During World War Two: 1943 Movie Recs

1943 was, obviously, the height of the war, and it was also the year in which the most war-related movies were released in the United States, with a whopping one-hundred eighty-seven films.

Yep, it was pretty hard to get away from the war, but escapism was occasionally a thing as well, and there were a ton of good movies in 1943. I honestly couldn’t get my rec list any smaller than this, and yeah, we’ve seen some of these movies before, but we also can’t let 1943 go by without at least mentioning them, plus linking to full reviews if possible. Hope you enjoy…

Shadow Of A Doubt (January 15)

When Charlie finds out her uncle and namesake is a murderer and a hardened criminal, she has some choices to make. Filmed in beautiful Santa Rosa, the script was co-written by Sally Benson, Thornton Wilder, and Sarah Reville. It’s one of Hitchcock’s quieter films and immensely satisfying.

The Human Comedy (March 2)

Rumored to be L.B. Mayer’s favorite movie, The Human Comedy follows the Macauley family in the fictional town of Ithaca, California, as they navigate life and the war without father and husband Mr. Macauley, who recently passed away. Teenaged Homer has the grim job of delivering telegrams, often to families of servicemen who have been killed overseas, and he sometimes wonders what he’ll do if his brother, Marcus, meets the same fate.

Air Force (March 20)

This is honestly one of my favorite World War Two movies, because it shows a rare view of B-17 crews very early in America’s involvement in the war, and it takes a tour of the Pacific during the destruction of December seventh and eighth. It’s so early in B-17 history that it has detachable windows where the waist gunners would normally stand. Later in the war these areas would be left open. It’s interesting to see how fast bombers changed. Read my review here.

Hello, Frisco, Hello (March 26)

A tuneful turn-of-the-century story of the Barbary Coast, Hello, Frisco, Hello follows four performers, who, when they’re let go from their current situation, make their own. Well, it starts with Johnny Cornell, who becomes a theater magnate and too successful for his own good. While Alice Faye is the especial highlight, there’s a great variety of music, including “It’s Tulip Time In Holland,” performed by the Skating Vanities. Hello, Frisco, Hello also introduced one of the most popular songs of the war, “You’ll Never Know,” which became Alice Faye’s signature song. Read my review here.

Slightly Dangerous (April 1)

This Lana Turner vehicle is pretty underrated in my opinion. Peggy is a bored counter worker at a drugstore who knows her job so well that she can make a banana split blindfolded. When she skips town and leaves what the townspeople think is a suicide note behind, her boss, Bob goes after her. Meanwhile, Peggy is living it up in New York as what appears to be missing child Carol Burden. It gets complicated, of course.

Presenting Lily Mars (April 29)

Lily Mars wants to be an actress so badly she can taste it, and while she can swing a tune with the best of them, as an actress she’s undeniably green. Naturally, Lily goes to New York, where John Thornway is working on a new show. His mother is a friend of the Mars family. A fun movie with great music, and the only slightly weird part is that Lily’s younger brother collects doorknobs. Why, I don’t know. Read my review here.

The More the Merrier (May 13)

The More the Merrier is delightful skewering of the wartime housing crisis and George Stevens’s last film before going overseas with the United States Signal Corps. Everything works in this movie, and just for good measure, Stevens pushed the Production Code envelope ever so slightly with a steamy love scene and what appears to be romantic leads Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea in a double bed. Read my review here.

Bombardier (May 14)

Another telling of early, early bombadier crews, Bombardier also follows the rivalry between Major Chick Davis and Captain Buck Oliver as they compete for the affections of “Burt” Hughes, who is the daughter of an Air Force colonel and who is now a secretary for the base in the film. Bombardier does a fine job of showing how crude early bombing flights really were and how much was at stake if these crews were caught by the Japanese. Read my review here.

Action In the North Atlantic (June 12)

This movie is a Bogart tour-de-force about the Merchant Marines, U-boats and straight ahead patriotism. Hollywood didn’t often do stories about the Merchant Marines, but when they did, they did them right and laid on all the respect for these intrepid crews. Read my review here.

Stage Door Canteen (June 24)

An independent film by Sol Lesser, Stage Door Canteen follows three hostesses, Jean, Ella Sue, and Eileen as they entertain the soldiers, three of whom become their good friends very quickly. So good, in fact, that Eileen has to decide whether breaking the rules is worth it to be with Dakota, a nice fellow who only seems to be a flirt. This film is jammed full of appearances and performances by stage and screen stars of the day, including Katherine Cornell’s one and only screen appearance. Read my review here.

This Is the Army (July 29)

One of the top-grossing films of 1943, This Is the Army is a fictionalized depiction of soldiers putting on Berlin’s two Army shows, Yip Yip, Yaphank and This Is the Army, featuring the actual company that was putting on the show all over the United States and around the world. While there’s a little bit of weirdness (there are a lot of guys in drag and some in blackface), the movie is a lot of fun, capped off by a romance between Joan Leslie and Ronald Reagan. Read more about the film here.

Salute To the Marines (August 2)

Wallace Beery and Faye Bainter, two actors who most often took character parts, got to play leads in Salute To the Marines, about Bill Bailey, a career Marine who’s trained dozens of recruits, yet never seen action himself. It’s not until he retires that he finds out what his fellow Marines already know. A lesser-known film of the war, Salute is an enjoyable, if slightly dated look at civilians getting thrust into the conflict. Read my review here.

