Ichiban Utsukushiku (1944, Japan, Kurosawa) – A group of girls at a Tokyo weapons factory want to prove that they can do just as much for the war effort as the men can.  They work hard, bond together, and fulfill their work quotas – yay!  Watched it all.  IMDB reviewers hate it for sympathizing with Japan, which is a dull way to watch old movies.

Youth Runs Wild (1944, USA, Robson) – The kids are not alright, and the adults are to blame for being away to fight the war and work in weapons factories.  Watched: 15 minutes, then fast forwarded to see the youths running wild.  They lie and steal, and skip school, and run away from home, but it’s all quite harmless, and I think this “juvenile delinquency” problem the movie identifies will go away once the war is over.

Conflict (1945, USA, Bernhardt) – Humphrey Bogart has psychological hang-ups, which he decides to resolve by murdering his wife.  That doesn’t really help.  Watched it all.

Rhapsody in Blue (1945, USA, Rapper) – George Gershwin was a kid once too, and faced adversity etc.  Watched: 8 minutes.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood (1945, USA, Simon) – This isn’t funny.  Famous comedians have been a disappointment in this marathon.  The Marx Brothers are fantastic, of course, but then .. nothing.  I’ve hated Chaplin, Lloyd, Keaton, The Three Stooges,  Laurel and Hardy, and now Abbott and Costello.  I guess comedians just weren’t all that funny back then.  Watched 9 minutes.

Fiddlers Three (1944, UK, Watt) – Two Ealing chaps get sent back into Roman times.  Very silly.  Favorite line: “Another government housing scheme gone wrong”, said while looking at Stonehenge.  Favorite scene: Speaking pig-latin to hide their meaning from their Roman captors.  No, wait, my favorite is the messenger who tries to deliver his news in a grand oratory style but keeps getting thrown out.  Watched it all.

Nabonga (1944, USA, Newfield) – A girl and her trigger-happy father crashes in jungle, befriends gorilla.  Bad in every way.  Watched: 10 minutes.

The Three Caballeros (1944, USA, Ferguson) – This isn’t a good Disney movie, but I love seeing them experiment.  It looks like they had fun making this, thinking up visual gags and new ways to present what’s really a subject with limited potential: South America.  Watched it all.

Going My Way (1944, USA, McCarey) – A new priest arrives in a neighbourhood, and must deal with loan sharks, nasty old ladies and atheists.  Watched: 8 minutes.

Mademoiselle Fifi (1944, USA, Wise) – Stagecouch, Franco-Prussian war edition.  Turns out the Germans were Nazis even back then.  And, like today, (er, I mean 1944), most Frenchmen would rather deal with them than resist.  Watched it all.  Starring Simone Simon as General de Gaulle, who by making a symbolic contribution makes it all seem okay in the end.

Up in Arms (1944, USA, Nugent) – Hypocondriac Danny Kaye gets drafted, and goes through an adventure of song and music and beautiful nurses.  Admittedly this is a patriotic war musical, but it’s mostly just very very silly, so I approve anyway.  Watched it all.

Passage to Marseille (1944, USA, Curtiz) – The Free French are wonderful people.  There’s no friction with the other Allies at all.  Watched: 10 minutes.

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944, USA, Lubin) – The rightful ruler of Bagdad fights for freedom .. I mean FREEDOM!  I deliberately ignore Errol Flynn movies in this marathon, because I hate him.  This isn’t an Errol Flynn movie, but it might as well be.  Watched: 12 minutes.

Hail the Conquering Hero (1944, USA, Sturges) – It’s settled: Preston Sturges is my second favorite 40′s Hollywood director.  A marine who’s been discharged because of chronic hayfever comes home to a hero’s welcome.  The more he tells his townspeople that he’s no hero, the more they worship him.  Watched it all.

Janie (1944, USA, Curtiz) – Teenage kids drive their parents crazy.  The first movie in this marathon to present teenagers as having a culture of their own, with strange customs and incomprehensible slang.  Watched: 12 minutes.

The Fighting Seabees (1944, USA, Ludwig) – An officer just back from the Pacific: “We’re not fighting people any more.  We’re fighting animals.”  Ouch, let’s hope nobody gives someone like that some kind of incredible super weapon.  Watched: 5 minutes.

