Top 10 Films of 1942

1. "The 47 Ronin: Part 2" (Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan)

2. "The Palm Beach Story" (Preston Sturges, USA)

3. "Now, Voyager" (Irving Rapper, USA)

4. "To Be Or Not To Be" (Ernst Lubitsch, USA)

5. "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (Michael Curtiz, USA)

6. "Road To Morocco" (David Butler, USA)

7. "The Magnificent Ambersons" (Orson Welles, USA)

8. "Bambi" (Walt Disney, USA)


9. "Orchestra Wives" (Archie Mayo, USA)


10. "Holiday Inn" (Mark Sandwich, USA)



Other great films:

L'Assassin habite au 21 (France)
Babes On Broadway
Cat People

La Cena delle beffe (Italy)

Der Grosse Konig (Germany)
For Me And My Gal
Gentleman Jim
Hellzapoppin'
In Which We Serve (UK)
It's All True
Jungle Book (UK)

Kings Row
Moscow Strikes Back (Soviet Union)
Mrs Miniver
The Nazis Strike
Od Tatier po Azovske more (Slovakia)
One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing (UK)
The Pied Piper
Prelude To War
The Pride Of The Yankees
Saboteur
There Was A Father (Japan)
Les Visiteurs du soir (France)
Wake Island
Woman Of The Year
You Were Never Lovelier

Short Top 3:

1. "Listen To Britain" (Humphrey Jennings, Stewart McAllister, UK)

2. "Conquer By The Clock" (Slavko Vorkapich, USA)

3. "Flugten" (Jorgen Roos, Denmark)

Other great shorts:

Bialy orzel (Poland)

A Child Went Forth

Don't Talk

Filmavisen 13 juli 1942 (Norway)

Filmavisen 19 januar 1942 (Norway)

It's Everybody's War
Mr Blabbermouth

Theresienstadt 1942 Dreharbeiten (Germany)

Wagen Nr 1 kampft sich seinen Weg (Germany)

Top Commercial:

"Lucky Strike" (Lucky Strike)

Cartoon Top 10

1. "The Dover Boys" (Chuck Jones, Warner)

2. "Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs" (Robert Clampett, Warner)

3. "Tulips Shall Grow" (George Pal, Paramount)

4. "Der Fuehrer's Face" (Jack Kinney, Disney)

5. "The Blitz Wolf" (Tex Avery, MGM)

6. "Pigs In A Polka" (Friz Freleng, Warner)

7. "T-Bone For Two" (Clyde Geronimi, Disney)

8. "Symphony Hour" (Riley Thomson, Disney)

9. "The Ducktators" (Norman McCabe, Warner)

10. "Fox Pop" (Chuck Jones, Warner)

Other great cartoons:

All Out For V

Bellboy Donald

Billion Dollar Limited
Bugs Bunny Gets The Boid
The Bulleteers
Case Of The Missing Hare
Daffy's Southern Exposure
Destruction Inc
Dog Trouble
The Draft Horse
The Early Bird Dood It
Eatin' On The Cuff
Fine Feathered Friend
Food Will Win The War
The Grain That Built A Hemisphere
Hare-Brained Hypnotist 

Hen Hop (Canada)
Horton Hatches The Egg
How To Play Baseball
How To Swim
Jasper And The Haunted House
Juke Box Jamboree
The Magnetic Telescope
My Favorite Duck
The New Spirit
Out Of The Frying Pan Into The Firing Line
Pluto At The Zoo
Sky Trooper
A Tale Of Two Kitties
Volcano
The Wabbit Who Came To Supper

Weak films of 1942:

Across The Pacific

Bengasi (Italy)
Bowery At Midnight
Footlight Serenade
The Man With Two Lives
Random Harvest
Reap The Wild Wind
Song Of The Islands
Springtime In The Rockies
Take A Letter Darling
Tales Of Manhattan
The Talk Of The Town
Tarzan's New York Adventure
This Gun For Hire
A Walking Nightmare

Weak shorts:

Battle Of Midway
Combat Report
Divide And Conquer

Good Mothers (Denmark)
Henry Browne Farmer
Inside Fighting China
Kokoda Front Line (Australia)
Little Belgium
Marines In The Making
The Price Of Victory
Winning Your Wings

Weak cartoons:

Ace In The Hole
All Together
Aloha Hooey
Andy Panda's Victory Garden
The Arctic Giant
The Army Mascot
Barney Bear's Victory Garden
Bats In The Belfry
The Bear And The Beavers
The Bird Came COD
Boogie Woogie Sioux
The Bowling Alley Cat
Chips Off The Old Block
Color Rythm
Conrad The Sailor
Crazy Cruise
Daffy Duckeroo
Ding Dong Daddy
Dog Tired
Donald Gets Drafted
Donald's Decision
Donald's Garden
Donald's Gold Mine
Donald's Snow Fight
Double Chaser
The Electric Earthquake
The Eleventh Hour
The First Swallow
Foney Fables
Fraidy Cat
Frankenstein's Cat
Fresh Hare
Gopher Goofy
The Hep Cat
Hobby Horse-Laffs
Hold The Lion Please
The Hollywood Matador
Hop Skip And A Chump
How To Fish
The Hungry Wolf
The Impatient Patient
Japoteurs
Jasper And The Watermelons
Lights Fantastic
The Little Gravel Voice
The Loan Stranger
Mickey's Birthday Party
Mouse Of Tomorrow
Mr Strauss Takes A Walk
Nutty News
The Olympic Champ
Pluto Junior 
Porky's Cafe
Porky's Pastry Pirates
Puss n' Toots
Saps In Chaps
Sheepish Wolf
Showdown
Sky Princess
The Sleepwalker
Squawkin' Hawk
Terror On The Midway
The Vanishing Private
The Village Smithy
Wacky Blackout
The Wacky Wabbit
Who's Who In The Zoo
Wild Honey

Top 3 Musicals of 1942

1. "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (Michael Curtiz, Warner)


2. "Babes On Broadway" (Busby Berkeley, MGM)


3. "Orchestra Wives" (Archie Mayo, 20th-Fox)

The 47 Ronin: Part 2 (1942) *****

The second part of the greatest Japanese film of the 1940's. 

