In my experience the majority of that 1940s photo blur comes when you crop and zoom what otherwise looks like a beautiful digital photograph. I experienced this quite often when utilizing security cameras to try and read license plates.
Any movement of the vehicle whose plate you are attempting to track creates pixelization requiring you sometimes to stitch together multiple frames where individual characters on the plate have become clear in order to read the entire license plate.
Any movement of the vehicle whose plate you are attempting to track creates pixelization requiring you sometimes to stitch together multiple frames where individual characters on the plate have become clear in order to read the entire license plate.