Spellbound (1945, USA, Hitchcock) – Gregory Peck suffers from a quite incredible psychosis, and gets help from Ingrid Bergman, who is somewhat less insane. I like plots based on psychoanalysis, even if it’s bullshit.  It’s also a good excuse to hire Salvador Dali to design the sets of your movie.  Watched it all.

Along Came Jones (1945, USA, Heisler) – Gary Cooper does his honorable-and-dumb-but-actually-kind-of-smart routine in the Old West.  Watched: 35 minutes.

‘I Know Where I’m Going!’ (1945, UK, Powell & Pressburger) – Mary Poppins goes to get married on the Hebrides, which is full of eccentric Scotsmen.  Watched it all. 

Journey Together (1945, UK, Boulting) – Goddam Edward G. Robinson shows up everywhere, even in RAF docudramas.  I wish he’d stick to gangster movies, then it would be easier to avoid him.  Watched: 22 minutes.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945, USA, Lewin) – Another Victorian morality tale that never goes out of fashion, long after Victorian morality has.  The picture of Evil Dorian, shown suddenly in color in this black and white movie, is the most shocking visual in the marathon yet.  Watched it all.

Woman Who Came Back (1945, USA, Colmes) – Arguably the least spooky way an undead witch can punish the town that murdered her 300 years ago is to confuse people to death by dressing and cackling like a senile old woman.  Also, I firmly believe that any condemned witch who rises from her grave to avenge herself invalidates any claim to her own innocence.  Watched: 6 minutes.

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!