Friends Hermie (an aspiring artist), Oscy (a jock), and Benjy (a nerd) graduate from high school in the spring of 1944, under the looming threat of World War II. At a post-graduation party, Hermie and Oscy are startled when Benjy tells them that he's enlisted in the Marines. While Hermie and Oscy spend their summer vacation working at a loading dock, Benjy goes to Boot Camp. By the end of summer, Hermie and Oscy see Benjy off on his way to fight in the Pacific Theater.

At their fathers' behest, Oscy and Hermie go to college. Much of the film consists of slice of life vignettes depicting college life during wartime, with the effect of the war on the home front as a constant recurring theme.

While Hermie is serious about his studies, Oscy primarily sees college as an opportunity to pick up women. On the campus newspaper staff, Hermie meets and falls in love with Julie, a well-to-do student. At Julie's suggestion, Hermie and Oscy join a fraternity and manage to successfully pass through the mandatory hazing rituals. Shortly after moving into the frat house, however, Oscy is expelled for bringing a prostitute into his room and Hermie is forced to deal with an inconsiderate roommate. Oscy, soon after leaving and seeing no alternative, decides to enlist in the Army.

Hermie and Julie have a falling out after Julie tells him she intends to go out on a non-romantic date with an old boyfriend coming into town on shore leave. Hermie expresses his distrust of Julie and they break up. Back at the frat house, Hermie receives a phone call from his mother that his father has died unexpectedly. Returning home for the funeral, he's reunited with Oscy, who has passed basic training and is now a clerk typist on Governor's Island. Oscy then takes Hermie out for a night of drinking in his father's memory, culminating in a bar room brawl. Back at Hermie's house, a drunk Hermie voices his inability to accept his father's death before passing out. Oscy stays up through the night, watching over Hermie.

Hermie returns to college and is about to call for a cab at the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad train station when Julie arrives in her car. She tells him that Hermie's mother told her about his father's death, and that she's come to reconcile with him. Julie further tells Hermie that she's learned that he has passed his final exams for the semester and has successfully completed his freshman year. Hermie and Julie reconcile and climb into the back seat of Julie's car as the film ends.

The subway scenes in 'Class of '44' were filmed on location in Brooklyn, New York. A vintage 1920s BMT Triplex train was used and the interior of the 15th Avenue entrance to the New Utrecht Avenue station on the Sea Beach (today's N) line was restored to its 1940s era appearance. The train itself operated on the West End (today's D) line and is seen pulling into the 62nd Street station.

The scene at the diner was filmed actually in Toronto, Ontario, (Canada) for the purpose of depicting now antique "Presidents' Conference Cars" (P.C.C. style model), that were once spread throughout various American cities' transit systems during the "Great Depression" period since being introduced in the 1930s after a joint transit car redesigning / modernizing program introducing smooth curving streamlining of exterior bodywork and newer up-to-date mechanical / electrical technology with the era's Art Deco style artistic influences, But by four decades later with newer style competing diesel / gasoline-powered engine buses from the General Motors Corporation (GM) becoming ubituous. So streetcars on rails in the city streets quickly became termed passe and pressured by the automobile / bus, gasoline and rubber industries to phase-out and rip up the rails and overhead wires after the war, in the late 1940s 1950s and into the early 1960s at the same time that governments were building massive concrete expressways / freeways, Interstate highways and interchanges. . Within a few years, the sight of an electric streetcar on a city byway had stunningly almost completely disappeared in the United States except for two or three remaining neighborhood lines in Philadelphia's SEPTA system, the ancienr late-19th century cable cars on the steep hills of San Francisco (using a different powering system not electric) becoming a moving national historic landmarks. A few other cities had a couple cars sitting in a few transit streetcar / bus museums like in Baltimore, and even fewer actually were clanking / whizzing and operating on street rail routes

The trams / streetcars that ran in wartime Brooklyn during that time period of 1942-1945 of the World War II era in which the movie is set. However, the streetcars seen here in the movie are actually somewhat similar in general appearances but on close examination, can only be told apart by a streetcar / tram / electric urban railways rider buff or expert historian. These in the 'Class of :44' feature film are actually slightly varied post-war PCC models (characterized by the specific presence of standee type windows, which pre-war PCCs streetcars such as the ones that operated in New York's Borough of Brooklyn then did not have yet). They also have the maroon and cream paint scheme used in Toronto during the early 1970s (when the film was shot) while real-life New York City / Brooklyn's PCCs transit streetcars of the 1940s period were actually painted then in a predominantly tan. color scheme. So only a few other motion pictures like this nostalgic 'Class of '44" from the early '70s, and later producer / director Barry Levinson in his "Baltimore trilogy" of films in his hometown during the. 1980s & 1990s showed a good look at old streetcars running frequently and everywhere in the cities of America.

The film is also noted for being the feature film debut of future star film / TV comedian John Candy in a very brief uncredited appearance at the beginning as a fellow high school graduate who interacts with main characters "Hermie" and "Oscy".

The film received moderate and poor reviews upon its release. Although several venues granted free, or discounted, admission for moviegoers who graduated from high school in 1944, the film did not fare very well at the box office, mostly attributed to the film's breaking the "arty" format of the first film for a more standard approach, and the omission of any mention of the first film. The movie slipped into obscurity, and although Summer of '42 has been on DVD for several years, where it has been a relative commercial success, Warner Brothers released Class of '44 on made-to-order DVD in 2010.

The film was spoofed in the December 1973 issue of Mad magazine as "The Clods of '44."

• Class of '44 at IMDb  
• Class of '44 at Rotten Tomatoes
• Class of '44 at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Class of '44 at the TCM Movie Database
• Class of '44 at AllMovie
• Class of '44 at TV Guide (1987 write-up was originally published in The Motion Picture Guide)