This page contains links to all the films I have reviewed from the first “golden age” of Hollywood. Film noir, melodramas, screwball comedies, lavish costume dramas and directors like Ford, Welles, Hawks, Hitchcock, Reed and Wilder ruled the roost.
1940
 | All This and Heaven Too – slow scandal drama, as a count falls in love with a governess and murders his wife | Director: Anatole Litvak Cast: Bette Davis, Charles Boyer, Barbara O’Neil |
 | Foreign Correspondent – spy thriller in the Blitz, as Hitchcock pleads for America to join the war | Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, George Sanders |
 | The Great Dictator – Chaplin takes on Hitler in this daring satire on the vileness of the Nazi regime | Director: Charlie Chaplin Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie |
 | His Girl Friday – one of the most popular fast-talking comedies of all time. Secret confession: I’m not a huge fan | Director: Howard Hawks Cast: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy |
 | The Letter – melodrama in which a fatal letter leads to life or death | Director: William Wyler Cast: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson |
 | The Philadelphia Story – Hepburn saves her career in this brilliant remarriage comedy | Director: George Cukor Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart |
 | Pride and Prejudice – oddly costumed and strangely adapted Austen classic | Director: Robert Z Leonard Cast: Laurence Olivier, Greer Garson, Mary Boland |
 | Rebecca – superb Best Picture winning du Maurier adaptation of a second wife who can’t live up to the first | Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, Judith Anderson |
 | The Westerner – Ford western bromance between a cowboy and Judge Roy Bean | Director: William Wyler Cast: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Doris Davenport |
1941
 | Citizen Kane – possibly the greatest film ever made; ignore the doubters, like the poster says “it’s terrific!” | Director: Orson Welles Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Comingore |
 | How Green Was My Valley – Best Picture winning coming-of-age tale in a ‘Welsh’ mining village | Director: John Ford Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara, Donald Crisp |
 | Here Comes Mr Jordan – after a mix-up in heaven, a boxer returns to life as an aged millionaire | Director: Alexander Hall Cast: Robert Montgomery, Evelyn Keyes, Claude Rains |
 | The Lady Eve – a confidence trickster seduces a snake obsessed heir to a fortune – brilliant screwball comedy | Director: Preston Sturges Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn |
 | Sullivan’s Travels – film director hits the road to learn about ‘life’ in a sharp Hollywood satire | Director: Preston Sturges Cast: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick |
 | Suspicion – Cary Grant might be a murderer in this middle-of-the-road Hitchcock thriller | Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Cedric Hardwicke |
1942
 | In Which We Serve – British stiff-upper lip war film about the loss at sea of a destroyer | Director: Noel Coward, David Lean Cast: Noel Coward, John Mills, Bernard Miles |
 | The Magnificent Ambersons – Welles cruelly cut-to-ribbons Kane follow-up, an American family saga | Director: Orson Welles Cast: Joseph Cotton, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead |
 | Mrs Miniver – Best Picture winning homefront saga, as a woman hold house and home together in the Blitz | Director: William Wyler Cast: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Theresa Wright |
 | Now, Voyager – a woman escapes her domineering mother and falls in love with a married man during a cruise | Director: Irving Rapper Cast: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains |
 | Yankee Doodle Dandy – all-singing, all-dancing Broadway legend biopic | Director: Michael Curtiz Cast: James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston |
1943
 | Casablanca – legendary Best Picture winner; a cynical cafe owner helps his lost love escape the Nazis | Director: Michael Curtiz Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains |
 | Hangmen Also Die! – Brecht and Lang write a gangster noir themed version of the assassination of Heydrich | Director: Fritz Lang Cast: Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Anna Lee |
 | The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp – an army officer is the epitome of British fair play and decency | Director: Powell & Pressburger Cast: Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook |
 | The Ox Bow Incident – Fonda struggles to swing the ‘jury’ in this brilliant lynching drama | Director: William A. Wellman Cast: Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Harry Morgan |
