Tag Archives: 1940s

Driftwood (1947) Allan Dwan, Ruth Warrick, Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger, Drama

Driftwood (1947)
Six-year-old Jenny rescues a collie dog, the only survivor of a plane wreck. A tag on the dog’s neck states that it is en route to a medical laboratory where its blood will be used for spotted fever vaccine. Dr. Steven Webster meets both Jenny and the dog and “adopts” them both. His fiancée Susan isn’t too fond of either the girl or the dog. Webster wants to get a hospital for the town but he is suppressed by the town mayor. In the arguments that follow, Webster’s lab is wrecked and ticks infected with spotted fever escape. The town is in a panic and all want to be vaccinated. Jenny is infected and is about to die.
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The Man Who Wouldn’t Die (1942) Herbert I. Leeds, Lloyd Nolan, Marjorie Weaver, Helene Reynolds, Crime, Mystery

The Man Who Wouldn't Die (1942)
In the shadows of the night Dudley Wolff (Paul Harvey), his secretary Alfred Dunning (Robert Emmett Keane), and his doctor, Haggard (Henry Wilcoxon), bury a body in the estate cemetery. At the house, Wolff’s daughter Catherine (Marjorie Weaver) arrives unexpectedly and tells her step-mother Anne Wolff (Helene Reynolds that she has just been married to Roger Blake (Richard Derr) who will be along in a few days. Cathy retires and is awakened by a mysterious assailant who fires a shot at her, but her parents tell her she was just dreaming. Wolff goes to the cemetery and finds the body missing. The scared Cathy calls in fast-talking private detective Mike Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) and, since her father doesn’t like detectives, she introduces him as her husband. That evening Shayne hears a shot and finds that Haggard has been killed. While the police are questioning the family, the lights go out and a shot is fired from outside.
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The Stratton Story (1949) Sam Wood, James Stewart, June Allyson, Frank Morgan, Biography, Drama, Romance

The Stratton Story (1949)
The movie is about Chicago White Sox pitcher Monty Stratton (Jimmy Stewart), who in the 1930s, compiled a 37-19 won-loss record in three seasons. After he became the winningest right-hander in the American League, his major league career ended prematurely when a hunting accident in 1938 forced doctors to amputate his right leg. With a wooden leg and his wife Ethel’s (June Allyson) help, Stratton made a successful minor league comeback in 1946, continuing to pitch in minor leagues throughout the rest of the 1940s and into the 1950s.
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Sergeant York (1941) Howard Hawks

Sergeant York (1941)
A hillbilly sharpshooter becomes one of the most celebrated American heroes of WWI when he single-handedly attacks and captures a German position using the same strategy as in turkey shoot.
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Hachi no su no kodomotachi / Children of the Beehive (1948) Hiroshi Shimizu

Hachi no su no kodomotachi (1948)
The movie focuses on the plight of ten war orphans hailing from different cities across Japan. With nowhere to go, they scavenge around train stations, scratching out an existence by means of black market work for a one-legged tramp whilst avoiding being picked up by the police for vagrancy. Soon however, they find a more inspiring role model in the figure of a nameless soldier just repatriated after the war. An orphan himself, the soldier also has no home to return to, and so sets out across the country with the kids in tow in search of work before settling on the goal of leading them to the orphanage where he himself grew up.
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Dr. Renault’s Secret (1942) Harry Lachman

Dr. Renault's Secret (1942)
A young man visits his fiancée in a remote French villa where her scientist father resides. There he meets Noel, Dr. Renault’s mysterious assistant, who has a strange attraction to Renault’s daughter. Soon he learns Noel’s true identity: he is an ape that was turned into a man by Renault’s bizarre experiments!
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Dopo divorzieremo (1940) Nunzio Malasomma

Dopo divorzieremo (1940)
Grace Peterson works in department stores “Tutto per Tutti”, along with many other young people. His employment contract entitling them to live in a boarding house built specifically for them by the company but on the other hand, forbid them not fall in love or marry under threat of dismissal. Still, Grace falls for Phil Golder, a violinist penniless. The director of the residence will notice and the best friend of the girl impersonate violinist girlfriend to try to save Grace dismissal.
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