Push, don't pull.

The 40's was a decade with three very distinct periods: Pre-WWII, WWII and
Post-WWII.  Let's try for a 30's look, a 30's drugstore processing look as I
take it you aren't looking for Weston, Lange or Hurell [or Capa].

I would try for featureless gray shadows and fogged featureless highlights.
This example was done in Photoshop and is the look I am talking about:

The scene:
http://www.nolindan.com/UsenetStuff/OLMcCoyOrig.jpg

The 30's drugstore print:
http://www.nolindan.com/UsenetStuff/OLMcCoyOld.jpg

You get it with:

 o Underexposed and overdeveloped negatives;
 o Normal contrast paper that is overexposed and
   under developed;
 o Slow film with no grain.

You _push_ the film.

That's backwards from the advice you have so far received.
Here's the logic:

Pictures were taken with box brownies fixed at F11
or so and at 1/50th of a second -- "sunny-16" with a safety margin.

As a result the camera only takes properly exposed pictures on sunny days;
between the hours of 10am and 4pm [summer time]; and with the sun over the
photographer's shoulder.  Kodak tells people this with every roll of film
and every camera sold.

But many pictures are taken on cloudy days, in the
shade, at sunset...  Under these conditions most negatives on a roll are
severely underexposed.

Drugstore processing in the 30's was just that: there was a darkroom in the
back of the drugstore and the druggist or clerk developed pictures in the
evening.

The druggist needs to keep the customer happy and turn a profit.  He has to
work quickly and always produce an acceptable (not good, just acceptable)
print with normal facial tones.

And so:

1) Development by inspection: the whole roll is developed for as long as it
takes so that just about every negative on the roll has black highlights
showing through the back of the film - even on the most underexposed shots.
Since there isn't any exposure control in the camera the varying light
conditions are accommodated by varying the film development time. And paper
developer is often used for film to give pictures that extra -oomph-.

In short, most of the negatives are _pushed_, the rest are just way
overdeveloped.

2) Contact printing:  Enlargers are expensive in the 30's and take time to
operate - enlargements' cost extra. But negatives are large, ~3x5" is a
common negative size so contact prints are good enough.  In any case, there
is no grain in the prints.  Drugstore processing is the reason all those
fancy oak contact printing boxes with 3x5" platens show up on ebay.

3) Overexposed paper: The negatives aren't looked at before they are printed
so all prints are made at the same exposure. The printing time is such that
the facial tones in both pushed and overdeveloped negatives are somewhere on
the paper's response curve.  As a result the paper is overexposed for most
negatives - the overexposed sunny-16 negatives take a lot of light to print
through the faces and some highlight detail.

4) Prints not fully developed:  Since the negatives aren't looked at the
different negative densities are accommodated by developing the prints by
inspection.  To avoid massive deep shadows and high-contrast clown faces on
the pushed negatives the prints are pulled before development is complete.
The prints are thrown in the stop when the deepest tone is a dark gray.
Because the print is overexposed the highlights on most negatives printed
through and appear gray.

My advice: Use a slow film, push it, overexpose the print and yank it from
the developer tray before it is done.

A bit of lens flare helps, I put some in with Photoshop.  Because they are
contact prints old pictures are often quite sharp and a soft-focus filter
won't give the same effect.  I would sprinkle cornstarch on a filter.  Or
you could always get an old box-brownie and cut down some sheet film for a
shot-at-a-time camera.

If you are at all scientific, you will not like that book. I know the zone
system quite well, having studied Ansel Adams' Basic Photo Series books,
both the early edition, and the "new" revised edition. But Minor White's
book is just about incomprehensible. The later one, by White, Zakia, and
Todd is even worse because it seems more scientific. I wonder if Zakia even
read it; he is known as a good photo scientist and sensitometrist, but the
book is very sloppy technically.

Minor White was a great photographer; perhaps he was a good teacher, but he
was way too much of a mystic to teach the technique of photography.

Well, if you really want an imposing textbook, consider "The Theory of the
Photographic Process" third edition, edited by T.H.James. Out of print, but
well worth looking for.

They are very different. It's just a bit of bad judgment that Kodak
named them both Tri-X. Look at the stock number. Professional is
entirely different.

Several very helpful people wrote:

Thanks, everyone, for all your help with this!  Which film am I using?
It's 35 mm, 36 exposure, the box says "Kodak Professional Tri-X 400
Film, 400TX Black & White Negative Film" and "ISO   400."  Catalog
number is 866 7073.  No "Pan" or "Panchromatic" anywhere.  The inside of
the box that each roll comes in has recommended development times for
Kodak developers.  (I remember years ago when Tri-X came with a sheet
giving exposures, flash guide numbers, developing details, and more.  I
still have one of those sheets, dated 6-76.)

Adam

     Tri-X 400 and Tri-X Professional 320 are completely
different emulsions with different tone rendition. The
ISO-400 film is a general purpose, medium toe, film. The
ISO-320 version is a very long toe film intended for
obtaining brilliant highlights in commercial work. It is
useful for some types of portraits. The difference is not
large but quite noticeable if a direct comparison is done.
    At one time Kodak made a number of films with the long
toe type characteristic, for instance, many of its portrait
films had this sort of curve.

Mr Erlick (whose knowledge of photography, IMHO, ranks right up with Mr
Richard K.!) forgot to mention that his high tech record keeping device
requires no battery or AC adapter. Also, the "Mark I" version of his device,
which has no button and the point is always exposed will work upside down or
in zero gravity. The "Mark I" version does require an accessory honing
device, which may require a power source; manual honing devices are
available.