1940s

  • Arthur Lubin – Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944)

    1941-1950AdventureArthur LubinFantasyUSA

    Ali Baba, son of the Kalif of Bagdad is brought up by the 40 Thieves after his father is killed by the soldiers of Hugalu Khan, who received the necessary information by traitor Cassim. Ali becomes the leader of the thieves and they are fighting for the freedom of his land. Per chance Ali captures the fiancée of Hugalu Khan, who turns out to be his girl friend Amara. After a few misunderstandings Ali uses her wedding day with Hugalu Khan as the day for the liberation of Bagdad.Read More »

  • John Ford – The Long Voyage Home (1940)

    1931-1940ClassicsDramaJohn FordUSA

    Shannon Kelley writes:
    The powers and fascinations of director John Ford and playwright Eugene O’Neill are happily met in this 1940 feature dramatizing the lives of men who serve as crew members aboard commercial freighters. Like O’Neill, Ford nursed a lifelong obsession with sailing and the sea, and had spent his early years in Portland, Maine, amid the maritime culture that this picture describes. Adapted and updated by screenwriter Dudley Nichols (Ford’s frequent collaborator) from four of O’Neill’s early plays set aboard the fictional “SS Glencairn,” the film recounts the experiences of the ship’s crew while transporting ammunition from the West Indies to England during World War II. Read More »

  • Esodo Pratelli – A che servono questi quattrini? (1942)

    1941-1950ComedyEsodo PratelliItaly

    PLOT:
    An elderly Marquis, having squandered all his fortune, begins a life as a vagabond philosopher and collects a small group of disciples to whom he teaches his thesis on the futility of work and of money.
    Citing Socrates, Plato and Diogenes in his own way, according to his philosophy of life, money is useless and it is a sort of disease that afflicts humanity; moreover men should not work but devote themselves to contemplation and rest.Read More »

  • Boris Barnet – Podvig razvedchika aka Secrets of Counter-Espionage (1947)

    1941-1950Boris BarnetUSSRWar

    Quote:
    Soviet agent Fedotov is air-dropped into Nazi occupied land. He changes over into Mr. Eckert, a German entrepreneur wishing to take advantage of eastern worker slave labor in occupied Ukraine. Eckert (Fedotov) enters into a partnership with a German entrepreneur whose son, Willy, is a high ranking Nazi. Together they go to Vinnitsa, Ukraine and start a factory. Fedotov begins seeking contacts with headquarters, but faces problems when a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator manages to infiltrate the Soviet partisans.Read More »

  • Arthur Lubin – Abbott & Costello: In The Navy (1941)

    USA1941-1950Arthur LubinComedyMusical

    Russ Raymond, America’s number one crooner, disappears and joins the Navy under the name Tommy Halstead. Dorothy Roberts, a magazine journalist, is intent on finding out what happened to Russ and she tries everything she can to get a picture of him to prove he’s Russ Raymond. Tommy’s friends, Pomeroy Watson and Smokey Adams,help him while Pomeroy writes love letters to Patty Andrews. But because Smokey makes Pomeroy lie about himself in the letters, and when Patty comes to the Navy base, she’s furious at Pomeroy. When Pomeroy, Smokey, Tommy and the Andrews sisters set sail for Hawaii, Pomeroy discovers there’s a tomato in the potato locker, and she’s been snapping shots of Tommy the whole trip. Whether Pomeroy’s proving that 7 x 13 = 28 – three different ways, having Smokey help him play ship captain for Patty, or falling out of his hammock, it’s an Abbott and Costello classic.Read More »

  • Herbert I. Leeds – Time to Kill (1942)

    1941-1950Herbert I. LeedsMysteryUSA

    A private detective is hired to retrieve a valuable antique coin that was stolen from its owner by her son, who used it to pay off a blackmailer. The private eye soon finds himself up to his ears in fights, more blackmail, hysterical women and murder.Read More »

  • Arch Oboler – Bewitched (1945)

    1941-1950Arch ObolerFilm NoirThrillerUSA

    Austrian Film Museum writes:
    Bewitchedis an audaciously stylized psychodrama that marked the keenly anticipated directorial debut of Arch Oboler, a brilliant enfant terrible of radio drama whose popular horror series Lights Out and scandalous Adam and Eve parody – with none other than Charlie McCarthy and Mae West in the biblical roles -earned him regular comparison with Orson Welles. Obolian accepted the inevitable invitation to Hollywood where he worked successfully as a screenwriter before directing this striking adaptation of his own celebrated radio play Alter Ego. Bewitched.Read More »

  • Raoul Walsh – The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945)

    1941-1950ComedyCultRaoul WalshScrewball ComedyUSA

    Synopsis by Hal Erickson
    Though Jack Benny made a cottage industry out of joking about the purported rottenness of his 1945 vehicle Horn Blows at Midnght, the film is in fact a delightful comedy-fantasy-certainly not Benny’s best film, but far from his worst. While dozing off during a radio broadcast, studio musician Athaniel (Benny) dreams he’s a trumpet player in Heaven’s celestial orchestra. At the behest of glamorous angel Elizabeth (Alexis Smith), Athaniel is brought into the lavish chambers of The Chief (Guy Kibbee), who has a job for our hapless hero. Read More »

  • Charles Barton – Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949)

    1941-1950Charles BartonComedyMysteryUSA

    Quote:
    Two employees of a secluded hotel investigate a murder on the premises in which the goofy bellboy is the prime suspect.Read More »

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