376 Films & TV Shows Set In North America During The 1940s
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The House Without a Christmas Tree
Nebraska The 1940sA young girl named Addie, living in Nebraska in 1946 wants nothing more for the holidays than a Christmas tree, but her widowed father, is bitter and refuses due to events from the family's past.
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A Separate Peace
New Hampshire The 1940sGene and Finny are two boys who are best friends living in 1943, at the height of World War II. The idea that the boys will most likely be drafted when they turn eighteen is surrounding them, and they are practically forced to live their lives to the fullest. The two boys attend the Devon School, which prepares them for military life that they will most likely be subjected to. The film begins with a narration by an older Gene, traveling back to Devon some years later. The thing he wishes most to see is the tree, which had a great effect on the boys' lives
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Wedding in White
Ontario The 1940sA young girl's brother comes home from the army, and brings an army buddy with him. The three of them go out that night to celebrate, and after much drinking has been done, the brother's friend rapes the sister. After the two men have gone back, the girl finds that she's pregnant--and discovers that her parents don't blame the soldier, but blame her.
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Goodnight, My Love
California The 1940sThe time: 1946. The men: Hogan and Doyle, private eyes. Their client: A luscious blonde with a figure that would knock you out and some friends who would knock you dead. — Gruff gumshoe Francis Hogan is hired by a mysterious woman to find her boyfriend who has gone missing. With his perpetually hungry partner in tow, Hogan must untangle a web of intrigue involving the criminal underworld and a dead courier. One double-cross follows another as Hogan investigates the whole sordid affair.
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Carnal Knowledge
New York Massachusetts The 1970s The 1960s The 1950s The 1940sIts time has come. — The concurrent sexual lives of best friends Jonathan and Sandy are presented, those lives which are affected by the sexual mores of the time and their own temperament, especially in relation to the respective women who end up in their lives.
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Summer of '42
Massachusetts The 1940sIn everyone's life there's a "Summer of '42" — Over the summer of 1942 on Nantucket Island, three friends -- Hermie, Oscy and Benjie -- are more concerned with getting laid than anything else. Hermie falls in love with the married Dorothy, whose husband is an army pilot recently sent to the battlefront of World War II.
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Mon oncle Antoine
Quebec The 1940sSet in cold rural Quebec at Christmas time, we follow the coming of age of a young boy and the life of his family which owns the town's general store and undertaking business. Mon Oncle Antoine is Director Claude Jutra's masterpiece: A poignant, starkly honest, but humane film, shot through with authenticity from beginning to end. Realized with an unflagging artistic vision, Mon Oncle Antoine poetically portrays a young boy's coming of age, vividly capturing the Quebec mining town in which he lives.
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Tora! Tora! Tora!
Hawaii District of Columbia Tokyo Prefecture The 1930s The 1940sThe incredible attack on Pearl Harbor. — In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words use by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.
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The Devil's Brigade
Montana 🇮🇹 Italy The 1940sWhat they did to each other was nothing compared to what they did to the enemy! — At the onset of World War II, American Lt. Col. Robert Frederick (William Holden) is put in charge of a unit called the 1st Special Service Force, composed of elite Canadian commandos and undisciplined American soldiers. With Maj. Alan Crown (Cliff Robertson) leading the Canadians and Maj. Cliff Bricker (Vince Edwards) the acting head of the American contingent, there is initial tension -- but the team comes together when given a daunting mission that few would dare to attempt.
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Star!
New York England The 1940s The 1910sHappiness is a girl called Julie! — Gertrude Lawrence rises to stage stardom at the cost of happiness.
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The Subject Was Roses
New York The 1940sThe Story of Three Strangers...A Mother...A Father...And a Son. — When Timmy Cleary, comes home from soldiering, he's greeted by the open but strained arms of his two parents, John and Nettie. Once considered sickly and weak, he has now distinguished himself in the service and is ready to begin a new life. His parents, however, are still trapped in the bygone days of early and unresolved marital strife and begin emotionally deteriorating through several drama packed encounters. Now mature, the young Tim Cleary finally understands the family dynamics that has played all throughout his boyhood. By the simple act of bringing his mother roses on behalf of his father, Tim realizes he may have destroyed his family, but is helpless to obtain resolution which must come from both his parents.
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Hurry Sundown
Georgia The 1940sThey are dynamite in love and in anger! — Following the Second World War, a northern cannery combine negotiates for the purchase of a large tract of uncultivated Georgia farmland. The major portion of the land is owned by Julie Ann Warren and has already been optioned by her unscrupulous, draft dodging husband, Henry. Now the combine must also obtain two smaller plots - one owned by Henry's cousin Rad McDowell, a combat veteran with a wife and family; the other by Reeve Scott, a young black man whose mother had been Julie's childhood Mammy. But neither Rad nor Reeve is interested in selling and they form an unprecedented black and white partnership to improve their land. Although infuriated by the turn of events, Henry remains determined to push through the big land deal. And when Reeve's mother Rose dies, Henry tries to persuade his wife to charge Reeve with illegal ownership of his property, confident the the bigoted Judge Purcell will rule against a Negro.