Der Grosse Konig (1942) ***

There Was A Father (1942) ***

Similar to "The Only Son" (1936).

The Pied Piper (1942) ***

Tense drama set in France during the Nazi invasion in 1940. An unexpected twist ending.

One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) ***

A British bomber plane is shot down over Nazi-occupied Holland and its crew tries to avoid capture.

Od Tatier po Azovske more (1942) ***

Impressive wartime propaganda film made in Tiso's Slovakia, about Slovak Army fighting on the Eastern Front against the Red Army.

La Cena delle beffe (1942) ***

Kings Row (1942) ***

Moscow Strikes Back (1942) ***

Oscar-winning Soviet propaganda documentary about the Battle of Moscow in 1941. Strong images.

A Walking Nightmare (1942) **

An otherwise routine murder mystery, which greatly benefits from snappy dialogue and a great deal of sexual chemistry (including an off-screen - but not off-soundtrack - spanking).

The Talk Of The Town (1942) **

Schoolteacher Jean Arthur hides accused criminal Cary Grant in Supreme Court-nominee Ronald Coleman's house.

Reap The Wild Wind (1942) **

Giant squids, corral reefs, hurricanes, courtroom antics, Southern belles, slaves and castaways in this over-the-top Cecil B. DeMille's melodrama starring Paulette Goddard as a bargain-basement Scarlett O'Hara, John Wayne as a Rhett Butler's wannabe and Hattie McDaniel reprising exactly the same role as in "Gone With The Wind".

Random Harvest (1942) *

A melodrama about a war veteran loosing his memory not once but twice, forgetting his wife and marrying her all over again.

Bengasi (1942) *

This Gun For Hire (1942) *

Messy crime movie starring Alan Ladd as a hired assassin seeking revenge.

Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942) **

When Boy is kidnapped, Tarzan and Jane travel to New York to rescue him.

Conquer By The Clock (1942) ****

Brilliantly edited documentary about the importance of war production. Directed by Slavko Vorkapich.

Flugten (1942) ****

Excellent Danish short about a criminal trying to escape.

Listen To Britain (1942) ****

Poetic documentary about Britain during the war. Co-directed by Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister for the Crown Film Unit. Length: 19 min.

Mr Blabbermouth (1942) ***

Propaganda short warning of defeatist talk.

It's Everybody's War (1942) ***

Henry Fonda narrates this very moving tribute to the families who lost their sons at Bataan and Corregidor.

Don't Talk (1942) ***

Exciting, Oscar-nominated two-reel short about Nazi saboteurs in America.

Lucky Strike (1942) ***

Wagen Nr 1 kampft sich seinen Weg (1942) ***

Filmavisen 19 januar 1942 (1942) ***

Filmavisen 13 juli 1942 (1942) ***

A Child Went Forth (1942) ***

Theresienstadt 1942 Dreharbeiten (1942) ***

German documentary short about the filming of the first Theresienstadt documentary in 1942 (directed by Irena Dodalova), which is now lost. It is not related to the second, far more famous, Theresienstadt documentary directed by Kurt Gerron, "The Fuhrer Gives The Jews A City" (1945).

Bialy orzel (1942) ***

Short documentary about Poles fighting in England during World War II. Nominated for an Oscar.

Henry Browne Farmer (1942) **

Short documentary about an African-American farmer during World War II.

Winning Your Wings (1942) **

James Stewart encourages young people to become Air Force pilots.

Marines In The Making (1942) **

Short documentary about the training in the Marine Corp.

Kokoda Front Line (1942) **

Australian doc about jungle warfare in New Guinea.

Inside Fighting China (1942) **

Oscar-nominated documentary about the Japanese invasion of China. The same topic would later be presented in a documentary feature "The Battle Of China" (1944), directed by Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak. This short film looks quite unimpressive by comparaison. But it is remarkable for the lack of any racist references to "Japs".

Good Mothers (1942) **

Danish documentary short directed by Carl T. Dreyer.

Combat Report (1942) *

Oscar-nominated, but badly edited documentary about a bomber airplane. It jumps from one topic to another without any logic.

The Palm Beach Story (1942) *****

One of the funniest comedies ever made, a fast-paced screwball farce with excentric millionaires, runaway wives, gun-toting hunters aboard trains and other insane characters. The closest live-action films ever came to match the zany energy of Tex Avery's cartoons. A great masterpiece.

Now Voyager (1942) *****

Betty Davis plays an old spinster, terrorized by her mother, who slowly acquires self-confidence. A classy melodrama, one of the best of its kind.

To Be Or Not To Be (1942) *****

Classic comedy about a troup of Polish actors outwitting the Germans in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. One of the funniest films ever made, though quite controversial at the time of its release.

Bambi (1942) ****

Beautifully animated, visually impressive Disney animated feature about a young fawn growing up in the forest.

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) ****

Orson Welles' second film is a memorable drama set in Indiana in the early 20th century. The original (and sad) ending was replaced by a more uplifting one, over the director's objections.

Orchestra Wives (1942) ***

Great musical about rivalries among wives of jazz musicians. An icon of the Big Band era, starring Glenn Miller and his Orchestra. Sharp dialogues. Superb jazz numbers include:

"People Like You And Me" **
"At Last" ***
"Serenade In Blue" *
"I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo" ***