Category: 1940’s

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Abilene Town 1946 w/ Randolph Scott

In the years following the Civil War, the town of Abilene, Kansas is poised on the brink of an explosive confrontation. A line has been drawn down the center of the town where the homesteaders and the cattlemen have come to a very uneasy truce. The delicate peace is inadvertantly shattered when a group of new homesteaders lay down their stakes on the cattlemen’s side of town, upsetting the delicate balance that had existed thus far and sparking an all-out war between the farmers, who want the land tamed and property lines drawn, and the cowboys, who want the prairies to be open for their cattle to roam. IMDB

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Young Widow 1946 w/ Jane Russell

Set during World War II, journalist Joan Kenwood (Jane Russell), whose Air Corps photographer husband was killed on an air mission, returns to New York City from England. The managing editor of the newspaper for which she worked, Peter Waring (Kent Taylor), offers Joan work, but she despondently rejects it and instead stays with two aunts on their farm in Virginia. Unable to stop thinking about the death, however, she decides to return to New York.

On the train, young bomber pilot Lt. Jim Cameron (Louis Hayward) persistently tries to charm her, but Joan rebuffs him. In New York, both are unable to find vacant hotel rooms, but Joan calls her friend, Peg Martin (Penny Singleton), whose baseball player husband is serving on a submarine, for a place to stay. Peg shares her apartment with Mac (Marie Wilson), a show girl who has just returned from entertaining the troops. A number of military men drop in on the apartment as Joan arrives, all invited by the scatter-brained Mac. Jim learns where Joan is staying, shows up too, and sees opportunity in the situation. Later, everyone goes out to a café. While Jim and Joan are dancing, her husband’s favorite song is played, and a distraught Joan leaves. Jim follows and takes her home. When he bluntly suggests that she get over the man she is in love with, Joan explains that the man is her husband, who was killed over Berlin. Ashamed, Jim returns to his base at Mitchel Field on Long Island, where he is awaiting orders for the Pacific ….Wiki

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Our Town 1940 w/ William Holden

Our Town is a 1940 American drama romance film adaptation of a play of the same name by Thornton Wilder starring Martha Scott as Emily Webb, and William Holden as George Gibbs. The cast also included Fay Bainter, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee and Frank Craven. It was adapted by Harry Chandlee, Craven and Wilder, and directed by Sam Wood.

The residents of the small town of Grover’s Corners in New Hampshire live peacefully and in harmony. Dr. Gibbs, his wife Julie, and their two children George and Rebecca are the neighbors of the Webbs, who have a lovely daughter, Emily. George and Emily fall in love and after three years of advertising they get married. Time goes by and Emily becomes very sick with the birth of her second child. While she is dying, she meets all the people who have left this world in the years before. Emily, who remains in a kind of in-between world, remembers her previous life, but in the end the young woman decides to live and she wakes up from her dream. Wiki

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Fog Island 1945

Leo, a former convict, is living in seclusion on an island with his step-daughter, the daughter of his late wife. Leo was framed by a group of former business associates, and he also suspects that one of them killed his wife. He has invited the group to his island, tempting them by hinting about a hidden fortune, and he has installed a number of traps and secret passages in his home. He is aided in his efforts by a former cell-mate who holds a grudge against the same persons. When everyone arrives, the atmosphere of mutual suspicion and the thick fog that covers the island promise a tense and hazardous weekend for everyone. IMDB

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Terror by Night 1946 w/ Sherlock Holmes

Holmes is hired by Roland Carstairs to prevent the theft of the Star of Rhodesia, a 423 carat diamond owned by Carstairs’ mother, Lady Margaret. Suspecting the diamond will be stolen on a train trip from London to Edinburgh in Scotland, Holmes deftly switches diamonds with Lady Margaret while in her compartment admiring the jewel. Soon after, Roland is murdered and the fake diamond is stolen. Red herrings abound as Holmes, aided by Dr. Watson and Inspector Lestrade, discover the murderer’s hiding place and deduce that long-time nemesis Professor Moriarty’s henchman, Colonel Sebastian Moran, is somehow involved in the crime. IMDB

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That Uncertain Feeling 1941

That Uncertain Feeling is a 1941 American comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Merle Oberon, Melvyn Douglas and Burgess Meredith. The film is about the bored wife of an insurance salesman who meets an eccentric pianist and seeks a divorce.

At the suggestion of one of her friends, Jill Baker visits psychoanalyst Dr. Vengard for her intermittent hiccups, which appear when she gets nervous or irritated. He soon has her questioning her previously happy marriage to her business executive husband Larry.