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The Group
New York Massachusetts Ohio Arizona The 1940s The 1930sSidney Lumet's adaptation of the acclaimed Mary McCarthy novel. It's 1933, and eight young women are friends and members of the upper- class group at a private girl's school, about to graduate and start their own lives. The film documents the years between their graduation and the beginning of the World War in Europe, and shows, in a serialized style, their romances and marriages, their searches for careers or meaning in their lives, their highs and their lows.
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In Harm's Way
Hawaii The 1940sStripped of everything - they lived and loved and fought as if there were no tomorrow... — A naval officer reprimanded after Pearl Harbor is later promoted to rear admiral and gets a second chance to prove himself against the Japanese.
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Convicts 4
New York The 1940s The 1930sThey Blow the Big House Apart! — This movie is about the progression of John Resko's (Ben Gazzara) character as he is commuted from the death sentence for killing a man to life in prison. Not only is he transferred to a new facility, but his guard (Stuart Whitman), who believes that man can be rehabilitated, has requested a transfer from death row
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Back Street
Nebraska New York The 1950s The 1940sAmbitious but thwarted, Rae Smith meets handsome Marine Paul Saxon, (of the Saxon department store chain), as he passes through Lincoln, Nebraska, on his way home from World War II. There's a definite spark between them but circumstances intervene and he leaves town without her. Later she learns he's married. Determined to make it as a fashion designer, Rae moves to New York and becomes a great success. One day she happens to meet Paul again and again there's that spark but he's still married so, as a form of escape, Rae moves to Rome to set up shop. Once again she meets Paul and finally they begin an actual affair since Paul's shrewish, drunken wife, Liz, won't give him a divorce. Time passes, the affair continues whenever time and place permit, but then, Paul's young son finds out about Rae and Rae's back-street world begins to crumble.
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Ice Palace
Alaska The 1950s The 1940sWhen a man makes love -- that's when a woman can tell. — Alaska: America's last great wilderness frontier. A land of primitive grandeur, of glaciers, mountains and ice-fields. And of ambitious cannery tycoon Zeb "Czar" Kennedy (Richard Burton) and rugged activist leader Thor Storm (Robert Ryan), two rough-hewn men whose bitter 40-year rivalry mirrored their powerful land's struggle for statehood.
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Hell to Eternity
Hawaii The 1930s The 1940sThe Marines' Battle Cry of the South Pacific! — Based on the story about Guy Gabaldon, a Los Angeles Hispanic boy raised in the 1930s by a Japanese-American foster family. After Pearl Harbor, his foster family is interned at the Manzanar camp for Japanese Americans, while he enlists in the Marines, where his ability to speak Japanese becomes a vital asset. During the Battle of Saipan, he convinces 800 Japanese to surrender after their general commits suicide.
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I Aim at the Stars
New Mexico 🇩🇪 Germany The 1940s The 1950s The 1930s The 1920sFROM THE EARTH TO THE STARS...this is the story of Wernher von Braun...the man who thrust the world into the Space Age. — The life story of the famed rocket scientist Dr. Werner von Braun, one of the most brilliant and controversial figures of the space age. Dr. von Braun literally pioneered man's adventure into space through his rocket experiments; his was the brain behind the V-2 rockets which blasted London in World War II; his was also the brain which led America into the development and the launching of space satellites.
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The Five Pennies
New York The 1940s The 1930s The 1920sDixieland cornetist Red Nichols runs into opposition to his sound, but breaks through to success. He marries a warm, patient woman and even finds time to raise a family. Then tragedy strikes when their daughter contracts polio.
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Imitation of Life
New York The 1950s The 1940sFannie Hurst's best selling novel of today's tormented generation! — Lora Meredith, a white widow who dreams of being on Broadway, has a chance encounter with Annie Johnson, a black single mother. Annie becomes the caretaker of Lora's daughter, Susie, while Lora pursues her stage career. Both women deal with the difficulties of motherhood: Lora's thirst for fame threatens her relationship with Susie, while Annie's light-skinned daughter, Sarah Jane, struggles with her African-American identity.
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The FBI Story
Illinois Louisiana The 1940s The 1930s The 1920sYou are crouched in a basement stairway opposite a theatre in Chicago. Keep your eyes on that FBI man across the street. He has set the trap for deadly public enemy, John Dillinger... — A dedicated FBI agent recalls the agency's battles against the Klan, organized crime and Communist spies.
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That Kind of Woman
New York Florida The 1940sA young GI (Tab Hunter) falls in love with a kept woman (Sophia Loren) on a train to New York.
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Auntie Mame
Connecticut The 1940s The 1930s The 1920sTops the Best-Seller! Tops the Play! The One and Only! — Ten-year-old orphan Patrick Dennis has come to live with his marvelously madcap Auntie Mame, who lives life to the hilt. "Life is a banquet," Mame says, "and most poor suckers are starving to death!"
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Some Came Running
Indiana The 1940sEveryone knew Dave was back in town ... and woman-trouble must be close behind ! — Hard-drinking novelist Dave Hirsh returns home after being gone for years. His brother wants Dave to settle down, and introduces him to English teacher Gwen French. Moody Dave resents his brother, and spends his days hanging out with Bama Dillert, a professional gambler who parties late into the night. Torn between the admiring Gwen and Ginny Morehead, an easy woman who loves him, Dave grows increasingly angry.
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