has spent much time studying (and experimenting) on the subject, but Renault has other ideas.Read More »

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