In Vengard’s waiting room one day, Jill meets a very odd and individualistic pianist, Alexander Sebastian. He considers himself the best in the world when playing for a single listener, but has trouble performing in front of a large audience. She eventually invites him to an important dinner for Larry’s prospective insurance buyers. When Larry realizes that Jill is infatuated with Sebastian, he gives her a friendly divorce, in which Larry is represented by a lawyer named Jones whose secretary is Sally Aikens.

Jill gets engaged to Sebastian, but after she learns that Larry is seeing an attractive woman, she realizes that she still loves her ex-husband. When she visits his apartment to reconcile with him, he goes into the next room and talks loudly, pretending Sally Aikens is in the room and that she is his girlfriend. His deception is revealed when Sally enters the apartment while he is in the next room breaking a dinner date with the distraught “Sally” (her supposed cries of anguish voiced by Larry). Jill and Larry get back together, and her hiccups vanish forever. Wiki

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The Green Promise 1949 w/ Natalie Wood

It tells the story of a farmer, Matthews, his son and three daughters. Leaving behind a failing farm, the family travel to pastures new. Help is proffered by agricultural county agent, David Barkley, who is immediately attracted to Matthews’s eldest daughter, Deborah. Needing Deborah to run his house, and fearing David may take her away, Matthews refuses David’s advice and help. He is pig-headed and sleeps through the pastor’s sermon on education, understanding and tolerance. It is Susan’s (Matthews’s youngest daughter) yearning ambition to raise lambs. Though only ten years old, she joins the 4-H club, secures a loan from the bank and buys two lambs. She cares for them like she is a mother. Barkley strongly advises Matthews against chopping down the forest atop a hill on his land. Matthews goes ahead and sells the land to a logging company. The forest gone, a great storm comes and washes the mud down the incline towards the homestead. Fearful for her beloved lambs, Susan braves the dangerous conditions to rescue the lambs. David returns and rescues both Susan and the lambs. Deborah is atop the hill trying to move rocks in order to build a dam to save their home from the torrent of water. David arrives and pulls her back just as the land falls away. Realizing how close to harm his daughters have come because of his ignorance and selfishness, Matthews apologizes to his family and welcomes David into their home. The community of 4-H members arrive to help them clean up the land following the storm damage. Wiki

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Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven 1948

Eddie Tayloe’s grandfather leaves him six thousand dollars and the money belt it came in, freeing Tayloe to leave his dull newspaper job in Texas and move to New York to become a playwright. Along the way, his car breaks down and a girl walking along the highway asks for a lift. It turns out she’s a nice girl, named Perry, running away from a job at a gasoline station. Soon they’re off to New York together, but part ways once they arrive. Time passes and Eddie is failing to sell his play; Perry is failing to find a job. Odd circumstances, involving an old pickpocket named Mandy, bring them together again. Three starchy sisters renting a room, a bartender named Mike, and a sleepy old immigrant running a mechanical menagerie all play parts in this romantic comedy. IMDB

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The Inner Circle 1946

Before he can finish placing his help-wanted ad over the phone, the perfect candidate shows up at the office of Johnny Strange and fills the position of secretary without even giving Johnny a chance to say yes. She immediately takes the call from a new client, a mysterious woman with a Spanish accent. When Johnny meets her, the client is dressed all in black and wearing a heavy veil that conceals her face. She takes him to a house with a corpse lying in it, and asks him to take care of it. Before Johnny can call the police she knocks him unconscious with a bookend. He wakes up to see Det. Lt. Webb, who tells him the dead man is a notorious gossip columnist with a popular radio program. A nightclub manager, a singer, a housekeeper, a hard-of-hearing groundskeeper and two beautiful blondes are among the whos who may have done it. IMDB

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Breakfast in Hollywood 1946

This is a movie version of one of the most successful radio shows of the 1940s. Breakfast in Hollywood began airing in 1940 on Los Angeles station KFWB, and quickly became popular enough to be aired nationwide. It eventually aired on 3 networks, NBC, ABC and Mutual. The show lasted until 1948, when Breneman suddenly died and, failing to find a suitable replacement host, it was cancelled.

At the peak of its popularify, the radio version of Breakfast in Hollywood was estimated to reach a daily audience of ten million listeners.

This film provides a rare opportunity to see two of the most entertaining acts of the 1940s, each performing two musial numbers on camera. The Nat King Cole trio swings through both “Solid Potato Salad” and the jivey nonsense song “It’s Better to Be By Yourself.” Those crazy cats known as Spike Jones and His City Slickers pay musical tribute to “Hedda Hopper’s Hats,” and later perform one of their signature tunes, the jokes and sound effects laden wacky take on “Glow Worm.” IMDB

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