May 10, 1940
The film was produced during Second Sino-Japanese War, before the Pearl Harbor Attack in 1941. The film mainly concerns the training of newly-recruited pilots and their daily life, then their subsequent fighting experiences in China. Army supported the production, providing all the authentic airplanes, training and actual actions. They even provided the older biplanes disguised as Chinese fighter planes. Obinata plays the trainer-turned-combat-leader, who is passionate and cool at the same time. All his boys love him, of course. The film is not as intense, full of sugar-coated camaraderie, until young pilots are killed in action one by one. Last twenty minutes are fairly grim, as the message of self-sacrifice is heard loud and clear.
May 9, 1940
In 1939, a group of Finnish soldiers defend the border from Russian invaders.
May 5, 1940
Wartime short promoting the evacuation if urban children to rural areas.
May 4, 1940
Made in 1940, this stirringly patriotic film cleverly combined new scenes with genuine newsreel footage. A newsreel journalist is on hand when the Giant German battleship Graf Spee flees into Montevideo Harbour after a punishing encounter with the British warships Exeter and Ajax. As events unfold in a very unexpected way, he is there with his camera to capture the dramatic end to the encounter.
April 25, 1940
April 19, 1940
Mobilization on the brink of the Second World War divides a husband and wife. When lawyer Frans van Loon is called up to join the mine clearance service he doesn't want to worry his wife and keeps it from her. His secretiveness leads her to believe he doesn't love her anymore. She subsequently falls for the charms of an actor. When Frans finds out, a violent quarrel ensues.
April 17, 1940
March 31, 1940
Star-crossed lovers, Robert and Ariana, are caught up in the New Zealand wars of the 1860s. Ariana is claimed by the Maniapoto people as one of their own and, despite Robert's chivalrous defence, is taken by them and must help them prepare for war. Robert likewise must do his patriotic duty and enlists to fight on the other side. He volunteers to ride despatch, thinking it may give him an opportunity to see Ariana again, which it does, but their joy is short-lived; Maniapoto women fight beside their men, and furthermore she is a Rangitira (noble) and will not let her people down. The climax is the siege of Oraku Pa where 300 Maori hold off 2000 troops for three days. The Maniapoto are defeated, but Ariana, although wounded, survives to be reunited with Robert.
March 20, 1940
After the Great War of 1914-1918 Britain was left with one predominant desire--to live in peace. Fifteen years later, however, world-stirring events brought a new threat to democracy and a new spirit became evident at the Ministry of War. The ranks of the Regular Army were expanded by an intensive recruiting campaign. As the war-clouds gathered Britain forsook the traditional system of voluntary recruiting and adopted compulsory service, thus ensuring that if the need arose a vast army could rapidly be set on the march. When war did break out, the Army was ready, and it was able to embark for service overseas with efficiency and confidence.
March 9, 1940
The film shows the seizure of power by the Nazis and Hitler wants a trial, at a time when France has just declared war on Germany (Sept. 3, 1939). Hybrid composition, it alternates originals and reconstructions performed by actors (docudrama). A not-so-subtle condemnation of Hitler, Nazism and Germany by the movie's French film makers, which conveniently makes no mention of how the policies of Great Britain and France created Hitler and allowed him to go as far as he did prior to the beginning of the Second World War.
March 1, 1940
Commissioned by the Ministry of Information and specifically target working class audiences; ‘Now you’re talking’ follows a plant worker, who lets slip vital information about some overnight research on a captured enemy aircraft. This inevitably leads to this most important of secrets falling into the lap of the enemy.
February 23, 1940
Based on the Kenneth Roberts novel of the same name, this film tells the story of two friends who join Rogers' Rangers, as the legendary elite force engages the enemy during the French and Indian War. The film focuses on their famous raid at Fort St. Francis and their marches before and after the battle.
February 16, 1940
A frontier scout, a Boston officer and a Russian girl escape with a map past Confederates.
January 27, 1940
A German spy is dispatched to Britain to search out targets for a planned invasion.
January 27, 1940
Although loudmouthed braggart Jerry Plunkett alienates his comrades and officers, Father Duffy, the regimental chaplain, has faith that he'll prove himself in the end.
January 11, 1940
"Menaces" deals with the months before WW2 in a hotel :t he fear of the impending war never leaves the guests of an hotel in Paris.
January 2, 1940
Set during the Spanish civil war, the story of a commander of a fort Alcazar in Toledo, faithful to general Franco.
January 2, 1940
This is the war and everybody in Germany should beware : the enemy is listening. One family in particular had better be even more careful than the average citizen of the Reich : the Kettwigs. Indeed they own an armament factory and their engineers, technicians, workers and of course themselves belong to a highly sensitive sector. They are under the constant scrutiny of those who want to get hold of the secret weapons devised in the plant, notably of a wire which, when attached to a balloon, may become the most effective anti-aircraft ever. For sure, they should distrust everybody. Isn't Nolte, the waiter, an enemy agent? Should young Bernd Kettwig allow himself to be seduced by this pretty woman ? As for Bernd's secretary, is she right when she lets this handsome man woo her?
January 1, 1940
An Italian movie.
January 1, 1940
The organisation of medical services in Britain during the Second World War.