The Best Movies: 1941

The 10 Best Movies of 1941

1. Citizen Kane. Directed by and starring Orson Welles. That this is No. 1 should come as absolutely no shock to anyone since many film critics and historians call this the greatest film of all time. I am not among that number - I don't even consider it the best film of the decade. But it was revolutionary at the time for its film-making technique and non-linear storytelling. It was not, however, the first film to employ deep focus photography as many think. And it's based on a false premise: The film depicts the quest to find the meaning of Charles Foster's Kane dying word, "Rosebud," yet Kane was clearly alone when he died so who knew what his dying word was?

2. How Green Was My Valley. Directed by John Ford. Starring Walter Pidgeon and Maureen O'Hara. When Ford's name is mentioned, most people automatically think of Westerns, but the director's two best films - this one and The Grapes of Wrath from the year before - were non-Western dramas about two distinctly "ordinary" families. This film gets unfairly dumped on today because it won the best picture Oscar over Citizen Kane, but it is a classic that's still retains its majesty.

3.  The Maltese Falcon. Directed by John Huston. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor. Yet another remake that proved superior to its two earlier versions and a film that dreams are made of. This picture established the Bogart persona and made him a star, unveiled the considerable talents of Huston as a director and screenwriter, and officially inaugurated the genre that would become known as film noir. I actually think Huston demonstrated more control over his material in his screen debut that Welles did in his.

4.  The Lady Eve. Directed by Preston Sturgess. Starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck. Sturgess's masterpiece and the all-time champion of the "battle-of-the-sexes" movies, a superb blending of satire and slapstick. Watching this film made me wish Stanwyck acted in more comedies - she was a superb comedienne. I don't know of another actress who could have pulled off the tour-de-force scene in which she watches Fonda - as well as all the ladies trying to snare him - in the mirror of her compact.

5.  Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Directed by Alexander Hall. Starring Robert Montgomery, Evelyn Keyes and Claude Rains. A beguiling fantasy with a marvelous cast that suffers a little from being a bit too talky and a romantic subplot that doesn't work.

6. Ball of Fire. Directed by Howard Hawks. Starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. A brilliantly twisted variation on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and another example of Stanwyck's immense talents as a brilliant comic actress. Terrific screenplay courtesy of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder.

7.  Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. Directed by Edward F. Cline. Starring W.C. Fields. Did Fields, in this spoof of Hollywood, bite the hand that fed him? Perhaps, but then Fields bit at everything he thought pretentious and besides he knew at this point that his studio, Universal, was shoving him aside in favor of Abbott & Costello, so why not take a few hilariously comedic swipes as he exited the scene.

8.  The Wolf Man. Directed by George Waggoner. Starring Lon Chaney Jr. and Claude Rains. A thrilling, scary and tragic horror film. It's ironic that Chaney shied away from horror films for years because he didn't want to be compared to his father and, when he finally appeared in one, it would be the film he would forever be identified with.

9.  Forty-Ninth Parallel. Directed by Michael Powell. Starring Leslie Howard, Raymond Massey and Laurence Olivier. An excellent war drama with a strong anti-fascist message. At times it plays like a documentary and at other times as a thriller. This was my first real exposure to Eric Portman and I thought he created a superb villain; Olivier, however, was a little too hammy for my tastes here. Unfortunately, this one is tough to find in DVD.

10. High Sierra. Directed by Raoul Walsh. Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino and Arthur Kennedy. The last of the great gangster movies until White Heat finally put a capper on it at the end of the decade. One of Bogart's best performances as the aging bad guy wanting one last score. It had the courage to make the criminals sympathetic and that fadeout at the end is a masterstroke.