Halliwell's Four-Star Films
2005 edition. Notes by Leslie Halliwell and John Walker. Contains spoilers in the concise plot descriptions.
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- DirectorF.W. MurnauStarsGeorge O'BrienJanet GaynorMargaret LivingstonA sophisticated city woman seduces a farmer and convinces him to murder his wife and join her in the city, but he ends up rekindling his romance with his wife when he changes his mind at the last moment.A villager in love with a city woman tries to kill his wife but then repents and spends a happy day with her.
Lyrical melodrama, superbly handled: generally considered among the finest Hollywood productions of the twenties.
39 - DirectorClyde BruckmanBuster KeatonStarsBuster KeatonMarion MackGlen CavenderAfter being rejected by the Confederate military, not realizing it was due to his crucial civilian role, an engineer must single-handedly recapture his beloved locomotive after it is seized by Union spies and return it through enemy lines.A confederate train driver gets his train and his girl back when they are stolen by Union soldiers.
Slow-starting, then hilarious action comedy, often voted one of the best ever made. Its sequence of sight gags, each topping the one before, is an incredible joy to behold.
30 - DirectorCarl Theodor DreyerStarsMaria FalconettiEugene SilvainAndré BerleyIn 1431, Jeanne d'Arc is placed on trial on charges of heresy. The ecclesiastical jurists attempt to force Jeanne to recant her claims of holy visions.On her last day on Earth, Joan of Arc is subjected to five increasingly threatening interrogations before being burned at the stake.
Austerely moving drama, using close-ups to give intense scrutiny to Joan and her accusers, drawing in the audience to become involved in the action.
"One of the greatest of all movies... Falconetti's Joan may be the finest performance ever recorded on film." - Pauline Kael
"Isn't worth a dollar to any commercial regular picture theatre in the US." - Variety
Lilian Gish was first considered for the role of Joan. Falconetti never made another film. After its first showing the film was cut by the French authorities and was banned by the British until 1930.
26 - DirectorD.W. GriffithStarsLillian GishMae MarshHenry B. WalthallThe Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.Northern and Southern families are caught up in the Civil War.
The cinema's first and still most famous epic, many sequences of which retain their mastery despite negro villains, Ku Klux Klan heroes, and white actors in blackface.
37 - DirectorSergei EisensteinStarsAleksandr AntonovVladimir BarskiyGrigoriy AleksandrovIn the midst of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutiny against the brutal, tyrannical regime of the vessel's officers. The resulting street demonstration in Odessa brings on a police massacre.A partly fictitious account of the mutiny at Odessa, an episode in the 1905 revolution. (The film was made as part of the 20th anniversary celebrations.)
A textbook cinema classic, and masterpiece of creative editing, especially in the famous Odessa Steps sequence in which innocent civilians are mown down in the bloodshed; the happenings of a minute are drawn into five by frenzied cross-cutting. The film contains 1,300 separate shots, and was judged the best film ever made in 1948 and 1958 by a panel of international judges.
19 - DirectorD.W. GriffithStarsLillian GishRobert HarronMae MarshThe story of a poor young woman separated by prejudice from her husband and baby is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.Four stories - including Belshazzar's feast and the massacre of St Bartholomew - of intolerance through the ages are intercut and linked by the image of a mother and her baby: 'out of the cradle, endlessly rocking'.
A massive enterprise of which audiences at the time and after were quite intolerant. Hard to take in parts, it rises to a fine climax as all the stories come to a head, including a modern one with a race between a car and train, and has been called 'the only film fugue'. At the time, by far the most expensive film ever made.
"A mad, brilliant, silly extravaganza. Perhaps the greatest movie ever made. In it one can see the source of most of the major traditions of the screen: the methods of Eisenstein and von Stroheim, the Germans and the Scandinavians, and, when it's bad, de Mille." - New Yorker, 1980
24 - DirectorLewis MilestoneStarsLew AyresLouis WolheimJohn WrayA German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.In 1914, a group of German teenagers volunteer for action on the Western Front, but they become disillusioned, and none of them survives.
A landmark of American cinema and Universal's biggest and most serious undertaking until the sixties, this highly emotive war film with its occasional outbursts of bravura direction fixed in millions of minds the popular image of what it was like to be in the trenches, even more so than Journey's End which had shown the Allied viewpoint. Despite dated moments, it retains its overall power and remains a great pacifist work. Milestone's direction is reminiscent of Eisenstein and Lang.
62 - DirectorRobert WieneStarsWerner KraussConrad VeidtFriedrich FeherHypnotist Dr. Caligari uses a somnambulist, Cesare, to commit murders.A fairground showman uses a somnambulist for purposes of murder and is finally revealed to be the director of a lunatic asylum; but the whole story is only the dream of a madman.