 | Shadow of a Doubt – a man corrupts a small town family in this small-scale thriller, Hitchcock’s favourite of his films | Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotton, Macdonald Carey |
 | Sherlock Holmes in Washington – modernised Holmes in a noir actioner | Director: Roy William Neill Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Marjorie Lord |
 | The Song of Bernadette – Christian biopic of Saint Bernadette – but surprisingly good | Director: Henry King Cast: Jennifer Jones, Charles Bickford, Gladys Cooper |
 | Watch on the Rhine – dated at the time anti-Nazi film, too wordy and not dramatic enough | Director: Herman Shumlin Cast: Bette Davis, Paul Lukas, Lucile Watson |
1944
 | Double Indemnity – quite simply one of the best film noir/femme fatale films ever made | Director: Billy Wilder Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson |
 | Gaslight – Hamilton play adaptation of a manipulated wife – improves the original play | Director: George Cukor Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotton |
 | Going My Way – sickly sweet Best Picture winner about a noble, singing priest | Director: Leo McCarey Cast: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Frank McHugh |
 | Henry V – hugely influential Shakespeare adaptation, a technicolour triumph | Director: Laurence Olivier Cast: Laurence Olivier, Robert Newton, Leslie Banks |
 | Ivan the Terrible Parts 1 & 2 – Eisenstein turns Stalin’s dream project into a criticism. Arty but brave. | Director: Sergei Eisenstein Cast: Nikolay Cherkasov, Serafima Birman, Pavel Kadochnikov |
 | Laura – a detective falls in love with a murder victim in this influential noir | Director: Otto Preminger Cast: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb |
 | Lifeboat – one-location mini-masterpiece as survivors of a shipwreck drift on the seas | Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak |
 | Ministry of Fear – a man is framed for murder in this WW2 spy thriller | Director: Fritz Lang Cast: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond |
 | Wilson – Zanuck’s dream project, a very earnest biography of Woodrow Wilson | Director: Henry King Cast: Alexander Knox, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Cedric Hardwicke |
1945
 | Brief Encounter – the classic romance-that-can-never-be, it’s a film it’s impossible not to love | Director: David Lean Cast: Trevor Howard, Celia Johnson, Stanley Holloway |
 | Les Enfants du Paradis – perhaps the greatest film about theatre ever made, France’s Gone with the Wind | Director: Marcel Carné Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur |
 | I Know Where I’m Going – opposite attracts romance in the North of Scotland | Director: Powell & Pressburger Cast: Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, Pamela Brown |
 | The Lost Weekend – Best Picture winning drama about alcohol addiction, still very effective and powerful | Director: Billy Wilder Cast: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman,. Phillip Terry |
 | Mildred Pierce – superb murder mystery melodrama about a mother and her terminally ungrateful child | Director: Michael Curtiz Cast: Joan Crawford, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth |
 | A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – sentimental tear-jerker on the tough life of an Irish-American family | Director: Elia Kazan Cast: Peggy Ann Garner, Dorothy McGuire, James Dunn |
1946
 | The Best Years of Our Lives – wonderful Best Picture winning veterans drama, one of the best winners of all time | Director: William Wyler Cast: Frederic March, Dana Andrews, Harold Russell |
 | Great Expectations – the all-time classic Dickens adaptation | Director: David Lean Cast: John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Bernard Miles |
 | It’s a Wonderful Life – the most beloved Christmas film of all time and rightly so | Director: Frank Capra Cast: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore |
 | The Killers – femme fatales and murders in this masterful film noir | Director: Robert Siodmark Cast: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien |
 | A Matter of Life and Death – superb fantasy, as a pilot is stuck between Earth and “Heaven” | Director: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger Cast: David Niven, Roger Livesey, Kim Hunter |
 | My Darling Clementine – myth-making Wyatt Earp biopic, Ford’s romanticism at its best | Director: John Ford Cast: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature |
1947
