Year

Country

Home

People

Films

Articles

Store

The History of American Cinema: 1943

July - December

14/7 -

Sam Wood’s adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls is released.   The film stars Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman who, fresh from her role in Casablanca, replaced first-choice Vera Zorina at Hemingway’s insistence. [ADD]

29/7 -

This is the Army, Michael Curtiz’s screen adaptation of Irving Berlin’s Broadway musical, is released.   George Murphy, Joan Leslie and George Tobias star. [ADD]

11/8 -

Heaven Can Wait, Ernst Lubitsch’s only completed film in Technicolor, is released.   It stars Don Ameche, Gene Tierney and Charles Coburn. [ADD]

22/8 -

The Hollywood studios dub their recent films into French and Italian with the intention of releasing them in Europe after the war. [ADD]

27/8 -

Bette Davis, Paul Lukas, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Beulah Bondi and George Coulouris star in Herbert Shumlin’s adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s stage play, Watch on the Rhine. [ADD]

27/8 -

After deciding against turning it into a comedy vehicle for Abbott & Costello, Universal release Arthur Lubin’s Phantom of the Opera as a straightforward horror.   Claude Rains plays Erik Claudin, the disfigured phantom, while Susanna Foster is the object of his obsession and Nelson Eddy her beau. [ADD]

7/9 -

After having been ‘engaged’ to Victor Mature, Gilbert Roland, Howard Hughes, Tony Martin and David Niven, Rita Hayworth marries Boy Wonder director Orson Welles in Santa Monica.   Newspapers name the union ‘The Marriage of Beauty and the Brain.” [ADD]

19/9 -

Chuck Jones’ stylized animation The Dover Boys at Pimento University is released by Warner Bros. [ADD]

30/9 -

Clark Gable is awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal as a lieutenant in the Air Corps [ADD]

1/10 -

Warner Bros release Thank Your Lucky Stars, directed by David Butler, a star-studded morale-boosting extravaganza which features appearances by Humphrey Bogart, Eddie Cantor, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, Ida Lupino and Olivia De Havilland. [ADD]

7/10 -

MGM release Lassie Come Home, directed by Fred M. Wilcox.   Elisabeth Taylor and Roddy McDowall are the child stars ably supported by adults Donald Crisp, Dame May Whitty, Edmund Gwenn, Nigel Bruce and Elsa Lanchester.   Lassie is played by a one-year-old male collie named Pal. [ADD]

4/11 -

Goldwyn release The North Star, directed by Lewis Milestone from a script by Lillian Hellman.   The story of the fight of a small Russian village against the might of the Nazi machine, the film stars Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan, Ann Harding, Jane Withers, Farley Granger and Erich von Stroheim. [ADD]

15/12 -

MGM release Madame Curie, in which Mrs Miniver co-stars Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon are re-united.   Mervyn LeRoy directs after Albert Lewin is fired a few days into shooting. [ADD]

24/12 -

A pregnant Alice Faye stars in Busby Berkeley’s The Gang’s All Here opposite, Carmen Miranda, Benny Goodman, Charlotte Greenwood and Edward Everett Horton. [ADD]

25/12 -

Henry King’s The Song of Bernadette, in which Jennifer Jones as Bernadette has a vision that profoundly changes her life and the lives of those around her, is released.   Based on Franz Werfel’s book, the film also features Charles Bickford, Vincent Price, Lee J. Cobb and Gladys Cooper. [ADD]

– Brothers John and James Whitney produce the first of their experimental animation films. [ADD]

– Frances Williams becomes the first black woman to attend film school. [ADD]

– America now has a total of 60 drive-in cinemas. [ADD]

– The top Hollywood producers, directors and actors increasingly set up independent production companies to make films to ensure capital gains tax of 25% rather than personal income tax which can be in the 80% - 90% bracket. [ADD]

– Smaller cinemas, facing a shortage of new material because of long-runs and holdovers at the first-run cinemas, ask major studios to re-issue older films.   Many of these prove highly successful, resulting in an unexpected windfall for the studios. [ADD]

Top Ten US Box-office Movie Stars

1.      Betty Grable

2.      Bob Hope

3.      Abbott & Costello

4.      Bing Crosby

5.      Gary Cooper

6.      Greer Garson

7.      Humphrey Bogart

8.      James Cagney

9.      Mickey Rooney

10.    Clark Gable

Source: Quigley Poll

Other Key American Films of 1943

Red Hot Riding Hood (Tex Avery) [ADD]

Report from the Aleutians (John Huston) [ADD]

Why We Fight (series) (Frank Capra) [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1943