The Wolf Man (1941, USA) – The thing I hate about these old horror movies is the part where the policemen and/or the dull hero and heroine look for rational explanations for those Mysterious Wounds on the victim’s neck. It goes on forever, as if that’s what the audience wants to see. No, it’s monsters, gypsies, and dramatic fog. Watched: 22 minutes. (Now compare this to a real masterpiece, The Devil and Daniel Webster, which never rationalizes, and is unreal from beginning to end.)

That Hamilton Woman (1941, UK) – Vivien Leigh plays Holly Golightly, a low-born beauty who becomes the lover of Lord Nelson. This is one of my favourite romantic dramas so far, full of perfect scenes, for which equal credit goes to Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and the script. True to its time, the movie emphasizes the similarities between Napoleon and Hitler, and ends on a spectacularly patriotic note. Watched it all.

Gasbags (1941, UK) – The comedy group’s name, The Crazy Gang, isn’t promising, but this is actually very funny. A couple of no-good soldiers get accidentally lifted off by airship to Germany, (which they think is Ireland), along with their fish & chips store. Favourite line: A German soldier picks up a poster that fell off their store. Another asks, “what does it say?” “Fish is good for you.” “Well, it’s more English lies!” In another scene, the soldiers interpret their beating by concentration camp guards as an initiation ceremony, and proceed to beat up each other. Watched it all.

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941, USA) – The Devil walks around New Hampshire, tempting poor farmers to sell their souls in return for wealth. This is an extraordinary movie, a puritan morality tale made perfect by the visual style, which is unlike anything I’ve seen, and by Walter Huston as the Devil. In the end, a trial for a farmer’s soul, held before a jury of damned souls, becomes a battle for the soul of America itself, with the Devil claiming to be its oldest citizen. “When the first wrong was done to the first Indian, I was there. When the first slaver put out for the Congo, I stood on the deck.” Anastasia screamed in vain. Watched it all.

Knute Rockne, All American (1940, USA) – Knut Rockne’s family emigrates from Voss, Norway, to Chicago, where he becomes an all-American super jock. He could have been an all-American super nerd, but abandons science to coach football, and leads his team through the typical sports movie adversities. Watched: 46 minutes, just long enough to see Ronald Reagan’s dying Gipper speech.

Brother Orchid (1940, USA) – A gangster boss quits and goes to Europe to learn how to be classy. When he returns, none of his friends wants him back. I guess the only way gangster movies could go at this point was into comedy, but it’s not working. Watched: 18 minutes.

The Shop Around the Corner (1940, USA) – I don’t think Hungary was ever like this. Watched: 9 minutes.

Santa Fe Trail (1940, USA)

John Brown and his gang of evil abolitionists terrorize Kansas in the 1850’s, but Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan come to the rescue. The overall message is that reasonable people may disagree about slavery, but only fanatics are strongly opposed to it, and it’s a shame that Northern abolitionists caused a civil war over such a minor issue. In one surreal scene, one of the bad guys, acting all shifty and evil, tries to smuggle runaway slaves on the train. In another, slaves freed by Brown welcome their recapture by the army, because they miss their owners. Watched it all, mostly because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I’m not sure what fascinates me more: The real history of John Brown, (who arguably was a terrorist), or the fact that a pro-slavery telling of his story stars major actors and a future president – and was one of the top movies of the year. IMDB reviewers say Santa Fe Trail is an inaccurate but honest look at the origins of the Civil War, which is fucking stupid.

Pride and Prejudice (1940, USA)

I think I can only stand upper class twits when they’re being murdered or being decadent. Here they’re fluttering about like butterflies, trying to land advantageous marriages. Good God, why?! Watched: 12 minutes.

The Mummy’s Hand (1940, USA)

A secret Egyptian priesthood has kept a mummy alive but imprisoned for 3000 years. Stupid pseudo-archeologists arrive. Watched: 25 minutes.

The Letter (1940, USA) – Bette Davis kills a man who tries to rape her, but, this being film noir, (the first in this marathon), there “is in existence a letter” which undermines that story. Features Davis at her manipulative best. The story is set in British Singapore, a place where the Chinese fall into one of two categories: Ingratiating crooks, and insidious Fu Manchus. Watched it all.

Where’s That Fire (1940, UK) – Will Hay is an incompetent fireman. Hilarity ensues. Watched: 7 minutes.