Faded now, but a film of immense influence on the dramatic art of cinema, with its odd angles, stylized sets and hypnotic acting, not to mention the sting in the tail of its story (added by the producer).
27 - DirectorJames WhaleStarsColin CliveMae ClarkeBoris KarloffDr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses.A research scientist creates a living monster from corpses, but it runs amok.
Whole books have been written about this film and its sequels. Apart from being a fascinating if primitive cinematic work in its own right, it set its director and star on interesting paths and established a Hollywood attitude towards horror (mostly borrowed from German silents such as The Golem). A seminal film indeed, which at each repeated viewing belies its age.
"Still the most famous of all horror films, and deservedly so." - John Baxter, 1968
"The horror is cold, chilling the marrow, but never arousing malaise." - Carlos Clarens
47 - DirectorAlan CroslandStarsAl JolsonMay McAvoyWarner OlandThe son of a Jewish Cantor must defy the traditions of his religious father in order to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz singer.A cantor's son makes it big in show business.
Archetypal Jewish weepie which became of absorbing interest as the first talkie film (songs and a few fragments of speech) and in its way, surprisingly, is not half bad.
"The Jazz Singer definitely establishes the fact that talking pictures are imminent. Everyone in Hollywood can rise up and declare that they are not, and it will not alter the fact. If I were an actor with a squeaky voice I would worry." - Welford Beakon, The Film Spectator
27 - DirectorCharles ChaplinStarsCharles ChaplinEdna PurvianceEric CampbellAn alcoholic checks into a health spa and his antics promptly throw the establishment into chaos.A dipsomaniac sent to a spa gets his booze mixed up with the spa water.
One of the funniest of the Chaplin shorts, with no pathos intervening (nor come to that much plot); it is simply a succession of balletic slapstick scenes of the highest order.
14 - DirectorCharles ChaplinStarsCharles ChaplinEdna PurvianceEric CampbellA reformed tramp becomes a police constable who must fight a huge thug who dominates an inner-city street.In a slum street, a tramp is reformed by a dewy-eyed missionary, becomes a policeman, and tames the local bully.
Quintessential Chaplin, combining sentimentality and social comment with hilarious slapstick.
13 - DirectorJames ParrottStarsStan LaurelOliver HardyEdgar KennedyAt a rail crossing, a small fender-bender incident turns into a major tit-for-tat retaliatory war among various motorists.Two sailors in an old banger cause a traffic jam and a consequent escalation of violence.
Marvelous elaboration of a tit-for-tat situation, with the stars already at their technical best.
13 - DirectorJosef von SternbergStarsEmil JanningsMarlene DietrichKurt GerronAn elderly professor's ordered life spins dangerously out of control when he falls for a nightclub singer.A fuddy-duddy professor is infatuated with a tawdry night-club singer. She marries him but is soon bored and contemptuous; humiliated, he leaves her and dies in his old classroom.
A masterwork of late twenties German grotesquerie, and after a slowish beginning an emotional powerhouse, set in a dark nightmare world which could only be created in the studio. Shot also in English, it was highly popular and influential in Britain and America. It instantly catapulted Dietrich to international stardom.
"At the time I thought the film was awful and vulgar and I was shocked by the whole thing. Remember, I was a well brought up German girl." - Marlene Dietrich
31 - DirectorJames W. HorneLeo McCareyStarsStan LaurelOliver HardyJames FinlaysonOllie and Stanley are two Christmas Tree sales reps who get into one of their usual mutual-destruction fights with a disgruntled homeowner.Stan and Ollie fail to sell a Christmas tree to a belligerent householder.
Classic silent comedy consisting largely of a brillian tit-for-tat routine of reciprocal destruction, to which scripting, acting and editing equally combine.
12 - DirectorAbel GanceStarsAlbert DieudonnéVladimir RoudenkoEdmond Van DaëleA film about the French general's youth and early military career.The early life of Napoleon.
A cinematic epic which, although brilliant in most particulars, owes its greatest interest to its narrative sweep, its flair for composition and its use of triptych screens which at the end combine to show one giant picture, the clear precursor of Cinerama. In 1934 Gance revised his film and added stereophonic sound.
17 - DirectorRené ClairStarsRaymond CordyHenri MarchandRolla FranceSeeking better life, two convicts escape from prison.A factory owner is blackmailed about his past, and helped by an old prison friend, with whom he finally takes to the road.
Operetta-style satirical comedy with leftish attitudes and several famous sequences later borrowed by Chaplin for Modern Times. In terms of sheer film flair, a revelation, though the plot has its tedious turns.
