This Land is Mine (1943, USA) – I love the idea of setting a war movie in a generic European country, in a generic occupied city with heroes and cowards, quislings and saboteurs. It gives it the character of a fable, and allows it to take unrealistic shortcuts in order to make a statement that is true on a deeper level – about what it means to live as a free people. Watched it all.

Hitler’s Madman (1943, USA) – The worst “life in occupied Europe” movie so far. Watched: 8 minutes, then fast forwarded to the end, where a village is massacred. The Nazis here are ridiculous, and yet this movie comes closer than many realistic war movies in capturing the scale of the Nazi atrocities.

Action in the North Atlantic (1943, USA) – Macho war drama about the brave men who sail the North Atlantic, men who believe in God, Roosevelt and the Brooklyn Dodgers – in that order. This is a real action movie, with explosions, narrow escapes, and sniggering Nazi schweinhunds. Watched: 29 minutes.

This is the Army (1943, USA) – There’s one foolproof way for a movie to piss me off, and that is to open with an 8 minute overture! Watched: 10 minutes longer than that, then fast forwarded through the rest: It’s two hours of soldiers singing and dancing. You know, I don’t think this is army.

A Guy Named Joe (1943, USA) – Spencer Tracy is not a believable bomber pilot. Watched: 7 minutes.

Vredens dag (1943, Denmark) – Witchcraft and adulterous lust among 17th century protestants. Perfect. I love the intro: The shadow of a cross across the words of a hymn about eternal damnation. Watched it all.

The Youngest Profession (1943, USA) – Friendly satire about screaming teenage autograph hunters. The movie stars, who here play themselves, are all very friendly, and don’t mind having long chats with fans and replying to their letters. Watched: 26 minutes.

Girl Crazy (1943, USA) – Mickey Rooney is such an obnoxious rich teenager that his father sends him away to a remote school. It doesn’t help, he’s still obnoxious. Watched: 14 minutes.

Immortal Sergeant (1943, USA) – American actors pretend to be English soldiers, and come off as neither. Watched: 6 minutes.

Titanic (1943, Germany) – The voyage of the Titanic illustrates the dangers of unrestrained capitalism. Watched 15 minutes, then fast-forwarded to see how it ends: The ship hits an ice-berg and sinks! Everybody behaves like animals, and the capitalist who is responsible for it all is acquitted by a British court. The director of this movie was hanged, but I think Goebbels overreacted.

The Constant Nymph (1943, USA) – Charles Boyer is a depressed composer. All the girls are wild about him. Watched: 11 minutes.

Dead Men Walk (1943, USA) – Tedious and cheap vampire movie. Wathced: 7 minutes.

Why We Fight, Part 1 – Prelude to War / Part 2 – The Nazis Strike (1943, USA) – One of the greatest propaganda movies of all time. It presents a vision of a free, tolerant and compassionate world, where we all share responsibility for each other’s well-being, a world with America in the centre. It’s a vision that has shaped the world ever since, particularly whenever we realize our failure to live up to it. Watched it all, but I’ll skip the next 5(!) parts.

The Human Comedy (1943, USA) – Even the hobos are happy and friendly in this happy American town, where the war teaches a teenage boy Valuable Life Lessons. Watched: 7 minutes.

We Dive at Dawn (1943, UK) – A submarine crew, nice and dull chaps every one of them, prepares for shore leave. And .. I guess I feel asleep there for a moment. Watched: 7 minutes.

Heaven Can Wait (1943, USA) – Don Ameche tells his life story at the gates of Hell to convince Satan that he belongs there. Turns out he was just a moderately bad boy who enjoyed alcohol, women and life in general, and Hell doesn’t take those kind of people any more. Watched it all.

The 7th Victim (1943, USA) – Girl looks for her missing sister. Bad writing, bad actors. Looks good, though. Watched: 5 minutes.

I Was a Fireman (1943, UK) – A tribute to the firemen who worked through the London Blitz. That’s no excuse. Watched: 4 minutes.

