Looking for recommendations from the 30s and 40s

Hi all, I'd like to see more films from the 30s and 40s. I haven't seen a lot so anything that comes to mind would be appreciated, I'm looking for variety. Propaganda, animation (including shorts), b-movies, documentaries, drama, musical, comedy, mystery, short films, art, westerns, sleaze -- all of the above are welcome. For starters here's a list of movies I like from these two decades:

1949: Kind Hearts and Coronets; Late Spring; Orpheus; Stray Dog; The Third Man;
1948: Macbeth; The Red Shoes; Rope; Spring in a Small Town; The Strawberry Roan;
1947: Black Narcissus; The Lady From Shanghai; Miracle on 34th Street;
1946: The Stranger;
1945: I Know Where I’m Going;
1944: The Battle of China; A Canterbury Tale; Double Indemnity; Laura; Meet Me in St. Louis;
1943: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp; The Outlaw; Stormy Weather;
1942: Bambi; Casablanca; Japoteurs; The Magnificent Ambersons; Yankee Doodle Dandy;
1941: Citizen Kane; Dumbo; The Mechanical Monsters; Never Give a Sucker an Even Break; Sullivan's Travels;
1940: The Bank Dick; Fantasia; His Girl Friday; Pinnochio; My Little Chickadee;
1939: Gulliver's Travels; Wizard of Oz; So Does an Automobile; You Can't Cheat an Honest Man;
1937: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves;
1936: The Devil-Doll; Modern Times; My Man Godfrey;
1935: The 39 Steps; Legong: Dance of the Virgins; Man on the Flying Trapeze (Fields); Mad Love; Mark of the Vampire; A Night at the Opera; No! No! A Thousand Times No!!;
1934: A Dream Walking (Popeye); A Story of Floating Weeds; L'atlante; The Old Fashioned Way; Red Hot Mama; Triumph of the Will;
1933: Duck Soup; Flying Down to Rio; Gabriel Over the White House; I'm No Angel; The Old Man of the Mountain; Popeye the Sailor; She Done Him Wrong; Snow-White (Betty Boop); Zero for Conduct;
1932: Betty Boop for President; Freaks; I was born, but...; The Mask of Fu Manchu; Million Dollar Legs; Minnie the Moocher; Movie Crazy; White Zombie;
1931: City Lights; Jean Taris, Swimming Champion; M; Trader Horn;
1930: All Quiet on the Western Front; Feet First; Fiddlesticks; À propos de Nice;

Lines, what about the gangster films of the 30s and 40s like Little Caesar, Angels with Dirty Faces, Scarface, White Heat, Public Enemy, The Roaring Twenties?

The only Preston Sturges movie you mentioned is Sullivan's Travels. Also The Lady Eve and Miracle at Morgan's Creek.

You've seen Alfred Hitchcock's 39 Steps, but not arguably the even better The Lady Vanishes.

No Universal horror movies? Follow those particularly directed by James Whale. Frankenstein, Bride of Ftrankenstein, The Invisible Man, and The Old House. Also his version of the musical Showboat.

No Frank Capra? You live in NJ and you never came across It's a Wonderful Life?
Even better is Mr. Smith Goes to Washingyon.

Have you seen any of these?

Vampyr (1932)
Horse Feathers (1932)
Of Mice and Men (1939)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Sergeant York (1941)

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A Matter of Life and Death (1946)



Brief Encounter (1945)



Camille (1936)



The Thin Man (1934)



Ninotchka (1939)



The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Great Expectations (1946)

Oliver Twist (1948)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

Whisky Galore (1949)

Henry V (1944)

Dead of Night (1945)

Dracula (1931)

Frankenstein (1931)

My thoughts.

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You cannot have it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love can never be a great dancer. Never. (The Red Shoes, 1948)

1930s

Pygmalion
The Baker's Wife
The Young in Heart
Gunga Din
Fury
Come and Get It
Stage Door
Reefer Madness
Love Me Tonight
Gold Diggers of 1933
Jewel Robbery
Captain Blood
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Kameradshaft
Three Penny Opera
Queen Christina
The Black Cat
Mutiny on the Bounty
The Gay Divorcee
Top Hat
Shall We Dance
Swing Time
Things to Come
The Man Who Could Work Miracles
King Kong
Westfront 1918
Lost Horizon
It Happened One Night
The Bitter Tea of General Yen
Lady for a Day
It's Love I'm After
The Front Page
San Francisco
The Hurricane

Adds

Dodge City
Intermezzo
Ecstasy
Alexander Nevsky
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Stella Dallas
Female
Counsellor-at-Law
Dodsworth
These Three
Design for Living
Tovarich
Topaze
Juarez
A Yank at Oxford
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
The Life of Emile Zola
I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
Ruggles of Red Gap
The Informer
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Gone with the Wind


