World War II films made during wartime
I'm not including either short films or documentaries.
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- DirectorSam NewfieldStarsRoland DrewSteffi DunaGreta GranstedtHans Memling, a young intellectual, patriotic German, is secretly opposed to the Nazi regime. With the aid of Gustav Schultz, Father Pommer, Anna Wahl and others, he is gleaning accurate information from foreign radio broadcasts and distributing it through Germany with an underground-press operation. He convinces his brother-in-law Karl Bach, the brother of his wife Elsa, that Hitler is leading Germany toward a second world war. Karl, in love with Anna, joins the movement, determined to restore German culture and save the people from the brutality of the Storm Troopers and the Gestapo. The group has an inside link through Albert Stalhelm, a Storm Trooper and one of Hitler's Elite Guards. Albert is sickened by the brutalities he sees and wants to resign and flee Germany, but Hans persuades him to remain until they can find a replacement. He agrees, but warns the group that he is forced to join in the Nazi orgies and liquor loosens his tongue. Elsa is about to have a baby and lives in terror that her husband's activities will be discovered, and she tries to persuade Hans to immigrate to the United States as she does not want their child to grow up as a Nazi. He decides to stay because his duty to his country and civilization can not be put aside, and Elsa refuses to leave without him. Warned by Lustig, a beer-garden bartender, that the Gestapo is watching them, Hans and Erlich, another active anti-Nazi, escape. Lustig is jailed and tortured but can not be made to talk. Hans is later captured and turned over to Albert and two other SS men to be tortured, and Albert does not dare move to save his friend. Sickened by the brutality, Albert tries to go home, but is forced to join a party, where he gets drunk and says he has to go warn his friends. The SS men listen to him reveal the names of the group members, then shoot him. Hans, Lustig, Schultz, Karl and Father Pommer are thrown into a concentration camp, where the commandant is Hans' friend from World War I, Colonel Hess, who orders that Hans be treated decently, but the others do not fare well, as they are beaten, humiliated and forced to praise Hitler. Erlich, who has escaped the dragnet, tells Elsa and Anna that Lippert, a crooked Nazi lawyer, can secure Hans' release for a thousand marks. Hans and the others are sold out as slave labor by the camp guards who only see the oppressed prisoners as a means of personal profit. Hans bitterly tells Hess that Hitler is strangling Germany and that he will never submit to the rule of a lunatic. Hess orders him beaten and refuses to release him when Lippert's order comes through. Through the help of a guard, Braun, Hans escapes and he and Elsa reach the border, but Hans decides he can not leave Germany while the Nazis rule and he returns to help Erlich rebuild the anti-Nazi organization. Elsa stays with him.
- DirectorsAdrian BrunelBrian Desmond HurstMichael PowellStarsMerle OberonRalph RichardsonJune DuprezA look at the current might of the Royal Air Force. Place - Great Britain, time - two months after the start of World War ll.
- DirectorJohn BaxterStarsBasil RadfordSilvia St. ClaireThorley WaltersA British secret service agent and his sister travel to Berlin to recover a top secret RAF invention which was stolen from the French government.
- DirectorGeorge ShermanStarsGene AutrySmiley BurnetteJune StoreyFederal Agent Gene Autry and his sidekick Frog are sent to Mexico to prevent foreign powers from gaining control of Mexican oil refineries and fomenting revolution among the Mexican people. Gene falls in love with Senorita Dolores but finds he must leave for the island of Palermo where her uncle Don Diego, is being prevented from transporting his cattle to market by the foreign agents, who have co-opted Dolores' brother Andreo into joining them. While trying to load cattle by sea into a waiting cargo ship, Gene and his men are attacked by Andreo and his revolutionaries, with fatal results.
- DirectorWalter SummersStarsBruce CabotMarta LabarrTamara DesniTed Healey, a British man, is employed in a factory which makes anti-submarine patrol boats fitted with a secret torpedo device. Healy is in the pay of the German Secret Service and his wife, Freyda, constantly reproaches him for treachery to his country. He promises her as soon as he has made his fortune, he will stop his spy activities. He refuses to turn over the pictures he has taken of the blueprints to Lemnel, head of the German spies, until he has been paid 5000 Pounds. The Germans have a plan to get the pictures and dispose of Healey and he takes a bit of drastic action of his own. He kills a man of his own build, decapitates and mutilates the body and plants papers on the torso to make the Germans and the British Intelligence assume he is dead. But both discover he is still alive and set traps for him. The Brit trap is a beautiful British agent, Maria Dufreyne, who meets Healey and gains his confidence. Gaining his confidence leads to a series of embraces between Maria and Healey, and when the British agents show the pictures to Freyda she is somewhat incensed about her husband's infidelity... and the Germans are also closing in.
