1936. Julia Packett, a London chorus girl, is always in trouble financially, but she always seems to manage to land on her feet by using her feminine wiles to manipulate the men in her life with a smile on her and usually their faces.
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Tag Archives: 1940s
La fuggitiva (1941) Piero Ballerini, Jole Voleri, Anna Magnani, Clelia Matania, Drama
In the absence of the biological mother, too busy pursuing her theatrical career, we see the glorification of the maternal surrogate, a woman who is a paragon of sacrifice and self-abnegation. La Fuggitiva is also a film in which a child actress takes a prominent role.
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My Brother’s Keeper (1948) Alfred Roome, Jack Warner, Jane Hylton, David Tomlinson, Crime, Drama, Thriller
War hero turned villain George Martin escapes from prison, but he is handcuffed to a naive young crook Willie Stannard. After using a clever plan to obtain railway tickets, and with the police, and the press in hot pursuit, George has to find a way of breaking loose from Willie, and to make his escape.
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Out of the Past (1947) Jacques Tourneur, Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller, Drama
Jeff Bailey, small-town gas pumper, has his mysterious past catch up with him one day when he’s ordered to meet with gambler Whit Sterling. En route to the meeting, he tells girlfriend Ann his story. Flashback: Once, Jeff was a private eye hired by Sterling to find his mistress Kathie who shot Whit and absconded with $40,000. He traces her to Acapulco…where the delectable Kathie makes Jeff forget all about Sterling… Back in the present, Whit’s new job for Jeff is clearly a trap, but Jeff’s precautions only leave him more tightly enmeshed…
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Madame Curie (1943) Mervyn LeRoy, Albert Lewin, Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Henry Travers, Biography, Drama, Romance
Biopic of the famed scientist and the work she did with her husband Pierre in the discovery of radium. Marie was a student at the Sorbonne studying for her Master’s degree in physics when they first met. She received permission to use space in Professor Pierre Curie’s laboratory. They soon fall in love and are married, working together on trying to isolate a radioactive substance Marie has identified as radium. Years of painstaking research and experimentation led to success and Marie and Pierre Curie shared the Nobel Prize in Physics. Sadly, Pierre was killed crossing the street in the rain when he was run over by a horse and wagon. Marie continued to work and make major contributions to science.
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The Perils of Pauline (1947) George Marshall, Betty Hutton, John Lund, Billy De Wolfe, Biography, Comedy
Funloving Pearl White, working in a garment sweatshop, gets her big chance when she “opens” for a delayed Shakespeare play…with a comic vaudeville performance.
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The Hunted (1948) Jack Bernhard, Preston Foster, Belita, Pierre Watkin, Film-Noir, Crime, Drama
A police detective investigating a jewel robbery discovers evidence that points to his girlfriend as the culprit, although she claims she was framed. He arrests her anyway, and she is convicted and serves several years in prison. Finally out on parole, she is soon mixed up in a murder.
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All Through the Night (1942) Vincent Sherman, Humphrey Bogart, Conrad Veidt, Kaaren Verne, Action, Comedy, Crime
Broadway gambler Gloves Donahue wants to find who killed the baker of his favorite cheesecake. He sees nightclub singer Leda Hamilton leaving the bakery. When her boss Marty’s partner Joe is murdered, Leda and her accompanist Pepi disappear. It turns out that beneath all the mystery is a gang of Nazi operatives planning to blow up a battleship in New York harbor.
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Lifeboat (1944) Alfred Hitchcock, Tallulah Bankhead, John Hodiak, Walter Slezak, Thriller, War
In the Atlantic during WWII, a ship and a German U-boat are involved in a battle and both are sunk. The survivors from the ship gather in one of the boats. They are from a variety of backgrounds: an international journalist, a rich businessman, the radio operator, a nurse, a steward, a sailor and an engineer with communist tendencies. Trouble starts when they pull a man out of the water who turns out to be from the U-boat.
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Panique (1946) Julien Duvivier, Viviane Romance, Michel Simon, Max Dalban, Drama
In the suburbs of Paris, an old maid has just been murdered. Every body talks about that, except the misanthrope Mr Hire. The same evening, Alice, just getting out of jail, arrives and meets up with her lover Alfred again. They act as they do not know each other, for Alice went to jail to spare Alfred. But Mr Hire falls in love with Alice, and he knows Alfred is the murderer…
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