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Given the omnipresence of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1940, the second film version of Robert E. Sherwood’s Waterloo Bridge would have to be laundered and softened to pass muster. In the original, made in 1931, the heroine is nothing more or less than a streetwalker, patrolling London’s Waterloo Bridge during World War I in hopes of picking up the occasional soldier. She falls in love with one of her clients, a young officer from an aristocratic family. Gently informed by the young man’s mother that any marriage would be absolutely impossible, the streetwalker tearfully agrees, letting her beau down gently before ending her own life by walking directly into the path of an enemy bomb. In the remake, told in flashback as a means of “distancing” the audience from what few unsavory story elements were left, the heroine, Vivien Leigh, starts out as a virginal ballerina. Robert Taylor, a British officer from a wealthy family, falls in love with Vivien and brings her home to his folks. This time around, Taylor’s uncle (C. Aubrey Smith), impressed by Vivien’s sincerity, reluctantly agrees to the upcoming marriage. When Taylor marches off to war, Vivien abandons an important dance recital to bid her fiance goodbye, losing her job as a result. Later, she is led to believe that Taylor has been killed in battle. Thus impoverished and aggrieved, she is given a motivation for turning to prostitution, a plot element deemed unecessary in the original-which indeed it was. Now the stage is set for her final sacrifice, though the suicidal elements are carefully weeded out. Waterloo Bridge was remade for a second time in 1956 as Gaby, with Leslie Caron and John Kerr.

Long before 19th-century novelist Jane Austen became a hot property in Hollywood, MGM produced this opulent and entertaining adaptation of one of Austen’s best-known novels. The elegant and slyly satirical comedy of manners gets under way when socially conscious Mrs. Bennet (Mary Boland), with the begrudging assistance of her husband (Edmund Gwenn), begins seeking out suitable (and suitably wealthy) husbands for her five daughters: Elizabeth (Greer Garson), Jane (Maureen O’Sullivan), Lydia (Ann Rutherford), Kitty (Heather Angel), and Mary (Marsha Hunt). One of the least likely matrimonial prospects is Mr. Darcy (Laurence Olivier), a rich, handsome, but cynical and boorish young man. Naturally, Elizabeth Bennet, the strongest-willed of the Bennet girls, is immediately fascinated by him, and she sets out to land him — but only on her own terms, and only after she has exacted a bit of genteel revenge for his calculated indifference to her. Though Austen’s novel was set in 1813, the year of its publication, the film version takes place in 1835, reportedly so as to take advantage of the more attractive costume designs of that period. Not surprisingly, a few changes had to be made to mollify the Hollywood censors (eager to find offense in the most innocent of material): the most notable is the character of Mr. Collins (Melville Cooper), transformed from the book’s hypocritical clergyman to the film’s standard-issue opportunist.

When the gentle woodcarver Geppetto (Christian Rub) builds a marionette to be his substitute son, a benevolent fairy brings the toy to life. The puppet, named Pinocchio (Dick Jones), is not yet a human boy. He must earn the right to be real by proving that he is brave, truthful, and unselfish. But, even with the help of Jiminy (Cliff Edwards), a cricket who the fairy assigns to be Pinocchio’s conscience, the marionette goes astray. He joins a puppet show instead of going to school, he lies instead of telling the truth, and he travels to Pleasure Island instead of going straight home. Yet, when Pinocchio discovers that a whale has swallowed Geppetto, the puppet single-mindedly journeys into the ocean and selflessly risks his life to save his father, thereby displaying that he deserves to be a real boy. Based on a series of stories by 19th century Italian author Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio came under fire for being a sugarcoated version of its original tale, but the film’s moral did have a strong educational effect on children. Soon enough, a 16 mm excerpt from the picture, titled “Pinocchio: A Lesson in Honesty,” was released for teachers to use in schools.