Watch On the Rhine (August 27)

Another very underrated film, Watch On the Rhine would have packed quite a punch for American audiences, who were used to, and maybe took for granted, the safety of two oceans and thousands of miles. This Bette Davis-Paul Lukas vehicle drove the point home that the war could come to Americans where they lived and from unlikely sources. Read more about the film here.

So Proudly We Hail! (September 9)

I can’t not recommend this film, as it featured Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard and Veronica, three powerhouses of the Golden Era and is one of Hollywood’s rare homages to Army nurses. As we’ve talked about before, there was a definite guilt in America over having to leave our people behind in the Philippines, and a movie like this would have galvanized the importance of winning the war in the public’s mind. Read my full review here.

Thousands Cheer (September 13)

Thousands Cheer has a plot, but it’s mostly window dressing, as everything leads up to the massive soldier show at the end of the film. MGM really pulled out all the stops here, as the film is in full color, there’s a ton of music, and a dizzying array of schtick. We also get to see Gene Kelly pretend to be a trapeze artist. Find the full review here.

Thank Your Lucky Stars (September 25)

Oh golly, this film is, as the saying goes, nuttier than a squirrel’s bowel movement. It’s got Eddie Cantor in a dual role as Eddie Cantor and Joe, a mild-mannered tour bus driver. It’s got some classic songs. It’s also the only movie that has Bette Davis, George Tobias, Olivia de Havilland, and Ida Lupino singing and dancing. And Joan Leslie’s character raps on her own forehead whenever she gets an idea. Just when it seems it can’t get crazier, it does. Come for the World War Two throwbacks, stay for the sheer zaniness. Read my review here.

Girl Crazy (November 18)

Judy and Mickey’s last barnyard musical, except that there’s no barn, they’re in a desert at a boy’s school, and Mickey plays Danny, a flakey playboy who’s sent to the school to smarten up. The music is by George Gershwin and part of the movie was directed by Busby Berkeley, but he went a little heavy on his drill sergeant routine and was replaced with Norman Taurog. Find out more here.

Cry ‘Havoc’ (November 23)

Another film about Army nurses in Bataan, only these nurses are volunteers and they stay in one place, unlike the So Proudly We Hail! ladies who go to different places in Bataan before ending up at Corregidor. Cry ‘Havoc’ was originally based on a play of middling success, and while it has been performed since the war, it’s firmly within its time. Read my review here.

The Song of Bernadette (December 21)

Released as part of the ninetieth anniversary of the Lourdes sightings, Bernadette was unusual in that it was a religious movie that did well at the box office and it won an Oscar for Jennifer Jones, who had, up to this time, been mostly making cheap westerns on Poverty Row. Jones had to show incredible range in the role opposite such durable players as Vincent Price and Gladys Cooper. Read more here.

The Gang’s All Here (December 24)

1943 wound up with a little bit more craziness. OK, a lot more. Alice Faye teamed up with Carmen Miranda, Charlotte Greenwood, Edward Everett Horton, Eugene Pallett, and Benny Goodman for a musical that, among its various shout-outs, tributes the Good Neighbor Policy, polka dots, women war workers, and Carmen Miranda herself. There’s also a romance, but it pales in comparison to the final scene, which features Eugene Pallett’s disembodied head singing and flying through the air. Read more here.

Destination Tokyo (December 31)

Cary Grant, John Garfield, Alan Hale, Sr., Tom Tully, John Ridgley, Faye Emerson, Dane Clark, Robert Hutton and Eleanor Parker are among the stars that populate this movie about the Copperfin, a fictional submarine on her way to Japan to map out the island for the Doolittle Raid. The movie makes no bones about how dangerous this really was, and is a fascinating look at submarine crews early in the war.

Gonna take a wee break until April 23rd (Shakespeare’s birthday!). Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you in about a week…

---

Shadow of A Doubt (DVD and Blu-ray), The Human Comedy (DVD), Air Force (DVD), Hello, Frisco, Hello (DVD and Blu-ray), Slightly Dangerous (DVD), Presenting Lily Mars (DVD), The More the Merrier (DVD), Bombardier (DVD), Action In the North Atlantic (DVD), Stage Door Canteen (DVD and streaming), This Is the Army (DVD and streaming), Salute To the Marines (DVD), Watch On the Rhine (DVD), So Proudly We Hail! (DVD), Thousands Cheer (DVD), Thank Your Lucky Stars (DVD and Blu-ray), Girl Crazy (DVD and Blu-ray), Cry ‘Havoc’ (DVD), The Song of Bernadette (DVD), The Gang’s All Here (DVD and Blu-ray), and Destination Tokyo (DVD) are available to own from Amazon.

~Purchases made via Amazon Affiliate links found on this site help support Taking Up Room at no extra cost to you.~

If you’re enjoying what you see on Taking Up Room, please subscribe to my Substack page, where you’ll find both free and paid subscriber-only reviews of mostly new and newish movies, documentaries, and shows. I publish every Wednesday and Saturday. You can also subscribe to my Club 15 Tier, which gives you at least one extra Taking Up Room post every month for a small fee.