"I was close to the extreme left... I wanted to attack the Machine, which led men into starvation instead of adding to their happiness." - René Clair
30 - DirectorTed WildeHarold LloydLewis MilestoneStarsHarold LloydJobyna RalstonWalter JamesA sheriff's milquetoast son has a chance to prove himself when a medicine show run by con artists comes into town.The youngest son in the family proves that he is more than the household drudge.
Lively, slapstick comedy with the star at his best.
"As gaggy a gag picture as he has ever done." - Variety
14 - DirectorLeo McCareyStarsGroucho MarxHarpo MarxChico MarxRufus T. Firefly is named the dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of his wealthy backer Mrs. Teasdale, contending with two inept spies who can't seem to keep straight which side they're on.An incompetent becomes President of Fredonia and wages war on its scheming neighbour.
The satirical aspects of this film are fascinating but appear to have been unintentional. Never mind, it's also the most satisfying and undiluted Marx Brothers romp, albeit the one without instrumental interludes. It does include the lemonade stall, the mirror sequence, and an endless array of one-liners and comedy choruses.
35 - DirectorRouben MamoulianStarsFredric MarchMiriam HopkinsRose HobartDr. Jekyll faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run wild with a potion that transforms him into the animalistic Mr. Hyde.A Victorian research chemist finds a formula which separates the good and evil in his soul; when the latter predominates, he becomes a rampaging monster.
The most exciting and cinematic version by far of the famous horror story; the make-up is slightly over the top, but the gas-lit London settings, the pace, the performances and clever camera and sound tricks make it a film to enjoy over and over again. Subjective camera is used at the beginning, and for the first transformation the actor wore various layers of make-up which were sensitive to different colour filters and thus produced instant change.
"Promises abundant shocks and returns now that the fan public is horror conscious. Probably loses something on popular appeal by highbrow treatment." - Variety
Originally 98m, the film was subsequently edited down to 80m, and this is the only version remaining.
38 - DirectorGeorge CukorStarsFreddie BartholomewFrank LawtonEdna May OliverA gentle orphan discovers life and love in an indifferent adult world.Disliked by his cruel stepfather and helped by his eccentric aunt, orphan David grows up to become an author and eventually to marry his childhood sweetheart.
Only slightly faded after sixty years, this small miracle of compression not only conveys the spirit of Dickens better than the screen has normally managed but is a particularly pleasing example of Hollywood's handling of literature and of the deployment of a great studio's resources. It also overflows with great character cameos, and it was a box-office giant.
53 - DirectorGrigoriy AleksandrovSergei EisensteinStarsBoris LivanovNikolay PopovVasili NikandrovA large-scale view on the events of 1917 in Russia, when the monarchy was overthrown.In 1917, the Kerensky regime is overthrown by the Bolsheviks.
A propaganda masterpiece whose images have all too often been mistaken for newsreel. Cinematically, an undoubted masterpiece.
11 - DirectorJames WhaleStarsBoris KarloffElsa LanchesterColin CliveMary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Baron Henry Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.Baron Frankenstein is blackmailed by Dr Praetorius into reviving his monster and building a mate for it.
Frankenstein was startlingly good in a primitive way; this sequel is the screen's sophisticated masterpiece of black comedy, with all the talents working deftly to one end. Every scene has its own delights, and they are woven together into a superb if wilful cinematic narrative which, of its gentle mocking kind, has never been surpassed.
"A great deal of art has gone into it, but it is the kind of art that gives the healthy feeling of men with their sleeves rolled up and working, worrying only about how to put the thing over in the best manner of the medium - no time for nonsense and attitudes and long hair." - Otis Ferguson
47 - DirectorRouben MamoulianStarsMaurice ChevalierJeanette MacDonaldCharles RugglesA Parisian tailor finds himself posing as a baron in order to collect a sizeable bill from an aristocrat, only to fall in love with an aloof young princess.A Parisian tailor accidentally moves into the aristocracy.
The most fluently cinematic comedy musical ever made, with sounds and words, lyrics and music, deftly blended into a compulsively and consistently laughable mosaic of sophisticated nonsense; one better than the best of Lubitsch and Clair.
35 - DirectorJames ParrottStarsStan LaurelOliver HardyDinahLike the legendary Sisyphus, deliverymen Laurel and Hardy struggle to push a large crated piano up a seemingly insurmountable flight of stairs.Two delivery men take a piano to a house at the top of a flight of steps.
Quintessential Laurel and Hardy, involving almost all their aspects, including a slight song and dance.