Münchhausen (1943, Germany) – Don’t let it be said that Nazi Germany couldn’t be frivolous, when Goebbels commanded them to. An immortal playboy has adventures all over Europe, some of which violate the laws of physics. Holds up well to the Hollywood swashbucklers of the time, except that it’s a bit unfocused. Ferdinand Marian, the evil Jew from Jud Süss, here plays an evil magician who loves power and wants to invade Poland. Huh. This is mostly pure fantasy, though. Watched it all.

The North Star (1943, USA) – A happy family lives in a happy Ukrainian village. It’s just like any American town, and there’s been no genocide or anything. But all is not well: the Nazis, inbetween stealing the blood of Polish children, are gathering forces near the Soviet border. Written by Lillian Hellman, a Stalin apologist, during that brief period in history when this was a big plus in Hollywood. Watched: 8 minutes.

Five Graves to Cairo (1943, USA) – The battle for Africa as a light adventure. A British soldier finds himself behind enemy lines, and pretends to be a German spy. He must discover Rommel’s secret plan for the conquest of Egypt. This is perfect. I love the opening scene: A tank is driving alone across the sand dunes, its crew lying dead against the controls. Watched it all.

Memphis Belle (1944, USA) – We follow a group of bombers to Germany and back again. There’s no dialogue, just a hard voice that describes the combat footage we’re seeing. It’s poetry, beautiful in a cold and intense way. Watched it all.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943, USA) – The most extravagant war movie in the marathon yet, with an extravagant overture, extravagant fonts, and extravagant colors. It almost lasts longer than it takes to read the damn book. Everybody who sees this movie will know that they’ve taken part in a Serious Cultural Event. Watched: 14 minutes.

The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943, UK) – A man is stabbed on Simon Templar’s doorstep, making a cryptic accusation as he dies. Sheesh. Watched: 5 minutes.

Kings Row (1942, USA) – All the happy children are playing happy games in their happy little town. Watched: 9 minutes. Judging from IMDB reviews I’ve completely misunderstood this movie. Oops.

The Song of Bernadette (1943, USA) – Lourdes is full of dull, sick and serious people. They’re about to be cured of one of these. Watched: 11 minutes.

The Ape Man (1943, USA) – The sound on this VHS rip is so bad that I can’t hear a word they’re saying. It all sounds like the parents in Peanuts. But from what I can tell this is really, really bad. Watched: 5 minutes, then fast forwarded to see the ape man, of which there appears to be two: An ape, and Bela Lugosi in a gigantic beard.

One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942, UK) – Best war movie yet, by far. A group of English airmen crash in Holland, and are smuggled out through an underground railway. Best scene: On their way to bomb Stuttgart, the airmen casually discuss girls they used to know there. Best line, by a Dutch woman during an English air raid: “You see. That’s what you’re doing for us. Can you hear them running for shelter? Can you understand what that means to all the occupied countries? To enslaved people, having it drummed into their ears that the Germans are masters of the Earth. Seeing these masters running for shelter. Seeing them crouching under tables.” Watched it all.

Cat People (1942, USA) – Some guy meets a Serbian girl. All the animals fear her, and she tells strange tales from her home village. That’s rarely a good sign. Watched: 14 minutes, then fast forwarded to see the cat monster, a lovesick panther.

Bambi (1942, USA) – There’s not much story or dialogue here. This is a meditative movie, like an extended segment from Fantasia. It’s less sentimental than I expected. The dark parts give purpose to the cute and silly, which I think is also the philosophy of life the movie is meant to convey. Watched it all.

In Which We Serve (1942, UK) – A British ship goes down with stiff upper lips. While they’re sinking, the sailors remember their earlier lives. Watched: 17 minutes.

