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40's

by StevenGuggen created on Mar 20, 2014 (a list of 40 films )
1. Casablanca
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in the word... read more...
2. Double Indemnity
Double Indemnity is a 1944 American film noir, directed by Billy Wilder, co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, and produced by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Sistrom. The script was based on James M. Cain's 1935 novella of the same title which originally appeared as an eight-part serial in Liberty ma... read more...
3. Notorious
Notorious is a 1946 American thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation. It was shot in late 1945 and early 1946 and was released by RKO in August ... read more...
4. His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, an adaptation by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur of the play The Front Page by Hecht and MacArthur. The change in this version is that the role of Hildy Johnson was converted from male to female.The f... read more...
5. Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. The film is often considered the greatest of all time and is particularly praised for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film. The film was nominated f... read more...
6. The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 Warner Bros. film based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett and a remake of the 1931 film of the same name. Written for the screen and directed by John Huston, the film stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade; Mary Astor as his femme fatale ... read more...
7. It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American comedy/drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern.The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the interventio... read more...
8. To Have and Have Not
To Have and Have Not is a 1944 romance-war-adventure film. The movie was directed by Howard Hawks and stars Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, and Lauren Bacall in her first film. Although it is nominally based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway, the story was extensively altered for th... read more...
9. The Third Man
The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir, directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. Many critics rank it as a masterpiece, particularly remembered for its atmospheric cinematography, performances, and unique musical score. The screenplay was wr... read more...
10. The Great Dictator
The Great Dictator is a comedy film by Charlie Chaplin released in October 1940. Like most Chaplin films, he wrote, produced, and directed, in addition to starring as the lead. Having been the only Hollywood film maker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, this was Ch... read more...
11. The Red Shoes
The Red Shoes (1948) is a British feature film about a ballet dancer, written, directed and produced by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known collectively as The Archers. The movie employs the story within a story device, being about a young ballerina who joins an established ball... read more...
12. Bicycle Thieves
Bicycle Thieves (Italian: Ladri di biciclette), also known as The Bicycle Thief, is a 1948 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of a poor man searching the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle, which he needs to be able to work. The film is based on the novel of... read more...
13. The Letter
The Letter is a 1940 American film noir directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Howard Koch is based on the 1927 play of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham, originally filmed in 1929.On a moonlit, tropical night, the native workers are asleep in their outdoor barracks. A shot is heard; the do... read more...
14. Arsenic and Old Lace
Arsenic and Old Lace is a 1944 film directed by Frank Capra based on Joseph Kesselring's play of the same name. The script adaptation was by twins Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein. Capra actually filmed the movie in 1941, but it was not released until 1944, after the original stage version ha... read more...
15. The Big Sleep
The Big Sleep is a 1946 film noir directed by Howard Hawks, the first film version of Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel of the same name. The movie stars Humphrey Bogart as detective Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as the female lead in a film about the "process of a criminal investigation, not its res... read more...
16. Monsieur Verdoux
Monsieur Verdoux is a 1947 black comedy film directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin.The film is about an unemployed banker, Henri Verdoux, and his sociopathic methods of attaining income. While being both loyal and competent in his work, Verdoux has been laid-off. To make money for his wife and ch... read more...
17. A Letter to Three Wives
A Letter to Three Wives is a 1949 film which tells the story of a woman who mails a letter to three women, telling them she has left town with the husband of one of them. It stars Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas (in his first film role), Jeffrey Lynn, and Thelma ... read more...
18. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1948 American film written and directed by John Huston, a feature film adaptation of B. Traven's 1927 novel of the same name, in which two impecunious Americans Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt) during the 1920s in Mexico join with an old... read more...
19. Rebecca
Rebecca is a 1940 psychological/dramatic noir thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock as his first American project, and his first film produced under his contract with David O. Selznick. The film's screenplay was an adaptation by Joan Harrison and Robert E. Sherwood from Philip MacDonald and Michael ... read more...
20. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is a 1944 screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton, and featuring Diana Lynn, William Demarest and Porter Hall. Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff reprise their roles from Sturges' 1940 film The Great McGinty.Th... read more...
21. My Darling Clementine
My Darling Clementine is a 1946 western movie. It was directed by John Ford, and based on the story of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral between the Earp brothers and the Clanton gang. It features an ensemble cast including Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Ward Bond, Walter Brennan, and others.The movie wa... read more...