- DirectorMitchell LeisenStarsClaudette ColbertRay MillandDennis O'KeefeA dashing pilot and a vivacious reporter have romantic and dramatic adventures in Europe as World War II begins.
- DirectorArthur Maria RabenaltStarsRené DeltgenKirsten HeibergLotte KochSpies Karl and Lilly target the German Kettwig company, trying to secure data about an innovative tearproof wire. Bernd Kettwig is wooed by Lilly while his assistant Inge falls for Karl, and two other employees are coerced into treason.
- DirectorYutaka AbeStarsSusumu FujitaTaizô FukamiKatsuhiko Haida
- DirectorKing VidorStarsClark GableHedy LamarrOscar HomolkaAn American reporter smuggling news out of Soviet Moscow is blackmailed into helping a beautiful Communist leave the country.
- DirectorThomas BentleyStarsJack BuchananGreta GyntFred EmneyThrough a series of unforeseen events, two glamorous young ladies find that they are obliged to spend the night on board the battleship HMS Falcon. Then the Admiral unexpectedly arrives on board and orders the ship to sea.
- DirectorEduard von BorsodyStarsHedwig BleibtreuJoachim BrenneckeHeinz GoedeckeAt the Olympic games in Berlin 1936 Inge Wagner falls in love with Luftwaffenleutnant (Airforce Lieutenant) Herbert Koch. They want to marry, but he receives orders to go to Spain - incognito, without permission for any contacts to his friends and relatives. Inge is still waiting for him. After the beginning of WW II, German radio starts broadcasting the "Wunschkonzert für die Wehrmacht" - a program made of wishes from the soldiers. He hears the song, he wanted to hear, and so does Inge. A friend of Inge, who hopes she is willing to marry him, comes to the same squadron where Koch flies. Koch and Inge arrange a date at a Hamburg restaurant, but he and Ilse's friend are shot down the day before. In the hospital Koch finds out, that he and his friend love the same girl. He thinks they are already engaged and is willing to give her up.
- DirectorPen TennysonStarsClive BrookJohn ClementsEdward ChapmanA tale of the highs and lows of life protecting the vital convoys between America & England during WWII.
- DirectorMarcel VarnelStarsWill FyffeLeslie BanksYvonne ArnaudA crusty sea captain steals an enemy supply ship after his ship is sunk by a U-boat during the opening days of World War II.
- DirectorsWerner BuhreMartin RikliDescribes the sequence of events leading up to the invasion of Norway, especially the Anschluss of Austria, the division of Czechoslovakia after the Munich agreement and finally the invasion of Poland in September, 1939.
- DirectorViktor TourjanskyStarsBrigitte HorneyWilly BirgelReinhold LütjohannNazi propaganda film about a German laborer named Keith who works in a sawmill in Poland near the German border in 1939. When local anti-German sentiment leads to lynchings, lovely Anna hides Keith in her tavern.
- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsJoel McCreaLaraine DayHerbert MarshallOn the eve of World War II, a young American reporter tries to expose enemy agents in London.
- DirectorCharles ChaplinStarsCharles ChaplinPaulette GoddardJack OakieDictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
- DirectorMarcel VarnelStarsGeorge FormbyPhyllis CalvertGarry MarshShortly after the start of World War II, a ukulele player (George) takes the wrong boat and finds himself in (still uninvaded) Norway. He is mistaken for a fellow British intelligence agent by a woman (Mary), and becomes involved in trying to defeat German agents.
- DirectorJohn FordStarsJohn WayneThomas MitchellIan HunterA merchant ship's crew tries to survive the loneliness of the sea and the coming of war.
- DirectorIrving PichelStarsJoan BennettFrancis LedererLloyd NolanAnti-Nazi tract laced with 1938 newsreel footage finds American girl (Bennett) married to a German (Lederer) gradually learning he is a Nazi, trying to get their son to America.
- DirectorFrank BorzageStarsMargaret SullavanJames StewartRobert YoungThe Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. After the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Breitner, a family friend, is caught up in the turmoil.
- DirectorJohn Paddy CarstairsStarsGeorge FormbyDorothy HysonGeorge MerrittA brave wartime copper (policeman) becomes a hero after he thwarts a plot to destroy a battleship. But then the rest of the police get the idea that he is one of the enemy agents.
- DirectorCarol ReedStarsMargaret LockwoodRex HarrisonPaul HenreidAfter Germany invades Czechia, the German and the British intelligence services try to capture Czech scientist Dr. Axel Bomasch (James Harcourt), inventor of a new type of armor-plating.