Skip to content
Broadway Rhythm (1944), starring George Murphy, Ginny Simms, Charles Winninger, Gloria DeHaven

Broadway Rhythm

  • by

Broadway Rhythm (1944), starring George Murphy, Ginny Simms, Charles Winninger, Gloria DeHaven,

Review of Broadway Rhythm

In short, Broadway Rhythm is a very enjoyable musical. It’s not the equal of Top Hat or some of the other great musicals — but it’s not trying to be. It’s a musical about a family of performers. The son has made it big — possibly too big for his britches. He’s chasing a girl who would be perfect for his play. A play that she’s not interested in. His father’s retired, although the father doesn’t think that he’s ready to be put out to pasture. And the younger sister is attending college, when she wants to be performing.

Broadway Rhythm
Meet the People(1944) starring Lucille Ball, Dick Powell

Meet the People (1944)

  • by

Meet the People(1944) starring Lucille Ball, Dick Powell

At its’ heart, Meet the People is a musical romantic comedy, where shipyard worker William ‘Swanee’ Swanson (played by Dick Powell) has written a patriotic play about the American worker during World War II. Actress Julie Hampton (played by Lucille Ball) is hired to act in the play, but when Swanson has “creative differences” with the producer, he wants the actual shipyard workers to star in the play.  

Meet the People (1944)

House of Dracula

  • by

House of Dracula (1944), starring John Carradine, Onslow Stevens, Lon Chaney Jr., Glenn Strange

Synopsis of House of Dracula

In House of Dracula, Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.) & Dracula (John Carradine) beg Dr. Edelman (Onslow Stevens) to cure them of their killing instincts. But Dracula schemes to seduce the doctor’s nurse.

House of Dracula

The Adventures of Mark Twain

  • by

The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), starring Fredric March, Alexis Smith

Review of The Adventures of Mark Twain

I’ve often said that Hollywood takes enormous liberties with biographies.  That’s true in The Adventures of Mark Twain as well.  But that doesn’t mean that it’s not a very enjoyable movie.  It is, for a variety of reasons.  It has a good pacing, interesting cinematography, and a compelling rags-to-riches story.

The Adventures of Mark Twain

Weird Woman

  • by

Weird Woman (1944) starring Lon Chaney Jr., Anne Gwynne, Evelyn Ankers

Synopsis of Weird Woman

Weird Woman – When a college professor whose life work is the battle against superstition marries a beautiful woman with a voodoo background, the return to the university leads to bitterness, fighting, and murder. Is it due to voodoo — or something more mundane?

Weird Woman

House of Frankenstein [monster movie]

  • by

House of Frankenstein (1944), starring Boris Karloff, John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., J. Carrol Naish, Glenn Strange, Lionel Atwill, Anne Gwynne, Peter Coe

Synopsis of House of Frankenstein

House of Frankenstein is the first of the Universal Studios monster mashes.  In short, mad scientist Niemann and “friend Daniel” his hunchback assistant escape prison and enact a series of revenges on the people who had him imprisoned.  They murder a proprietor of a travelling show of horrors, impersonate him and revive his corpse of Dracula.  Dracula succeeds in the first part of the revenge scheme, but Niemann abandons him to be destroyed in the sunlight.  Niemann then travels to the ruins of Frankenstein’s castle.  He hopes to recover the dead doctor’s secrets, but instead recovers both the Wolf Man and Frankenstein’s monster.  He revives them both, but a romantic triangle unravels the plot.

House of Frankenstein [monster movie]

The Fighting Sullivans

  • by

The Fighting Sullivans (1944) starring  Anne Baxter,  Thomas Mitchell,  Selena Royle

 There are a great many positive things to say about  The Fighting Sullivans. It’s set against the backdrop of World War II. But at it’s heart it’s the story of a loving Irish Catholic family. As they raise five young boys and a daughter. Five very energetic, healthy, American boys, whose childhood the audience gets to share. As well as when they become young men, and volunteer for service in the Navy shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Fighting Sullivans

Mr. Skeffington

  • by

Mr. Skeffington (1944), starring Bette Davis, Claude Rains

Product Description of Mr. Skeffington

 Bette Davis stars as a beautiful but vain society woman who, to pay her brother’s gambling debts, marries a financier she does not love — Mr. Skeffington. The marriage does not last, and the former Mrs. Skeffington flits from beau to beau casually leaving a trail of broken hearts. But when she contracts a near-fatal case of diphtheria, her beauty is destroyed by the terrible scars left by the disease. Now middle-aged, scarred and unable to win men’s hearts with her beauty, she finally finds love with the now-blind man she had wed years before–Mr. Skeffington

Mr. Skeffington

Thirty Seconds over Tokyo

  • by

Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (1944) starring Van Johnson, Phyllis Thaxter, Spencer Tracy, Robert Walker, Robert Mitchum

The old adage says that you shouldn’t judge a book by its’ cover — and that goes for DVD cases as well. Judging from the DVD case, you would think that Thirty Seconds over Tokyo is starring Spencer Tracy — and you would be wrong. Spencer Tracy does appear, and he does a fine job portraying James Doolittle, the man behind the World War II raid on Tokyo. But the central character in this movie is pilot Ted Lawson. Van Johnson portrays him excellently. The movie breaks into three parts:

Thirty Seconds over Tokyo

I’ll Be Seeing You

  • by

I’ll Be Seeing You (1944) starring Joseph Cotten, Ginger Rogers, Shirley Temple

In short, I‘ll Be Seeing You is a wonderful film.  It’s set towards the end of World War II. A veteran (played very well by Joseph Cotten) is suffering from what we would now call PTSD.  He’s jumping at any sound, and thinks that he’s likely to be attacked at any moment. His doctors at the VA are letting him out from the psych ward …. In order to see how well he’s able to function in normal society. On his train ride, he meets a beautiful young lady (played very well by Ginger Rogers). She’s a lady who’s also out on furlough — from prison.

I’ll Be Seeing You
Exit mobile version