 | Black Narcissus – sex leads to madness in a secluded nunnery in this beautifully made film | Director: Powell & Pressburger Cast: Deborah Kerr, Sabu, David Farrar |
 | Gentleman’s Agreement – Best Picture winning anti-semitism drama, heavy-handed and self-satisfied | Director: Elia Kazan Cast: Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield |
 | The Lady from Shanghai – an Irish drifter is made a dangerous offer in Welles’ for-the-money thriller | Director: Orson Welles Cast: Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Everett Sloane |
 | Odd Man Out – Gripping man on the run drama, told with a dreamlike intensity | Director: Carol Reed Cast: James Mason, Kathleen Ryan, Robert Newton |
 | They Made Me a Fugitive – don’t get confused with Odd Man Out… impressive man on the run drama | Director: Alberto Calvalcanti Cast: Trevor Howard, Sally Jones, Griffith Jones |
1948
 | Bicycle Thieves – hugely influential neo-realist film: one man goes to huge lengths to find his vital bike | Director: Vittorio de Sica Cast: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola |
 | Fort Apache – a martinet colonel leads his regiment to near disaster in this gripping Western | Director: John Ford Cast: John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Ward Bond |
 | Hamlet – one of the most influential Shakespeare films, the Best Picture winning Hamlet noir | Director: Laurence Olivier Cast: Laurence Olivier, Basil Sydney, Eileen Herlie |
 | Joan of Arc – flat and preachy Joan of Arc biopic, even its director apologised for | Director: Victor Fleming Cast: Ingrid Bergman, José Ferrer, Francis L Sullivan |
 | Macbeth – Welles first stab at film Shakespeare is a mix of genius and absolute mess. | Director: Orson Welles Cast: Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O’Herlihy |
 | Red River – legendary western cattle trail movie, that descends into obsession, rivalry and violence | Director: Howard Hawks Cast: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanna Dru |
 | The Red Shoes – a ballet dancer is torn between art and romance in this visually stunning masterpiece | Director: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger Cast: Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moria Shearer |
 | Scott of the Antarctic – flag-waving biopic, with Scott as the ultimate boys own hero | Director: Charles Frend Cast: John Mills, Diana Churchill, Harold Warrander |
 | The Snake Pit – psychological drama about a woman struggling to understand reality in an asylum | Director: Anatole Litvak Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn |
 | The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – brilliant gold hunting drama of obsession, greed and mistrust | Director: John Huston Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt |
1949
 | Adam’s Rib – battle of the sexes courtroom drama, as a married couple take opposite sides in a big case | Director: George Cukor Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday |
 | The Heiress – a young man woos a plain girl – is it just for her money? Superb Henry James adaptation | Director: William Wyler Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson |
 | All the King’s Men – Best Picture winning political corruption drama who definitely isn’t Huey P Long | Director: Robert Rossen Cast: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge |
 | Kind Hearts and Coronets – a disowned relative bumps off his noble family in this brilliant black comedy | Director: Robert Hamer Cast: Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Valerie Hobson |
 | A Letter to Three Wives – soapy small-town drama, written brilliantly, about a trouble-stirring letter | Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Cast: Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern |
 | The Reckless Moment – a gangster does everything he can to help the woman he’s blackmailing | Director: Max Ophüls Cast: James Mason, Joan Bennett, Geraldine Brooks |
 | She Wore a Yellow Ribbon – beautifully shot but slightly dry “day in a life” of the cavalry western | Director: John Ford Cast: John Wayne, Joanna Dru, John Agar |
 | The Third Man – one of the greatest films ever made, a naive American finds the truth about his dead friend | Director: Carol Reed Cast: Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Alida Valli |
 | Twelve O’Clock High – a hot shot general tries not to buckle under pressure during WW2 | Director: Henry King Cast: Gregory Peck, Dean Jagger, Hugh Marlowe |
 | White Heat – Cagney makes it to the top of the world as the most psychotic gangster this side of Goodfellas | Director: Raoul Walsh Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien |
Movie Musings 