Bringing Up Baby (1938). Light, funny, wholesome. No real bad guys.
The Thin Man (1934). Maybe less wholesome, what with the drinking and murder, but it does portray a loving married (somewhat unconventional) couple.
Oh—Cape Fear. The original with Robert Mitchum as the bad guy.
Mitchum as a bad guy? The Night of the Hunter.
Rats, didn’t see this soon enough. Casablanca is very good, but by no means the best ever. I could understand how you feel if you an were adult in 1942, but if not, you must not have seen a lot of great movies. This wasn’t even Bogie’s best movie.
You can’t get more wholesome than:
Reefer Madness
Night of the Demon
and
Freaks
“Monkey Business” - one of the “screwball” comedies, with Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, and Marilyn Monroe.
Dinner At Eight - 1933 - and don’t let that scare you, this is a very entertaining film and wonderful to look at for decor and the clothes! It’s the stories of several people the day before they attend a society dinner party, and the depression-era stories are hilarious, melancholy, and downright tragic. The big stars are John Barrymore as an alcoholic actor waaay down on his luck and Jean Harlow, who is just astonishing to watch. I always forget this one when I’m asked about my favorite movies. Please please watch this one!
Similar is Grand Hotel, with Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford, and other fine actors of the 30’s. Any movie with Garbo, especially Anna Karenina.
Waterloo Bridge - a classic wartime weepie starring Vivien Leigh as a ballerina who loses her job and is forced to survive as a prostitute.
The Red Shoes - THE classic about ballet. The sets, the costumes, the colors, the story - it’s a rather strange, and strange looking film that you won’t soon forget.
The Best Years of Our Lives - ex-servicemen trying to adjust to home life after WWII.
Picnic - starring William Holden as a hunky guy blowing into town and romancing Kim Novak. Almost as good as Sunset Boulevard.
Some Came Running - Frank Sinatra, another ex-serviceman after the war, with Dean Martin as his best friend and Shirley McLaine playing a dumb but good-hearted floozie in love with Frank.
The Bad and the Beautiful - Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner in one of two (or is it three) stories about the Movie Biz.
Two Weeks In Another Town - Kirk Douglas again as a director making a film in Rome, another one about the Movie Biz.
I have tons more suggestions, but there are some excellent choices above mine.
Beauty And The Beast - 1946 (also known as La Belle Et La Bete) - subtitled, made in France by Jacques Cocteau). SO beautiful, it is just magical.
National Velvet - the grandaddy of horse-racing movies featuring a young Elizabeth Taylor. In Technicolor to boot. I loved it when I was a kid.
I wasn’t even born in 1942 but I agree with Jimbo. Casablanca is also my all time favorite movie.
Obviously this is a matter of personal taste. But Casablanca is hardly some bizarre outlier as a favorite film choice.
I know, but I was hoping to get him to offer the fist fight again.
'57 gave us Witness For The Prosecution.
Tons of good suggestions (but always appreciate more).
“Wholesome” may not have been the best adjective for what I’m looking for. By today’s standards, anything 1950s or earlier would surely fit.
In an effort to further clarify:
I am looking for older films that were set in the then-present. Thus, Shakespeare adaptations and such are out.
Westerns are probably out for the most part as well. (Shane might do, though)
Not looking for anything animated, either.
Noir might work. I think I’ll show her Double Indemnity next and see how it flies.
Also not looking for anything Hitchcockian (although Rear Window is a possibility, now that I think of it).
I am definitely adding the following to the list: Desk Set, My Man Godfrey, The Best Years of Our Lives, His Girl Friday, It Happened One Night, Casablanca, Some Like It Hot, Bringing Up Baby, Anatomy of a Murder, and Roman Holiday.
Thanks again,
mmm
Alright, that’s it. Three rounds of bare-knuckles boxing down by the bike racks in fifteen minutes!
As for other Bogie movies, I’ve seen a few, but by no means all of them. Among the better known ones, The Maltese Falcon left me cold and I found The African Queen to be just okay for me.
Spencer’s Mountain - Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hare raise an outdoorsy, blue collar family in early 60s Wyoming and instill in their kids the best of conservative values of the period. It’s almost an updated How Green Was My Valley.
As a WWII baby I was too young to appreciate the 40’s except in reruns and my 50’s view is through the eyes of a teenager. So my basic view of the period is:
- B Westerns
- Film Noir
- John Wayne
- Robert Mitchum
- Alan Ladd
- Brando
- James Dean
- pinup women
- “The Classics” (most have been mentioned above)
- cheesy and silly comedies
- gaudy musicals
- soap opera feature films
- Hitchcock’s best stuff
- teen rowdies and hot rods
- silly sci-fi dumbth
All that being said, I regard the 50’s as the high point in American cinema.
Try Stagecoach! (The 1939 version.)
All the above are excellent recommendations; but one of my favorites is The Quiet Man, with the Duke actually acting, for a change, and Maureen O’Hara at her most beautiful. 
One I haven’t seen mentioned yet is Sullivan’s Travels. It’s a satirical comedy on moviemaking and fame in that era. Preston Sturges also wrote The Lady Eve(not related to the Bette Davis one) which is more of a farce. I think if she liked The Apartment those might appeal to her.