The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942, USA) – Monty Woolley is America’s greatest intellectual, a friend of statesmen and actors, and a royal ass. He is forced stay for a while with a small-town family that represents everything he despises about the middle class, and he punishes them with his temper, his tyrannical demands, and his outrageous Hollywood friends. I have a suspicion there are specific people being parodied here, including, brutally, Harpo Marx. Watched it all. Wikipedia confirms it: the movie parodies Alexander Woollcott, the critic, and .. yes, Harpo Marx. They both loved it, and at one time played their own roles in the stage version. (Read about Woollcott and Harpo’s unlikely friendship in Harpo’s autobiography.)

Captains of the Clouds (1942, USA) – James Cagney flies about in Canada, transporting things in his boatplane, and he’s a real jerk about it too. Watched: 11 minutes.

Son of Fury (1942, USA) – Tyrone Power grows up with a Dickensian uncle who has stolen his inheritance. As an adult he takes his revenge. You can rarely go wrong with a good vengeance theme, but the South Sea island paradise clichés, complete with a submissive native girl, ruin the second half, and there’s too little swashbuckling to justify the title. Watched it all.

The Payoff (1942, USA) – Cheap gangster movie. But I like the idea of displaying the title and cast as a newspaper frontpage. Watched: 4 minutes.

The Palm Beach Story (1942, USA) – Claudette Colbert wants to use her good looks to charm money and other gifts out of rich men. Her husband would rather that she didn’t, so she runs away for a divorce. Contains my favourite resolution of a confused identity love farce. Watched it all. Best scene, (despite the racism):

The Black Swan (1942, USA) – No relation to Nassim Nicholas Taleb. This movie is about pirates, the amusing kind, who murder and rape like other pirates, (at least we see them walk out of a burning city carrying tied up women, so we can assume that murder came before this scene, and rape afterwards), but it’s all in good fun. They’re such charming bastards, really, and English patriots too. Watched: 13 minutes.

Tales of Manhattan (1942, USA) – Brotherhood of the traveling suit. Charles Boyer is preposterous in the first tale, and I’m not staying for the rest. Watched: 10 minutes.

The Mummy’s Tomb (1942, USA) – When did horror movies start becoming good? Even the classics are bad, and this isn’t a classic. Watched: 4 minutes.

The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942, USA) – Like I said. I can’t even be bothered to make the obligatory “the peasants, they are revolting” joke. Watched: 6 minutes.

Mrs Miniver (1942, USA) – In England in the distant and carefree year 1939, Mrs Miniver buys a hat. My mind wandered off at that point, but there may also have been a conversation with a vicar. Watched: 7 minutes.

The Glass Key (1942, USA) – I’m not sure what’s happening here. There are various corrupt officials and/or gangsters scheming against and murdering each other. And there’s an election, and everybody is a candidate. I like it. It’s perfect. I especially enjoyed the relationship between Alan Ladd, the cool second-in-command of the relatively good guy, and a sadistic thug who keeps wanting to beat him up. Watched it all.

Jungle Book (1942, USA) – It’s brave to make the Jungle Book without the necessary special effects technology. The Korda brothers successfully portrayed fairy tale magic in The Thief of Bagdad, but their animal effects are just silly. When Shere Khan attacks Mowgli’s father, you can see that it’s just a Hobbes-like toy tiger thrown at him. Watched: 14 minutes.

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942, USA) – James Cagney is the perfect patriot. Born with a flag in his hand, he goes through life as a harmless entertainer. And then he gets to tell it all to the OMG The President! It’s interesting that the movie is faithful to Roosevelt’s paralysis: He’s portrayed sitting, not even rising to shake Cagney’s hand, even though the viewers would have thought he could walk. Watched: 25 minutes, then fast forwarded to see the patriotic musical numbers, which are sickening.

The Falcon Takes Over (1942, USA) – Cheap and ugly. Watched: 5 minutes.

The Spoilers (1942, USA) – John Wayne, Randolph Scott and Marlene Dietrich display entrepreneurial spirit in Alaska. Watched: 17 minutes.