11 - DirectorHoward HawksRichard RossonStarsPaul MuniAnn DvorakKaren MorleyAn ambitious and nearly insane violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob, but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.The life and death of a Chicago gangster of the twenties.
Obviously modelled on Al Capone, with an incestuous sister thrown in, this was perhaps the most vivid film of the gangster cycle, and its revelling in its own sins was not obscured by the subtitle, The Shame of a Nation.
"More brutal, more cruel, more wholesale than its predecessors." - James Shelley Hamilton
37 - DirectorRené ClairStarsAnnabellaRené LefèvreJean-Louis AllibertAn impoverished painter and his rival engage in a race across Paris to recover a jacket concealing a winning lottery ticket.An artist and an ingratiating crook search Paris for a lost lottery ticket.
With its delicate touch, perfect sense of comedy timing and infectious use of recitative and song, this is superb screen entertainment using most of the medium's resources.
"René Clair at his exquisite best; no one else has ever been able to make a comedy move with such delicate inevitability." - New Yorker, 1978
"I wanted an atmosphere of foolishness... we put gauze between the actors and the sets, which created an illusion of unreality." - René Clair
28 - DirectorRichard BoleslawskiStarsFredric MarchCharles LaughtonCedric HardwickeIn early-19th-century France, an ex-convict who failed to report to parole is relentlessly pursued over a 20-year period by an obsessive policeman.Unjustly convicted and sentenced to years in the galleys, Jean Valjean emerges to build up his life again but is hounded by a cruel and relentless police officer.
Solid, telling, intelligent version of a much-filmed classic novel; in adaptation and performance it is hard to see how this film could be bettered.
34 - DirectorMerian C. CooperErnest B. SchoedsackStarsFay WrayRobert ArmstrongBruce CabotA film crew goes to a tropical island for a location shoot, where they capture a colossal ape who takes a shine to their blonde starlet, and bring him back to New York City.A film producer on safari brings back a giant ape which terrorizes New York.
The greatest monster movie of all, a miracle of trick work and suspense, with some of the most memorable moments in film history.
26 - DirectorJames WhaleStarsBoris KarloffMelvyn DouglasCharles LaughtonSeeking shelter from a storm, five travelers are in for a bizarre and terrifying night when they stumble upon the Femm family estate.Stranded travellers take refuge in the house of a family of eccentrics.
Marvelous horror comedy filled with superb grotesques and memorable lines, closely based on a Priestley novel but omitting the more thoughtful moments. A stylist's and connoisseur's treat.
"An unbridled camp fantasy directed with great wit." - Charles Higham
"Each threat as it appears is revealed to be burlap and poster paint... despite storm, attempted rape and a remarkable final chase, the film is basically a confidence trick worked with cynical humour by a brilliant technician." - John Baxter, 1968
33 - DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsRobert DonatMadeleine CarrollLucie MannheimA man in London tries to help a counter-espionage agent, but when the agent is killed and the man stands accused, he must go on the run to save himself and stop a spy ring that is trying to steal top-secret information.A spy is murdered; the man who has befriended her is suspected, but eludes the police until a chase across Scotland produces the real villains.
A marvellous comedy thriller with most of the gimmicks found not only in Hitchcock's later work but in anyone else's who has tried in the same vein. It has little to do with the original novel, and barely sets foot outside the studio, but it makes every second count, and is unparalleled in its use of timing, atmosphere and comedy relief.
"A miracle of speed and light." - Otis Ferguson
"Such is the zest of the Hitchcock plot that the original point of the title was totally forgotten, and half a line had to be added at the end by way of explanation." - George Perry, 1965
31 - DirectorMervyn LeRoyStarsEdward G. RobinsonDouglas Fairbanks Jr.Glenda FarrellA small-time criminal moves to a big city to seek bigger fortune.The rise and fall of a vicious gangster.
Its central character clearly modelled on Al Capone, this also has historical interest as vanguard of a spate of noisy gangster films. The star was forever identified with his role, and the film, though technically dated, moves fast enough to maintain interest over sixty years later.
"It has irony and grim humour and a real sense of excitement and its significance does not get in the way of the melodrama." - Richard Dana Skinner
25 - DirectorSam WoodStarsGroucho MarxChico MarxHarpo MarxA veterinarian posing as a doctor teams with a singer and his friends as they struggle to save an upstate New York sanitarium with the help of a misfit racehorse.The Marxes help a girl who owns a sanatorium and a racehorse.
Fashions in Marxism change, but this top quality production, though lacking their zaniest inspirations, does contain several of their funniest routines and a spectacularly well integrated racehorse climax. The musical and romantic asides are a matter of taste but delightfully typical of their time.