The Way Ahead (1944, UK, Reed) – Whiny city people get drafted, go through training, become soldiers. Fantastic battle scenes, and I love the sense in these British wartime movies of a young Britain emerging, to take over from the old. Watched it all.

This Happy Breed (1944, UK, Lean) – I’m all for a little cheerful patriotism in a wartime movie, but this is too much: Two veterans of the Great War have such stiff upper lips about it that it sounds like they had a jolly good time in the trenches, and besides it’s all over now so why make a fuss about it? Watched: 14 minutes.

Soul of a Monster (1944, USA, Jason) – Satan heals a good man, and makes him evil. This is a good candidate for Bad Movie night, with hilariously retarded lines. Watched: 11 minutes.

The True Story of Lilli Marlene (1944, UK, Jennings) – Documentary about Lilli Marlene, the sentimental song that first swept the German soldiers, and then the English soldiers who fought them in North Africa, seemingly becoming the property of whoever was currently ahead in the war. This is amazing. They’re using a song to tell the story of the shifting winds of war – but also of the things that all soldiers have in common. Watched it all.

Destiny (1944, USA, Le Borg) – Cops chase robbers. Bang-bang, bang-bang! Watched: 5 minutes.

Four Jills in a Jeep (1944, USA, Seiter) – Another patriotic war musical. War truly is hell. When will it end? Watched: 5 minutes.

Ivan Grozny – Part 1 (1944, Soviet Union, Eisenstein) – A delirious fantasy about Russia’s great and all-powerful Führer, a man who is worshipped by The People and will soon make Russia into a Third Rome, ready to unleash its holy fury on all who stand in its way. Watched it all. Starring Gaahl as Ivan the Terrible.

The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944, USA, Rapper) – Mark Twain was born under a comet, and grew up with Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and slaveboy Jim. At twelve, he lectured the elders at the temple about the scriptures, and everyone was amazed at his understanding. Watched: 7 minutes.

National Velvet (1944, USA, Brown) – England in the 1920′s. A land of green meadows and stern but nice authority figures. Watched: 20 minutes. Introducing Elizabeth Taylor as a horse-mad 12-year old.

The Halfway House (1944, UK, Dearden) – A magical inn in Wales appears from thin air whenever someone needs help to work out their problems. The problems in this case include a couple who wants to get divorced, a captain who thinks he’s a coward, and a girl with an Irish boyfriend. Watched it all.

The Uninvited (1944, USA, Allen) – Some uninteresting people move into a house that may or may not be haunted. Watched: 12 minutes.

The Lady and the Monster (1944, USA, Sherman) – It was a dark and stormy night. The mad scientist was hard at work in his castle, connecting dead monkeys to electrodes. Watched: 8 minutes.

The talking Nazi skull’s plan for victory:

1. Give all the epilectics in the audience a seizure
2. Make everybody else feel guilty for having killed their loved ones
3. Victory!

Murder, My Sweet (1944, USA, Dmytryk) – This is about as good as noir movie titles get. And the movie itself is good too. I’ve seen it before, which may be why I was able to follow much of the plot, but the plot is incidental. The approach is expressionistic: Thugs, dames and cops, and Philip Marlowe in the middle. Watched it all.

Wilson (1944, USA, King) – Here I draw the line: A presidential biopic that plays the Hail to the Chief in the intro?! (Every time I hear that tune I think of Blazing Saddles.) Watched: 11 minutes.

Hotel Reserve (1944, USA) – The pre-war French police asks an amateur photographer for help to find a German spy. It’s no wonder they lost. Watched: 17 minutes.

Voodoo Man (1944, USA, Beaudine) – Bela Lugosi is kidnapping women for use in a ritual that will bring his dead wife back to life. Finally an enjoyable B-horror! Watched it all.

Dragon Seed (1944, USA, Conway) – Americans pretend what it’s like to live in China, an exotic country that is so far away that it was not even possible to get hold of Chinese actors. Watched 13 minutes, then fast forwarded to see what the Japanese soldiers looked like: Mediterranean, with moustaches and lecherous grins.

Bride by Mistake (1944, USA, Wallace) – It’s nice to be a veteran. You can relax and play ping-pong, and there’s a rich woman living right next door you can go flirt with. Watched: 12 minutes.

