If your doing 40s then there was no colour film so it's b/w or sepia. If there was anything which resembled hand colouring it would work but I can't think of a film which does this.
@swilde Colour was invented in 30's by Agfa, but the real winner of WW2 film was Kodachrome, particularly for its imagery of women working in factories. There had been attempts at colour earlier than that using various developers
David Schofield linked me to a bleach bypass method once which they used in Private Ryan(?) I think. Definately a method I would experiment with if you can't recreate this setup though. You'd also need a developing kit that has a seperate bleach & fix. I've never tried it though . Sounds interesting April, have fun !
If you have a little time, and happy to buy off ebay etc, almost anything is easy to get. If you can get some of the not so long ago discontinued Efke film it may work for you. Was made to very old formula, single layer emulsion. Massive silver content. Next part of the equation is shoot it through the most vintage lens you can find to suit the period as well. If you could get a roll of Efke 120 and put it through an old box camera, that would be as close to re-creating the look as you can get, as using the emulsion, and camera types of the period. A lubitel TLR would do, based on a 1930's camera, always kept a very simple triplet lens throughout its incarnations. Would allow more exposure options/control than a box camera.
Of course tri-x (kodak) is next in line for the living dinosaur award. A faster film than they would have had, but the grain of a 100 speed film of the day would have been like the more modern tri-x 400 speed.
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Colour - only modern emulsions are easily available but Ektar and Portrait are nice. I like some of the older Fuji emulsions like Reala
@chewyteeth
Of course tri-x (kodak) is next in line for the living dinosaur award. A faster film than they would have had, but the grain of a 100 speed film of the day would have been like the more modern tri-x 400 speed.
version of colour photography around since about 1899, and reasonably widely available like Peter says, a few decades later.
I've had some great results shooting expired black and white like HP5 and Kodak through a Zeiss Ikon Netar which I got off eBay in the UK for about £10. 120 film of course, and costs about £10 to develop in most city photo labs. The nettar lens gave a great retro look to it. In 35mm I had some great results shooting bluefire police, a Canadian film which I developed in ilford ID11 and shot with my Olympus OM1, see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/58611292@N05/8147242224/in/photolist-dpWKgw-dq7ZCz-8jBQ8m-8ZVij4-8jBQ89-83zXSy-83wRSv-8JTGby-7zQsGR-7zQsDH-8fBoob-7SvuUM-7SvuYp-8nZnz1-cREjb7-dqgS1G-dqgRUQ-dpWKfY-dqhkVr-dqgYNk-dqhmg2-dqhRUv-dqgYUX-dpWz3F-dqh7bL-dpWKCw-dpWKeb-dqh711-dqh7hY-dpWKd3-dq7ZGz-dq89CJ-e72zgG-9SkgdZ-9So8W1-9SkgnV-9So8PJ-9So8U1-fcvvKc-fcKQny-fcKPPQ-fcKPyw-eaq81q-fHA9dY-fHizpk-9Skggp-9So95f-e2T17F-avUrqR-avNSMt-avRu9E