Best Movies: 1938

The 10 Best Movies of 1938

1.  The Adventures of Robin Hood. Directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley. Starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. This remains to this day one of the greatest adventure films of all time and (sorry, Russell) but Flynn is still the perfect Robin Hood, dashing and athletic yet still with a sense of humor -- the one against which all others will always be measured. De Havilland makes a fine Maid Marion and what Ridley Scott failed to realize is that Robin's merry men should be just that, not gloomy associates. And why can't anyone make color films this colorful any more?

2.  You Can't Take It With You. Directed by Frank Capra. Starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore and James Stewart. One of the more popular modern pastimes is to dump on this film, which does it a disservice. I agree, obviously, that it didn't deserve the Oscar as best picture of the year but it is still loony enough to keep you laughing throughout its two-hour running time. (Trivia: Dub Taylor, who played C.W. Moss's father -- the character who ratted on the whereabouts of Bonnie and Clyde in the 1967 film -- made his screen debut in this movie.)

3.  Bringing Up Baby. Directed by Howard Hawks. Starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. It's nearly impossible for me to understand why this brilliant screwball comedy flopped when it was released. Maybe it was because it lampooned everything folks in the 1930s held dear. I have always regarded it as Hawks's finest battle-of-the-sexes satire featuring inspired performances from the entire cast and too many great individual set pieces to list here. However, if there is one line I'll aways remember from this film, it's "I'll be with you in a minute, Mr. Peabody." Just thinking about it now makes me laugh.

4.  Jezebel. Directed by William Wyler. Starring Bette Davis and Henry Fonda. Easily the best of the Davis-Wyler collaborations. The red-dress-at-the-ball scene alone is worth seeing the film for. Gone With the Wind was overall a better film but it did not have a single scene as indelible as this one in which a southern belle's perversity ruins her chances of happiness.

5. Holiday. Directed by George Cukor. Starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. The second great Hepburn-Grant comedy of 1938, but it, too, lost money and Hepburn was dubbed box office poison, her film career seemingly kaput. The main drawing card of the film are the performances of the two stars and Cukor's mastery of sophistication but I won't argue with those who claim it is slightly dated today.

6.  Pygmalion. Directed by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard. Starring Howard and Wendy Hiller. Howard will always be, to me, the perfect Henry Higgins, but Hiller, as great as she is in this film, just seems wrong, wrong, wrong as Eliza Doolittle. I want Eliza to be perky and Hiller, who admittedly is sidesplittingly hilarious in the scene when she has tea with Henry's mother, is anything but perky.

7. Angels With Dirty Faces. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart and Ann Sheridan. Whenever I think of the perfect Cagney gangster role -- one in which he combines toughness with sentimentality -- I'll always think of this one more than Public Enemy or White Heat. The well crafted screenplay and fast paced direction also contribute to the film's artistic success.

8. The Citadel. Directed by King Vidor. Starring Robert Donat, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Richardson and Rex Harrison. A portrait of idealism featuring a spellbinding performance from Donat and more-than-able support from Russell and Richardson.

9.  The Lady Vanishes. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. Hitchcock's next-to-last British film before he came to America is one of his best, even though it starts out slowly. It fueled many of my European train rides -- I kept hoping I would also meet an equally colorful array of characters on one of those excursions, but, of course, I never did.

10. Mysterious Mr. Moto. Directed by Norman Foster. Starring Peter Lorre. Folks today forget that Charlie Chan was not the only Oriental detective of this era. This second film in the series is fun and clever with a slyly adventurous performance from Lorre.