Lifeboat (1944, USA, Hitchcock) – A group of strangers are thrown together in a lifeboat, and must find a way to tolerate each other. One is a Communist, another a self-centered reporter – and then there’s a Nazi from the submarine that just sunk their ship. Watched it all.

Enemy of Women (1944, USA, Zeisler) – I expected war movies made during the war to be less like Lifeboat, and more like this, a cheap, sensationalistic character assassination of Joseph Goebbels. I was wrong. Watched: 13 minutes.

Once Upon a Time (1944, USA, Hall) – Where lesser people would only see a worm that wiggles, theatre producer Cary Grant has the vision to see a caterpillar that can dance. Watched: 21 minutes.

Champagne Charlie (1944, UK, Cavalcanti) – Ealing Studios celebrates the popular culture of their grandparents. Two music hall artists in the 1860′s compete with each other about making the most popular song about alcohol. Watched it all.

Standing Room Only (1944, USA, Lanfield) – Factory girl Paulette Goddard tricks her way into the highest position a woman can dream of: becoming the handsome manager’s secretary. Watched: 9 minutes.

Return of the Vampire (1944, USA, Landers) – Foggy graveyard: Check. Boring people who struggle to fit the supernatural into their narrow little scientific minds: Check. Watched: 8 minutes.

Port of 40 Thieves (1944, USA, English) – Turns out there are noir movies that aren’t the least bit interesting. Watched: 15 minutes.

Henry V (1944, UK, Olivier) – Hey this is fantastic: It starts with the play being staged in the Globe Theatre in front of an audience, who cheers and jeers and laughs at the jokes. It’s all a bit clumsy and self-deprecating. Then it gradually moves out into the real world, still looking cheap, but with Laurence Olivier radiating every single moment he is on the screen. Watched it all. Released in July 1944, when Britain was fighting a war in France that, unlike Agincourt, actually deserved this scene:

The Fighting Rats of Tobruk (1944, Australia, Chauvel) – I’ve been waiting for a really bad war movie to come along, and here it is! Watched: 9 minutes.

I bambini ci guardano (1944, Italy, De Sica) – A bunch of unlikeable Italians have marriage problems. Watched: 18 minutes.

The Mask of Dimitrios (1944, USA, Negulesco) – Peter Lorre researches the life of Dimitrios, a criminal genius who has been murdered but is such a clever character that it’s no surprise that he isn’t dead after all. Considering the silly plot twists of some recent movies, it is actually a bit of a let-down that that is all there is to it. I was hoping that Dimitrios would turn out to be Peter Lorre, who had undergone cosmetic surgery and was retreading his own past just to mess with the minds of his enemies. Watched it all.

None But the Lonely Heart (1944, USA, Odets) – Cary Grant with an atrocious English accent. Watched: 13 minutes.

To Have and Have Not (1944, USA, Hawks) – Casablanca 2 – he’s back, and this time he .. still doesn’t give a damn about anything, but he’ll stick up for the good guys in the end. It’s a shame that this is so similar to Casablanca, because that makes you notice the ways in which it isn’t quite as good, such as Bogart’s Jar Jar-ish drunkard friend. Watched it all.

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944, USA, Minnelli) – Yes, two are the types of musicals that I hate: Patriotic war musicals and old timey musicals about the good old days. But the opening number, where people sort of randomly take over the song from each other, is brilliant. Watched: 7 minutes.

Two Thousand Women (1944, UK, Launder) – A group of British women are interned in France – in a fancy hotel, two to each room. This must have been where the Nazis stationed all the nice Germans, the ones who were maybe a bit strict but essentially harmless. Watched: 15 minutes.

Miyamoto Musashi (1944, Japan, Mizoguchi) – Further proof that Japan can’t help but being awesome, even when they’re assholes. Admittedly it isn’t a great movie, but still: Samurais, yay! Watched it all.

Kismet (1944, USA, Dieterle) – The Thief of Bagdad, without the magic. Watched: 6 minutes.

And Now Tomorrow (1944, USA, Pichel) – And now: A serious movie about serious people dealing with serious problems. You know, I’m getting fed up with flashbacks. Watched: 7 minutes.