One Million B.C. (1940, USA) “Now keep in mind he can’t control / When the movies begin or end / Because he used the extra parts / To make his robot friends.” Watched: 12 minutes.

Kitty Foyle (1940, USA) – Women were much happier before they got the vote. Now they must work, and choose a husband, and even fight with men for a seat on the bus. Watched: 11 minutes.

The Blue Bird (1940, USA) – Yargh! It’s Mecha-Shirley Temple! Run! Watched: 37 seconds.

The Grapes of Wrath (1940, USA) – Starving farmers go on a road trip in post-apocalyptic America. The only place that treats them right is a collectivist farm run by a Department of Agriculture official who looks like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, after which both Tom Joad and his mother ascend, he to become the Spirit of the Revolution, she to become the Spirit of the American People. Watched it all.

The Mark of Zorro (1940, USA) – A perfect Zorro, far better than any swashbuckler Errol Flynn ever made. But why nobody connects the voice of the masked bandit with the recently arrived gentleman from Spain, and why Zorro thinks he can be a hero of both the people and the nobility of California, is beyond me. Watched it all.

The Torrid Zone (1940, USA) – I’m fascinated by Hollywood’s use of banana republics as an oasis of dirty bars, loose women and gentlemen rogues. Not enough to watch this, though. Watched: 8 minutes.

Arizona (1940, USA) – Civil War era Tucson is a place of folksy, enterprising American men, and one folksy, enterprising American woman, all trying to carve out a living while the threat of war, bandits and injuns hangs over their heads. Most Westerns deal with the breakdown of law and order, but here there’s a sense of there being no society at all except what individuals build for themselves, giving the movie the feel of a political manifesto. You almost expect Lazarus Long to show up. Watched it all.

Down Argentine Way (1940, USA) – From this failed government attempt at courting Latin American opinion (true!), we learn that Argentina is both exotic, friendly and safe. Why, the aristocrats are so friendly and safe that they only speak English, and require translators when they talk to the stereotypical commoners who serve them. Watched: 8 minutes.

Boom Town (1940, USA) – Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable are oil prospectors (and occasional thieves) who strike big, go bust, fall out, make up, etc. etc. This goes on for about 20 years. There Will Be Free Market Ideology, (a little bit, at the end – yay!) Watched it all.

The Bank Dick (1940, USA) – I’ve been disappointed by the comedies of this period. Even including the occasional funny screwball comedy, the first to hold up to even a lesser Marx Brothers is this W. C. Fields movie. The plot .. ah, who cares? I laughed. Watched it all.

Seven Sinners (1940, USA) – Marlene Dietrich has fallen since her earlier movies, which this feels like a regurgitation of. Watched: 15 minutes.

Die Rothschilds – Aktien auf Waterloo (1940, Germany) – When I watched The House of Rothschild, a pro-Jewish movie about the rise of the Rothschild bank, I had no idea how influential it had been on anti-semitic German movies. Die Ewige Jude used a distorting sample from it to prove Jewish greed, and this movies refutes it, retelling the same events from an anti-semitic and anti-capitalist perspective. Watched: 25 minutes.

The Ghost Breakers (1940, USA) – It was a dark and stormy night. The lights went out, and Bob Hope told a joke about painting his stupid black servant white, so he could see him in the dark. Watched: 8 minutes.

Fantasia (1940, USA) – Oh. My. God. Yes. This is the second movie in this marathon to make me cry. The .. the vision of it. I’m stunned. We’re watching an old culture give birth to a new. Absorbed it all.

Rebecca (1940, USA) – Laurence Olivier’s wife dies, and the timid woman he marries on the rebound fails to live up to her predecessor, in whose shadow she now lives. In a way she’s even outacted by the memory of this character we never meet. Fantastic Hitchcock. Watched it all.

The Long Voyage Home (1940, USA) – Follows a crew of sailors from a night of alcohol and prostitutes in the West Indies, through dangerous waters in the Atlantic, to another night of alcohol and prostitutes in England. Excellent wartime drama, with little plot, much atmosphere. Watched it all.

My Favorite Wife (1940, USA) – Sometimes Cary Grant goofing around is exactly what a movie needs. Other times it isn’t. Grant thinks his wife is dead, so he marries a second, but then his first wife returns. Farce ensues. Watched: 17 minutes.

