favorite Favorite 1940s Films

What are some of your favorite movies from the 1940s?

I recently watched Lady in Distress (1940) and it was a really interesting story. The ending was ... surprising.

:D
 
That's a tough one. Hollywood cranked out so many good films in the 1940s. Off the top of my head, here are a few that I personally enjoyed:
CITIZEN KANE
HIGH SIERRA - Humphrey Bogart
HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY - John Ford
MALTESE FALCON - Bogart
NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK - W.C.Fields
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
CASABLANCA
SAHARA (Yes, I'm a Bogart fan. It shows)
MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS - Judy Garland
ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (The original)
A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN
THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
MY DARLING CLEMENTINE
ZIEGFELD FOLLIES
THE EGG AND I

I'll quit now...
 
I just thought of another one which is high on my list of films: "LIFEBOAT" (1944) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Based on the novel by John Steinbeck. (Steinbeck also wrote "GRAPES OF WRATH", made into a great movie made in 1940. Directed by John Ford)
 
Here's my favorite from the 1940s; my favorite favorites are in bold.


Casablanca
Boom Town
The Grapes of Wrath
The Sea Hawk
Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet
Edison, the Man
Fantasia
Gaslight
His Girl Friday
The Mark of Zorro
The Philadelphia Story
Pinocchio
The Shop Around the Corner
The Devil and Daniel Webster
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
How Green Was My Valley
The Lady Eve
The Maltese Falcon
Sergeant York
A Yank in the RAF
The Black Swan
Captains of the Clouds
Cat People
Pride of the Yankees
The Talk of the Town
Yankee Doodle Dandy
The Ox-Bow Incident
Arsenic and Old Lace
Gaslight
Going My Way
Laura
The Bells of St. Mary's
The Lost Weekend
The Naughty Nineties
The Story of G.I. Joe
The Best Years of Our Lives

The Big Sleep
My Darling Clementine
The Bishop's Wife
Captain from Castile
Dark Passage
The Farmer's Daughter
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
They Made Me a Fugitive

Command Decision
I Remember Mama
Joan of Arc
The Snake Pit
State of the Union
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Adam's Rib
The Fountainhead
Holiday Affair
Twelve O'Clock High
White Heat
 
I'm a Preston Sturges fan. He started writing/directing in 1940
with "The Great McGinty". What a great decade for films!

In my top 10 favorite films are three by Sturges:
The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek.

And then there are the great noir films of the 40's...
"Laura" tops that list for me.
 
Put me down for The Lady Eve as well.

Apparently a lot of us love this movie. It helps that barbara is my favorite actress
 
Late Spring (Ozu, 1949).

The beginning of Ozu and Setsuko Hara's acclaimed "Noriko" trilogy, along with Tokyo Story two of the greatest movies ever made.

Setsuko Hara plays the 20-something daughter Noriko, who cares for her elderly father after her mother died when she was very young. Noriko has been the woman of the house her entire life, and just recently lived through the horrors of World War II,
in which her difficulties are only briefly alluded (scrubbed by Allied SCAP censors)...but now that the war is over, everyone is pressuring her to finally marry and move out.

Why doesn't she want to get married? You can watch this movie a thousand times and never figure her out. She likes her father's younger colleague, but he's engaged to another girl. When he finally asks her out, she "doesn't want to cause trouble" and turns him down. Her gossipy aunt sets her up with a different man, but she's not that into him, even though he looks like Gary Cooper (or does he?), an actor known to be her type. Is she just immature, or asexual? Something even worse? Probably the simplest take is that she just loves her father and feels compelled to take care of him, and doesn't want her routine life changed, or want to move out.

Considering the real lives of Ozu and Hara, this movie is the defining case of art imitating life. There are a few scenes and sequences that belong in the hall of fame: Miss Hara's iconic bike ride on the beach (even shown in other movies),
the talk her father gives her when she asks why they just can't "stay the way they are", the heartbreaking images of her dressed in traditional Japanese wedding attire, and Chishu Ryu's last scene.

Criterion's three reasons for Late Spring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4Ul10BSzRw

1. The texture of Japanese life (plus the allegories this film and Setsuko herself meant to the Japanese people at that time)
2. The love between father and daughter
3. The pain of letting go

I used to say Casablanca was my favorite 1940s film, but having seen Late Spring I'll agree with Roger Ebert who said "sooner or later, everyone who truly loves movies comes to Ozu".

Late Spring might not be as good from start to finish as the near perfect Tokyo Story, but by the end the cumulative effect is stronger, and I always feel this one more.
 
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* Casablanca
* Notorious
* It's a Wonderful Life
* Rope
* Mildred Pierce
* The Best Years of Our Lives
* The Shop Around the Corner (Beautiful love story. I watched different remakes of this film and none of them came close to this)
* The Lost Weekend
* Sullivan's Travels
* Bicycle Thieves
* Shoeshine
* Going My Way
* 'The Thin Man' series
* Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (Very underrated movie. Genuine comedy)
* All the King's Men (One of the best political movie)
* The Philadelphia Story (Two of my favorite actors came together in this movie)
 
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