1940s

All the King's Men
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Red River
A Letter to Three Wives
The Heiress
Gun Crazy
12 O'Clock High
Gentleman's Agreement
Crossfire
The Killers
The Lost Weekend
Sitting Pretty
Miss Tatlock's Millions
Life with Father
I Remember Mama
The Farmer's Daughter
The Late George Apley
Cluny Brown
Duel in the Sun
To Be or Not to Be
Heaven Can Wait
The Talk of the Town
Casablanca
The Maltese Falcon
The Devil and Daniel Webster
Song of the South
The Philadelphia Story
How Green was My Valley
State of the Union
Adam's Rib
Major Barbara
Odd Man Out
On the Town
Open City
The Big Sleep
To Have and Have Not


Adds

The Mark of Zorro
The Black Swan
The Westerner
Sergeant York
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Hail the Conquering Hero
Mildred Pierce
To Each His Own
Hold Back the Dawn
Remember the Night
The Song of Bernadette
Nightmare Alley
Detour
T-Men
Portrait of Jennie
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Shadow of a Doubt
Spellbound
Captain from Castile
Yellow Sky
The Ox-Bow Incident
Monsieur Verdoux (Chaplin)
National Velvet
The Yearling


I've been on the phone now forever dealing with Sarah's school. I can't type one handed anymore. I'll add some more later.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

I think nobody mentioned an obvious one, Citizen Kane. Any Hitchcock movie from the 1940s is worth seeing. The very best are Notorious, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Lifeboat, Foreign Correspondent.

Except Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Here are some more for you Lines...although I think some of these have already been posted. I need to leave work and don't have time to go through and edit out. Hope that's ok.

From the 30’s
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
Stage Door (1937)
Captain Blood (1935)
Roberta (1935)
Night Must Fall (1937)
The Young in Heart (1938)
A Slight Case of Murder (1938)
The Mummy (1932)
The Music Box (1932)
Sons of the Desert (1933)
Love Affair (1939)
Midnight (1939)

From the 40’s
Random Harvest (1942) .
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
Fallen Angel (1945)
The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)
Nora Prentiss (1947)
The Palm Beach Story (1942)
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Gaslight (1944)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)
The Little Foxes (1941)
The Uninvited (1944)
Beauty and the Beast (La belle et la bête) (1946)

I have one for you:


Possessed (1931)

It's one of my favorites. Not that I really have seen even half of these recommendations from the other people, including the OP!

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"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

Seconded.

1939-Gone With The Wind

Here's some I like from the thirties that you might not have seen yet, I'll get to the forties later. And yes, I like Renoir.

L'Age d'Or (1930) (heh heh heh)
The Blue Angel (1930)
Earth (1930)
Morocco (1930)
La Chienne (1931)
A Nous la Liberte (1931)
Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932)
Night at the Crossroads (1932)
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Vampyr (1932)
The Invisible Man (1933)
King Kong (1933)
Outskirts (1933)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
It Happened One Night (1934)
It's a Gift (1934)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
The Thin Man (1934)
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The Informer (1935)
Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936)
A Day in the Country (1936)
The Lower Depths (1936)
The Story of a Cheat (1936)
Grand Illusion (1937)
Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937)
Pepe le Moko (1937)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Port of Shadows (1938)
Le Jour se Leve (1939)
Ninotchka (1939)
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
The Rules of the Game (1939)
Stagecoach (1939)

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

I don't think anyone mentioned these yet...


I Am a Fugitive from A Chain Gang (1932)
Jezebel (1938)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
Madame Curie (1943)
The Three Musketeers (1948)
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Looks like you're going to be a busy boy Lines.
Everyone has some great picks.

Here's a few more for you...of course, if a few have already been mentioned I guess that means it's a two thumbs up.

From the 30’s....
The Good Fairy (1935)
Vivacious Lady (1938)...kind of a "B" movie, but still alot of fun.
5th Ave Girl (1939)...also a "B" movie, but still fun.
Bachelor Mother (1939)

From the 40’s....
Pride and Prejudice (1940)
They Drive by Night (1940)
When Ladies Meet (1941)
Ziegfeld Girl (1941)
Larceny, Inc. (1942)
For Me and My Gal (1942)
The Hard Way (1943)
A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
The Heiress (1949)....this will be on TCM tonight if you're interested.

The Passionate Plumber (1932)
What - No Beer? (1933)
Professor Beware (1938)
Nice comedies with bright comic stars.

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Aoi sora wa haiiro ni tsutsumare! Haiii!!!

thanks a lot to everyone for the recommendations, everyone. there's so much on here that i don't know when i'll get to it all but this will be my go-to list for quite a while, so please feel free to continue adding. thanks again for the great recommendations.

Just a few more additions if you like Classic Disney films.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Pinocchio
Dumbo
Bambi
Fantasia

also in the musical category:

Meet Me In St. Louis
On The Town