22. Shadow of a Doubt
Shadow of a Doubt is a 1943 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson and Alma Reville. It stars Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, MacDonald Carey, Patricia Collinge, Henry Travers, Wallace Ford and Hume Cronyn.Shadow of a Doubt was nominated for an... read more...
23. Bambi
Bambi is a 1942 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten. The film was released by RKO Radio Pictures on August 13, 1942, and it is the fifth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.The main characters ar... read more...
24. Heaven Can Wait
Heaven Can Wait is a 1943 American comedy film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The screenplay was by Samson Raphaelson based on the play Birthday by Leslie Bush-Fekete. The music score was by Alfred Newman and the cinematography by Edward Cronjager. The film tells the story of a man who ha... read more...
25. Laura
Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary.In 1999, Laura was selected for preservation in... read more...
26. The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives is a 1946 American drama film about three servicemen trying to piece their lives back together after coming home from World War II. It won the 1946 Academy Award for Best Picture. It had one of the highest viewing figures of all time, with ticket sales exceeding $20.4 mil... read more...
27. Key Largo
Key Largo is a 1948 film noir directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, and Claire Trevor. The movie was adapted by Richard Brooks and Huston from Maxwell Anderson's 1939 play of the same name, which played on Broadway for 105 performa... read more...
28. Ball of Fire
Ball of Fire (also known as The Professor and the Burlesque Queen) is a 1941 comedy film about a group of professors laboring for years to write an encyclopedia and their encounter with a nightclub performer who provides her own unique knowledge. The film stars Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, with... read more...
29. The Lost Weekend
The Lost Weekend is a 1945 American drama film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman. The film was based on a novel of the same title by Charles R. Jackson about a writer who drinks heavily.The film recounts the life of an alcoholic New York writer, Don Birnam (Milland), o... read more...
30. The Palm Beach Story
The Palm Beach Story is a 1942 romantic screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, and starring Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor and Rudy Vallée. Victor Young contributed the lively musical score, including a fast-paced variation of William Tell Overture for the openin... read more...
31. The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 American drama film written and directed by Orson Welles. His second feature film, it is based on the 1918 novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington and stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins. Welles provides... read more...
32. Woman of the Year
Woman of the Year (1942) is a romantic comedy film. The movie is about an emancipated woman, chosen "Woman of the Year", and her colleague-turned-husband and their efforts to negotiate a path to marital bliss.The film stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn with Fay Bainter, Reginald Owen, Minor W... read more...
33. Now, Voyager
Now, Voyager is a 1942 American drama film directed by Irving Rapper. The screenplay by Casey Robinson is based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Olive Higgins Prouty.Prouty borrowed her title from a line in the Walt Whitman poem "The Untold Want," which reads in its entirety, Read article at Wi... read more...
34. Dark Passage
Dark Passage (1947) is a Warner Bros. film noir directed by Delmer Daves and starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The film is based on the novel of the same name by David Goodis. It was the third of four films real-life couple Bacall and Bogart made together.The film is notable for its first ... read more...
35. Meet John Doe
Meet John Doe is a 1941 comedy drama film directed and produced by Frank Capra and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The film, about a "grassroots" political campaign, created unwittingly by a newspaper columnist and pursued by a wealthy businessman, became a box office hit and was nominate... read more...
36. Black Narcissus
Black Narcissus is a 1947 film by the British director-writer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on the novel of the same name by Rumer Godden. It is a psychological drama about the emotional tensions within a convent of nuns in an isolated Himalayan valley, and stars Deborah Kerr,... read more...
37. Spellbound
Spellbound is a psychological mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1945. It tells the story of the new head of a mental asylum who turns out not to be what he claims. The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov and Leo G. Carroll. It is an adaptation by Angus MacPha... read more...
38. Johnny Belinda
Johnny Belinda is a 1948 American drama film based on the play of the same name by Elmer Blaney Harris. The movie was adapted to the screen by Allen Vincent and Irma von Cube, and directed by Jean Negulesco.The story is based on a real life incident that happened near Harris's summer residence in Fo... read more...
39. Mildred Pierce
Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American drama film starring Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, and Eve Arden in a film noir tale about a long-suffering mother and her ungrateful daughter. The screenplay by Ranald MacDougall, William Faulkner, and Catherine Turney was based upon the 1941... read more...
40. The Stranger
The Stranger (1946) is an American film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, Edward G. Robinson, and Loretta Young. The film was based on an Oscar-nominated screenplay written by Victor Trivas. Sam Spiegel was the film's producer, and the film's musical score is by Bronisław Kaper. It... read more...