Best Romance Movies of 1949

When a woman attempts to kill her uncaring husband, prosecutor Adam Bonner gets the case. Unfortunately for him his wife Amanda (who happens to be a lawyer too) decides to defend the woman in court. Amanda uses everything she can to win the case and Adam gets mad about it. As a result, their perfect marriage is disturbed by everyday quarrels.

Three sailors - Gabey, Chip and Ozzie - let loose on a 24-hour pass in New York and the Big Apple will never be the same! Gabey falls head over heels for "Miss Turnstiles of the Month" (he thinks she's a high society deb when she's really a 'cooch dancer at Coney Island); innocent Chip gets highjacked (literally) by a lady cab driver; and Ozzie becomes the object of interest of a gorgeous anthropologist who thinks he's the perfect example of a "prehistoric man". Wonderful music and terrific shots of New York at its best.

An uncompromising, visionary architect struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism despite personal, professional and economic pressures to conform to popular standards.

Lora May Hollingsway, who grew up next to the wrong side of the tracks, married her boss who thinks she is just a gold digger. Rita Phipps makes as much money writing radio scripts at night as her school teacher husband does. Deborah Bishop looked great in a Navy uniform in WWII but fears she'll never be dressed just right for the Country Club set. These three wives are boarding a boat filled with children going on a picnic when a messenger on a bicycle hands them a letter addressed to all three from Addie who has just left town with one of their husbands. They won't know which one until that night.

Louisa May Alcott's autobiographical account of her life with her three sisters in Concord Mass in the 1860s. With their father fighting in the civil war, the sisters: Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth are at home with their mother - a very outspoken women for her time. The story is of how the sisters grow up, find love and find their place in the world.

When strongman Samson rejects the love of the beautiful Philistine woman Delilah, she seeks vengeance that brings horrible consequences they both regret. The classic story of Samson and Delilah as told by Cecil B. DeMille.

In 1831, Irishman Charles Adare travels to Australia to start a new life with the help of his cousin who has just been appointed governor. When he arrives he meets powerful landowner and ex-convict, Sam Flusky, who wants to do a business deal with him. Whilst attending a dinner party at Flusky's house, Charles meets Flusky's wife Henrietta who he had known as a child back in Ireland. Henrietta is an alcoholic and seems to be on the verge of madness.

Josh and Dinah Barkley are a successful musical-comedy team, known for their stormy but passionate relationship. Dinah feels overshadowed by Josh and limited by the lighthearted musical roles he directs her in. So she decides to stretch her skills by taking a role in a serious drama, directed by another man.

A stranded carnival dancer takes on a corrupt political boss when she marries into small-town society.

A woman is torn between the love of her life, who is married to someone else, and her older husband.

In Colorado territory, outlaw Wes McQueen escapes jail to pull a railroad robbery but, upon meeting pretty settler Julie Ann, he wonders about going straight. Western remake of High Sierra with Joel McCrea taking over the Humphrey Bogart role.

Based on the French literary classic, this drama presents author Gustave Flaubert narrating his tale of infidelity and narcissism. After marrying small-town doctor Charles Bovary, Emma becomes tired of her limited social status and begins to have affairs, first with the young Leon Dupuis and later with the wealthy Rodolphe Boulanger. Eventually, however, her self-involved behavior catches up with her.

Warren Quimby manages a drugstore while trying to keep his volatile wife, Claire, happy. However, when Claire leaves him for a liquor store salesman, Warren can no longer bear it. He decides to assume a new identity in order to murder his wife's lover without leaving a trace. Along the way, his plans are complicated by an attractive neighbor, as well as a shocking discovery that opens up a new world of doubts and accusations.

Just before Christmas, department store clerk Steve Mason meets big spending customer Connie Ennis, who's actually a comparison shopper sent by another store. Steve lets her go, which gets him fired. They spend the afternoon together, which doesn't sit well with Connie's steady suitor, Carl, when he finds out, but delights her young son Timmy, who quickly takes to Steve.

Captain Henri Rochard is a French officer assigned to work with Lieut. Catherine Gates. Through a wacky series of misadventures, they fall in love and marry. When the war ends, Capt. Rochard tries to return to America with the other female war brides. Zany gender-confusing antics follow.

