1942
This is a list-in-progress of some favorite films of 1942. The numbers are not rankings; the list is alphabetical, although the displayed form of some titles may not reflect this.
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19 titles
- DirectorJohn HustonVincent ShermanStarsHumphrey BogartMary AstorSydney GreenstreetIn December 1941, ex-army captain Rick Leland boards a Japanese ship heading to Asia via the Panama Canal where his Japanese hosts show interest in the American defense plans for the canal zone.
- DirectorJacques TourneurStarsSimone SimonTom ConwayKent SmithAn American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if they are intimate together.
- DirectorSacha GuitryStarsSacha GuitryGaby MorlayJacques VarennesHistorical romance, made under the Nazi occupation, centering on a woman, played by two different actresses, who influenced the life of Napoleon.
- DirectorStuart HeislerStarsAlan LaddVeronica LakeBrian DonlevyA crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.
- DirectorRené ClairStarsFredric MarchVeronica LakeRobert BenchleyA beautiful 17th-century witch returns to life to plague politician Wallace Wooley, descendant of her persecutor.
- DirectorZoltan KordaStarsSabuJoseph CalleiaJohn QualenA boy raised by wild animals tries to adapt to human village life.
- DirectorLloyd BaconStarsEdward G. RobinsonJane WymanBroderick CrawfordThree ex-cons buy a luggage shop to tunnel into the bank vault next door. But despite all they can do, the shop prospers...
- DirectorOrson WellesFred FleckRobert WiseStarsTim HoltJoseph CottenDolores CostelloThe spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.
- DirectorMarcel L'HerbierStarsFernand GraveyMicheline PresleSaturnin FabreDenis is distracted: he's studying all day for philosophy exams and working all night at the flower market; plus, whenever he closes his eyes, he dreams of a mysterious woman in white. His girlfriend Nina is annoyed at him for his inattention, so she steps out behind his back with a friend of his. One night, while napping at the flower mart, he pursues the mystery woman in what he thinks is a dream, and finds himself with her in a restaurant with her father and her fiancé, then on to a magic shop, the Louvre, a nightclub, and a mental asylum. During the night, he discovers a plot against her, and still believing it's a dream, goes to great lengths to try to save her.
- DirectorPreston SturgesStarsClaudette ColbertJoel McCreaMary AstorA New York inventor needs cash to develop his big idea, so his adoring wife decides to raise it by divorcing him and marrying an eccentric Florida millionaire with a capricious high-society sister.
- DirectorAlessandro BlasettiStarsGino CerviAdriana BenettiGiuditta RissoneA family man travelling for work, Paolo Bianchi, meets on a train a lonely girl, Maria. He sees her again on a bus and she reveals him that she's in troubles: she's pregnant, her baby's father has left her and she doesn't know how to tell to her parents that she's not married. She asks Paolo to play the role of her husband and he accepts....
- DirectorJoseph KaneStarsRoy RogersGeorge 'Gabby' HayesBob NolanThose who might write about this film without seeing it might also question why the government needed horses during WW II (if that is all they knew about it from a short synopsis read somewhere), but viewing it one can learn that Jim Fellows, is the head of a government experiment in wild horse reclamation for purposes other than war, and his efforts are hampered by Gus Jordan, manager of the swanky Lariat Lodge dude ranch, but actually the leader of a gang of rustlers who steal the horses as fast as the ranchers can round them up for the project. When the rustlers steal a herd from Alice Blake, her kid brother Bobbie, sets out to get help from his radio favorites, Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys, and the Sons of the Pioneers, who are en route to Lariat Lodge to play a one-night stand. While riding down the road with Gabby Whittaker, who has given him a ride in his jalopy, Bobbie sees three men who he recognizes as rustlers and, when he tries to stop them, they begin beating him with whips. His life is saved by the timely arrival of Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers. On the way to take Bobbie back to his sister, who is at the Fellows Ranch, they run into the rustlers on a raid, and take Burt Wooster and Pete prisoners. Wooster, the foreman at the Fellows Ranch, is actually an accomplice working for Jordan. He insists that he is not a gang member and Roy, pretending to believe him, agrees to let him take Pete to Sheriff Brite. Unaware that Roy and the Sons are following, Wooster and Pete go straight to the Lariat Lodge, where Wooster, after announcing that he is quitting, soon learns that he should have gone to the Sheriff with Pete, because Jordan and Pete shoot him. He lives long enough to tell Roy that the signal for a rustler raid is the playing of a certain song over the Lodge's nightly radio program.
- DirectorWilliam A. WellmanStarsGinger RogersAdolphe MenjouGeorge MontgomeryRoxie Hart signs a murder confession in order to attract publicity for her dancing career as dames don't swing in Cook County. Will everything go as planned?
- DirectorJohn CromwellStarsTyrone PowerGene TierneyGeorge SandersCheated out of his estate by his sadistic uncle, young Benjamin Blake goes to the South Seas to make his fortune so he can return to claim his birthright.
- DirectorJulien DuvivierStarsCharles BoyerRita HayworthGinger RogersA formal tailcoat that gets passed from one owner to another affects each life in a significant way.
- DirectorGeorge StevensStarsCary GrantJean ArthurRonald ColmanAn escaped prisoner has to prove his innocence to a stuffy law professor with the help of a spirited school teacher.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsChishû RyûShûji SanoShin SaburiA schoolteacher struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, having neither money nor future prospects.
- DirectorFrank TuttleStarsAlan LaddVeronica LakeRobert PrestonWhen assassin Philip Raven shoots a blackmailer and his beautiful female companion dead, he is paid off in marked bills by his treasonous employer who is working with foreign spies.
- DirectorMarcel CarnéStarsArlettyMarie DéaFernand LedouxIn medieval France, the Devil intervenes when one of his two envoys, sent to seduce and deceive mortals, falls instead for a victim.