Tag Archives: 1940s

First feature film from director Fred Zinneman is a snappy little “B” feature that features Van Heflin as the head of a city crime lab who solves the murder of the town mayor by analyzing evidence from the crime.
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Man Alive is an inventive and consistently amusing farce dominated by stars Pat O’Brien and Adolphe Menjou. The former plays Speed, a moderately successful garage owner. Suspecting that his wife Connie (Ellen Drew) has fallen in love with old college buddy Gordon (Rudy Vallee), Speed goes off on a bender. During a long and drunken night, he gives his clothes and his car to an old tramp named Willie the Wino (Jack Norton). With Speed as his passenger, Willie piles the car into a river. Willie drowns, but Speed is rescued by showboat entrepreneur Kismet (Menjou). When the car is recovered, it is assumed that the body inside is Speed’s. Speed wakes up thinking he’s dead because Kismet is wearing a devil’s costume (for a stage show) while stoking coal into the ship’s furnace! When he tries to get back to his wife, O’Brien is urged by kibitzer Menjou to act as a ghost to find out if her love for him is real or if she’s actually in love with Gordy, leading to a series of increasingly zany consequences.
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This movie centers around a prison escape from the Colorado State Penitentiary. There are 12 escapees and it shows the efforts placed to capture these men.
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Frank James, the brother of Jesse James, has been laying low, living as a farmer and taking care of Clem Read More »

An elderly couple move into an old, supposedly haunted abandoned house. A young girl comes to live with the pair as a companion for the wife. However, soon the girl is possessed by the spirit of another girl, a wealthy woman who had once lived in the house but who had been murdered there.
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Verne wants nothing more than to escape from a penal colony located off the northern coast of South America. He tries to involve Julie, a saloon girl, in his plans but she turns him in to the authorities. On Verne’s next try, he piggybacks on the escape of six other convicts and runs into Julie again in the process. One of the convicts is a spiritual figure who seems to know what will happen before anyone else. The group attempts to travel through the jungle, board a boat, and make it to the mainland.
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In this comedy, a barge captain with an Electra complex marries two women. He married the first because she laughed like his late mother. He married the other because she cooks like his mom. He soon finds himself in over his head. A good friend helps extricate him by devising an ingenious plot. The captain is to be blamed for a murder. He can then escape his wives by pretending to be sent to prison.
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This musical romance is set during the Great Depression and centers upon the rocky marriage between a flapper script girl and her band-leader spouse. Prior to the big stock market crash, they spend much of their time touring. She tires of it and returns to her country home. Unable to find new bookings, he soon joins her and brings with him his acerbic, cynical manager. The bandleader finds the pastoral life a crashing bore and so heads for the big city to find fortune. Fortunately, by the story’s end, he succeeds and happiness is the result. Songs include: “Crazy Rhythm,” “You Were Meant for Me,” “Goodnight Sweetheart” “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “What Can I Say After I Say I’m Sorry.”
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Philippe, a diplomat’s son and good friend of Baines the butler, is confused by the complexities and evasions of adult life. He tries to keep secrets but ends up telling them. He lies to protect his friends, even though he knows he should tell the truth. He resolves not to listen to adults’ stories any more when Baines is suspected of murdering his wife and no-one will listen to Philippe’s vital information.
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Bogart plays a man convicted of murdering his wife who escapes from prison in order to prove his innocence. Bogart finds that his features are too well known, and is forced to seek some illicit backroom plastic surgery. The entire pre-knife part of the film is shot from a Bogart’s-eye-view, with us seeing the fugitive for the first time as he starts to recuperate from the operation in the apartment of a sympathetic young artist (played by Bacall) for whom he soon finds affection. But what he’s really after is revenge.
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