It's 1945, Burma, the day the war is over! For many this means they've survived and will be going home. But not for everyone. A Scottish soldier, Corporal Lachlan "Lachie" MacLachlan is the victim of a wound to the lower back on this day. He's moved to a M.A.S.H. unit and undergoes surgery. As time goes by he begins to recover and watches, in dismay as soldiers pack up and head for home. The doctors have told him he needs to remain "for observation".

Star major league pitcher Monty Stratton loses a leg in a hunting accident, but becomes determined to leave the game on his own terms.

At the height of World War II, the Germans begin dropping a new type of booby-trapped bomb on England. Sammy Rice, a highly-skilled but haunted bomb-disposal officer, must overcome his personal demons to defeat this new threat.

A vain businessman puts strains on his happy marriage to a rich, beautiful socialite by allowing himself to be seduced by a former girlfriend.

In this musical remake of The Shop Around the Corner, feuding co-workers in a small music shop do not realize they are secret romantic pen pals.

It was Leonora Eames' childhood dream come true. She had married Smith Ohlrig, a man worth millions. But her innocent dream became a nightmare once she realizes the truth about her husband - he is power mad and insane! Since he will not grant her a divorce, she leaves her life of luxury on Long Island and goes to work as a receptionist in an impoverished doctor's office in NYC's lower east side. After Smith deceives her into a temporary reconciliation, Leonora becomes pregnant. By the time she realizes she is expecting, she and one of the doctors, Larry Quinada (James Mason), have fallen in love. But she is again lured backed to her wealthy husband to give her child financial security. Her sadistic husband is hell-bent on keeping her and her child prisoner. What will happen to Leonora?

After learning the finer points of carrier aviation in the 1920s, career officer Jonathan Scott and his pals spend the next two decades promoting the superiority of naval air power. But military and political "red tape" continually frustrate their efforts, prompting Scott to even consider leaving the Navy for a more lucrative civilian job. Then the world enters a second World War and Scott finally gets the opportunity to prove to Washington the valuable role aircraft carriers could play in winning the conflict. But what will it cost him and his comrades personally?

Army Lieutenant Halliday, accused of stealing the Army payroll, pursues the real thief on a frantic chase through Mexico aided by the thief's ex-girlfriend and is in turn being chased by his accuser, Capt. Blake.

The Wolves baseball team gets steamed when they find they've been inherited by one K.C. Higgins, a suspected "fathead" who intends to take an active interest in running the team. But K.C. turns outs to be a beautiful woman who really knows her baseball. Second baseman Dennis Ryan promptly falls in love. But his playboy roommate Eddie O'Brien has his own notions about how to treat the new lady owner and some unsavory gamblers have their own ideas about how to handle Eddie.

Prototype dumb blonde Irma and her slacker, wheeler-dealer boyfriend Al interfere in the love life of Irma's level-headed room mate Jane.

A waitress at the Warner Brothers commissary is anxious to break into pictures. She thinks her big break may have arrived when actors Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan agree to help her.

An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.

Conceited singer Garry Mitchell refuses to renew his radio contract, so agent Doug Blake decides to find a new personality to replace Garry. In New York, he finds Martha Gibson, a single mother with a great voice. He arranges for her to move to Hollywood, but then has a problem trying to sell her to the show's sponsor. Doug tries every trick he can think of to make Martha a star, and as the two work more closely, he falls in love with her. Complicating matters further is when Martha meets and becomes attracted to Garry.

Scatterbrained Betty Barrett mistakes masseur Jack Spratt for Jose O'Rourke, the captain of the South American polo team. Spratt goes along with the charade, but the situation becomes more complicated when they fall in love. Meanwhile, Betty's sensible older sister Eve fears Betty's heart will be broken when Jose returns to South America. She arranges to meet with the real O'Rourke and love soon blossoms between them as well.

A hypnotist uses his powers for revenge against King Louis XV's court.

Soames and Irene Forsyte have a marriage of convenience. Young Jolyon Forsyte is a black sheep who ran away with the maid after his wife's death. Teenager June Forsyte has found love with an artist, Phillip Bosinny. The interactions between the Forsytes and the people and society around them is the truss for this love story set in the rigid and strict times of the Victorian age.

China Valdes joins the Cuban underground after her brother is killed by the chief of the secret police, Ariete. She meets and falls in love with American expatriate Tony Fenner. Tony develops a plan to tunnel under the city's cemetery to a plot owned by a high official, assassinate him, and blow up the whole Cuban hierarchy at the ensuing state funeral. Together with a band of dedicated revolutionaries, they begin digging.

