Film Snail

War

The Spy Has Not Died Yet

The Spy Has Not Died Yet

April 23, 1942

Mashenka

Mashenka

April 10, 1942

Lovely telegraph operator Masha Stepanova is a sanitary nurse. During a training alarm, she meets a taxi driver Alexei (Alyosha) Solovyov. He reads verses to a girl and invites her to the theater. But at the appointed time, Alyosha doesn't come, and Mashenka finds him, helps to recover. Young people fell in love with each other, but Alexei was too frivolous, and brings the girl a lot of sorrows and insults. Because of Alexei’s hobby for another girl, Masha breaks up with him. But she will be able to convey her faithful and true-hearted feeling through years of separation and the hardships of wartime, and when they meet again at the front of the Finnish War, Solovyov realizes what a gift of fate was meeting him with this girl.

A Pilot Returns

A Pilot Returns

April 8, 1942

A young Italian pilot is interned in a British prison camp after his plane is shot down during the war against Greece. He falls in love with a doctor's daughter and manages to escape during a bombardment. He reaches home, wounded, just as news arrives of the Greek surrender.

Our Girls

Our Girls

April 5, 1942

One of the anthology films about Soviet citizens resisting the Nazi invaders during World War II, the feature consists of two stories, one about a teenage woman telephone operator who sacrifices herself, the other about a farm girl tending a sick pig who deals with two paratroopers seeking shelter.

Spy Smasher

Spy Smasher

April 4, 1942

Prior to the United States' involvement in World War II, the masked vigilante Spy Smasher fights Nazi agents operating within the US, led by the treacherous sabotage leader codenamed The Mask.

Balloon Site 568

April 2, 1942

Women from a variety of professions sign up to join a volunteer group looking after barrage balloons. Working through all weathers and all hours, after an eleven-week initial training period, they are committed to their work as well as their leisure-time activities.

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp!

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp!

April 2, 1942

Jackie Gleason and Jack Durant are teamed for the first and only time as Hank and Jed, a pair of dimwitted barbers who are forced into bankruptcy because all their customers have marched off to war. Figuring that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, Hank and Jed try to join the Army themselves, only to be rejected for a variety of reasons (When asked to read the eye-chart, Hank says he can't-not because he can't see, but because he can't read).

A Priceless Head

A Priceless Head

April 1, 1942

One of Boris Barnet's contributions to the "films for the armed forces" series, about the suffering of Poles under Nazi occupation.

The Dawn Express

The Dawn Express

March 27, 1942

A Nazi spy ring is after a chemical formula that increases the power of ordinary gasoline for U.S. Army aviation use. Two U.S. chemical companies are developing the formula, with each working on half for security purposes. The spies get half the formula and know that either of two chemists, Robert Norton or Tom Fielding, knows the rest. They capture Fielding, through a ruse by gang member Linda Pavlo, and threaten the life of his sister Nancy and his mother if he does not give them the formula. To protect his friend Fielding, who does know the formula and is engaged to Nancy, Tom pretends to know the secret and boards the Dawn Express plane with the spy leader and his gang.

The Battle for Oil

March 23, 1942

A Second World War documentary film produced for and by the National Film Board of Canada in 1942 as part of the "Canada Carries On" short documentary series. It uses stock footage, dating back to the First World War, in its theme of showing how dependent modern war vehicles are on having a fuel supply source. In the First World War, Britain's sea power was preserved through the maintenance of a series of coaling stations dotting the Seven Seas. With the change to oil, rather than coal, the necessities for European nations, without home supply, are dependent on the Near-and-Far East where the pipe-lines and oil production have to be defended against attacks by the Axis powers. Canada's role in oil production is also highlighted.

This Was Paris

This Was Paris

March 21, 1942

British agents operate in Paris during the Second World War.

Fleets of Stren'th

Fleets of Stren'th

March 13, 1942

When enemy planes attack the battleship he's serving on, Popeye fights back.

The General, Staff and Soldiers

March 7, 1942

Black Dragons

Black Dragons

March 6, 1942

It is prior to the commencement of World War II, and Japan's fiendish Black Dragon Society is hatching an evil plot with the Nazis. They instruct a brilliant scientist, Dr. Melcher, to travel to Japan on a secret mission. There he operates on six Japanese conspirators, transforming them to resemble six American leaders. The actual leaders are murdered and replaced with their likeness.

The Great King

The Great King

March 2, 1942

King Frederick II (aka "Frederick the Great") of Prussia is engaged in a major battle against the Austrian army at Kunersdorf, and things aren't going well. The Austrians are inflicting major casualties, and his army is beginning to crumble. Defeat seems inevitable when a combination of events gives him hope that he may pull victory from the jaws of defeat after all.

Leningrad in Struggle

Leningrad in Struggle

February 23, 1942

Frustration of the German attempt to capture Leningrad, 1941, the besieging of the city.

Moscow Strikes Back

Moscow Strikes Back

February 23, 1942

Soviet documentary about the defeat of the Nazis near Moscow. Warning - graphic images. Edward G. Robinson narrates the English language version.

Himmelhunde

Himmelhunde

February 20, 1942

To Be or Not to Be

To Be or Not to Be

March 6, 1942

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.

On the Sunny Side

On the Sunny Side

February 13, 1942

Because of the war, a 12-year-old boy from England, Hugh, is sent to live with the Andrews family in Ohio. Don, the Andrews' 11-year-old son, eagerly accepts the English boy, and is happy when his school-friends do the same. But his isn't so happy when things begin to change when his father fore-goes their evening game of Chinese Checkers to play chess with Hugh, and Hugh shows himself to be a formidable scholar, and impresses Don's girlfriend Betty, and becomes more popular with the boys than Don was...and Don is beginning to think that Hugh is too much of a good thing. Don gets downright depressed and decides to run away. Uh, oh, here comes Hugh.