Dark Command (1940, USA) – John Wayne plays George W. Bush, an illiterate Texan who runs for election as Marshal in a Kansas town against Al Gore, a book learned snob. Bush wins, pushing Gore over the edge to a career of criminal PowerPoint presentations. Fine movie on the border between Civil War drama and Western. Watched it all.

The Thief of Bagdad (1940, UK) – Have you read the Sandman story where Harun al-Rashid asks to have Baghdad moved into the world of dreams, where its wonders can be preserved against decay and death forever, pure and impossible? Well, this is that place, captured perfectly. Watched it all.

I Love You Again (1940, USA) – William Powell, an upstanding citizen, anti-vice fundraiser and overall tee-totalling bore, gets knocked over the head, and wakes up as William Powell, a charming crook. His wife Myrna Loy finds this quite an improvement. Watched it all.

Slightly Honorable (1940, USA) – There are several sparks of life in this movie, including the description of a Pacific island paradise that leads up to the picture above, but that doesn’t prevent it from being bad. Watched: 14 minutes.

Michael Shayne, Private Detective (1940, USA) – Crime movie that verges hesitantly on the edge of noir. Now just replace the friendly detective with Humphrey Boghart, and the nice young woman who has an endearing gambling problem with a femme fatale.. Watched: 15 minutes.

The Stranger on the Third Floor (1940, USA) – Something tells me that the obviously guilty defendant is innocent, and that the so far unintroduced Peter Lorre is both strange, murderous, and residing on the third floor. Watched: 12 minutes.

My Little Chickadee (1940, USA) – When Mae West is good, she’s very good. When she’s bad, she’s better. No, actually, when she’s bad she’s just bad. But this is one of her good ones. Chased out of town by the prudes for flirting with the local gentleman bandit, she finds herself another town with the usual sheriff/crook/idealist triangle. Features W. C. Fields in bed with a goat, and Mae West teaching a class of unruly teenage boys. Watched it all.

The Howards of Virginia (1940, USA) – Cary Grant (36) plays an unconvincing early 20’s Matt Howard, young Thomas Jefferson’s comical sidekick, in this patriotic movie where the slaves always seem to hover right outside of the screen. Credited with being the flop that taught Grant never to star in costume dramas. Watched: 16 minutes.

Three Faces West (1940, USA) – A doctor from Vienna finds wartime refuge in the US, but in order not to cause competition for big-city doctors, he cheerfully allows himself to be auctioned on a radio show to whatever tiny backwater town wants him. I’m sure the producers didn’t find this premise the least bit condescending. Watched: 15 minutes.

Li’l Abner (1940, USA) – Bad comic book adaptations have a long history. Watched: 4 minutes.

The Lady in Question (1940, USA) – French drama comedies haven’t impressed me so far, and neither does this American drama comedy set in France. A bicycle store owner becomes juror at a murder trial. Hilarity Ensues. Watched: 13 minutes.

Dr Cyclops (1940, USA) – Hey, a mad scientist sci-fi! In Technicolor! A biologist moves into the Amazon jungle to learn to harness the power of Radioactivity over Life and Death, which, properly harnessed, he uses to turn big creatures into small creatures. He turns horses into .. small horses, pigs into .. small pigs, and people into .. small people. It’s a diabolical plan that is sheer elegance in its simplicity. (Step three: Profit!) Preposterous and fun. Watched it all.

His Girl Friday (1940, USA) – Goofy-boy Cary Grant tries to prevent his ex-wife from giving up her career as a journalist to settle down as some loser insurance salesman’s baby machine. They team up to prevent the hanging of a man who .. isn’t exactly innocent as such, but all he did was shoot a “colored cop”, and a man shouldn’t hang just because a city’s “colored vote” demands it, now should he? This is a quite fantastic movie, (as well as fantastically loud). Best line, when Grant tells the news desk to clear the front page: “Never mind the European war, we’ve got something much bigger!” Watched it all.

Der Ewige Jude (1940, Germany) – “There are 4 million Jews in Poland”, says the narrator, and what can one possibly add to that? The focus in this documentary is on the Eternal Jew as a parasite who embodies everything that is evil about individualism and capitalism. However civilized some European Jews may appear, there’s always a filthy money-grabbing rat underneath. Watched it all.