The story of five brothers who homestead, with other settlers, on the virgin plateaus of the Australian bush country.

Elderly crook Harry Denton, when challenged to prove he is "not past it," decides to kidnap Sheila Farlane, the 16 year old daughter of a famous actor. When Harry loses his nerve, Sheila won't let him give up.

Set on the beautiful Isle of Capri, a neglected long-suffering wife of workaholic, Brian, and by his neglect he has thrown her into the arms of Michael Barcleigh. Brian falls ill and Cathy breaks off her relationship with Michael to stay at his side. In hopes of avoiding a scene, Cathy passes Michael along to her stepdaughter, Monica.

"The Spider and the Fly is set in Paris during the cloud-cuckoo days before WW I. The storyline intertwines the destinies of three people. Guy Rolfe plays Phillipe de Ledocq, a resourceful safecracker who always manages to elude arrest. Eric Portman is cast as police-chief Maubert, who will not rest until Ledocq is behind bars. And Nadia Gray is Madeleine, the woman beloved by both Ledocq and Maubert. Just as Maubert has managed to capture his man, Ledocq is released at the behest of the government, who wants him to steal secrets from the German embassy revealing the whereabouts of the Kaiser's secret agents. And just how does Madeleine figure into all of this? Spider and the Fly is a diverting precursor to the 1960s TV series It Takes a Thief." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A film director, in bad standing with his studio, tries to turn a local carnival dancer into a "French" movie star and pass her off as his big new discovery

The father of a girl in an orphanage, who doesn't remember him, has been writing to her with tales of his success in business. Actually, he is impersonating a friend, a handsome gambler. When the father dies, the gambler takes the girl from the orphanage and tells her the truth. But the girl is now a full-grown beauty and complications arise, including those provided by a black-sheep brother.

David Shields refuses to go into agriculture and opts instead for ship building

In the Victorian period, two British children survive a shipwreck in the South Pacific. After days afloat, they are marooned on a lush tropical island in the company of kindly old sailor. Together they survive solely on their resourcefulness and the bounty of their remote paradise.

Dr. Michael Corday, a recent graduate of the Harvard Medical School, is the son of Dr. John Corday, an eminent New York City surgeon who has a tendency to continue to direct the lives of his grown children. The daughter, Fabienne, runs away from home, and Michael, after first following his father's advice of being callous to the point of cruelty toward patients, changes when he falls in love with a patient, marries her and sets up his practice on the lower East Side in New York.

A Russian ballerina in Vienna tries to flee KGB agents and defect.

About to marry Jim Plummer, Kate Foley runs off to Nevada when Ed Bagley convinces her a quick fortune can be made robbing gold shipments that are being transported by the railroad. In Bannock City she meets reformed-bandit Frank Plummer, posing as Frank Norris, brother of Jim Plummer, who has being going straight and working as an express shipment guard. Jim also shows up and plans a robbery by stealing a train and hiding it in an abandoned tunnel. The two brothers are on opposite sides of the law with the now-reformed Kate caught in the middle.

A prim psychology professor fights to hide a murder she committed in self-defense.

Paula Consodine comes to Los Angeles in search of her missing sister. Newspaperman Mark Sitko, investigating on Paula's behalf, discovers that the sister is dead, a supposed suicide. The whole thing seems a bit fishy to Sitko, and indeed it is: the girl's death was engineered by a black-market adoption racket, headed by one DeCola.

A modern-day retelling of Arnold Bennett's novel, in which a Treasury official with a reputation for fiscal prudence is left a great deal of money and has no idea how to cope with sudden personal wealth.

Saloon-bar singer Freddie gets very angry whenever boyfriend Blackie seems to be playing around. She always packs a six-shooter, so this is bad news for anything that happens to be in the way. As this is usually the local judge's rear-end, Freddie and friend Conchita are soon hiding out teaching school in the middle of nowhere.

The stories of several individuals who consult a marriage bureau, including a peer of the realm, his butler, a lonely school teacher, a French girl on the run from a violent boyfriend, a country vicar, and a newspaper reporter, sent by his editor, to do an undercover story.

Musical biography of Marilyn Miller, who overcame heartache to become a Broadway star