"The money is fairly splashed about; the capitalists have recognized the Marx Brothers; ballet sequences, sentimental songs, amber fountains, young lovers. Easily the best film to be seen in London, but all the same I feel a nostalgia for the old cheap rickety sets." - Graham Greene
32 - DirectorMervyn LeRoyStarsPaul MuniGlenda FarrellHelen VinsonWrongly convicted James Allen serves in the intolerable conditions of a Southern chain gang, which later comes back to haunt him.An innocent man is convicted and after brutal treatment with the chain gang becomes a vicious criminal on the run.
Horrifying story in the semi-documentary manner; a milestone in Hollywood history and still a fairly compelling piece of shock entertainment.
"I quarrel with the production not because it is savage and horrible, but because each step in an inevitable tragedy is taken clumsily, and because each character responsible for the hero's doom is shown more as a caricature than as a person." - Pare Lorentz
32 - DirectorSam WoodEdmund GouldingStarsGroucho MarxChico MarxHarpo MarxA sly business manager and the wacky friends of two opera singers in Italy help them achieve success in America while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.Three zanies first wreck, then help an opera company.
Certainly among the best of the Marxian extravaganzas, and the first to give them a big production to play with as well as musical interludes by other than themselves for a change of pace. The mix plays beautifully.
"Corking comedy with the brothers at par and biz chances excellent... songs in a Marx picture are generally at a disadvantage because they're more or less interruptions, the customers awaiting the next laugh." - Variety
Zeppo Marx absented himself from here on.
27 - DirectorJames WhaleStarsClaude RainsGloria StuartWilliam HarriganA scientist finds a way of becoming invisible, but in doing so, he becomes murderously insane.A scientist discovers a means of making himself invisible, but in the process he becomes a megalomaniac.
Superb blend of eccentric character comedy, melodrama and trick photography in a Hollywood English setting; remarkably faithful to the spirit of the book. It made a star of Claude Rains in his first film, even though he is seen for only a couple of seconds.
40 - DirectorAlexander KordaStarsCharles LaughtonGertrude LawrenceElsa LanchesterThe respected painter takes to drink and faces down scandal after his wife dies.Episodes in the life of the 17th-century painter.
Austerely comic, gently tragic character piece, superbly staged and photographed, with a great performance at its centre.
"Amazingly full of that light which the great master of painting subdued to his supreme purpose." - James Agate
"The film is ruined by lack of story and continuity; it has no drive. Like The Private Life of Henry the Eighth it is a series of unrelated tableaux." - Graham Greene
24 - DirectorErnst LubitschStarsMiriam HopkinsKay FrancisHerbert MarshallA gentleman thief and a lady pickpocket join forces to con a beautiful perfume company owner. Romantic entanglements and jealousies confuse the scheme.Jewel thieves insinuate themselves into the household of a rich Parisienne, and one falls in love with her.
A masterpiece of light comedy, with sparkling dialogue, innuendo, great performances and masterly cinematic narrative. For connoisseurs, it can't be faulted, and is the masterpiece of American sophisticated cinema.
"A shimmering, engaging piece of work... in virtually every scene a lively imagination shines forth." - New York Times
30 - DirectorMarcel VarnelStarsWill HayMoore MarriottGraham MoffattWith the help of a relative, a hopeless railway employee is made stationmaster of Buggleskelly. Determined to make his mark, he devises a number of schemes to put Buggleskelly on the railway map, but instead falls foul of a gang of gun runners.The stationmaster of an Irish halt catches gun-runners posing as ghosts.
Marvellous star comedy showing this trio of comedians at their best, and especially Hay as the seedy incompetent. The plot is borrowed from The Ghost Train, but each line and gag brings its own inventiveness. A delight of character comedy and cinematic narrative.
"Behind it lie the gusty uplands of the British music hall tradition, whose rich soil the British film industry is at last beginning to exploit." - Basil Wright
22 - DirectorWilliam Cameron MenziesStarsRaymond MasseyEdward ChapmanRalph RichardsonThe story of a century: a decades-long second World War leaves plague and anarchy, then a rational state rebuilds civilization and attempts space travel.War in 1940 is followed by plague, rebellion, a new glass-based society, and the first rocketship to the moon.
Fascinating, chilling and dynamically well-staged vignettes tracing mankind's future. Bits of the script and acting may be wobbly, but the sets and music are magnificent, the first part of the prophesy chillingly accurate, and the whole mammoth undertaking almost unique in film history.
"An amazingly ingenious technical accomplishment, even if it does hold out small hope for our race... the existence pictured is as joyless as a squeezed grapefruit." - Don Herold
47 - DirectorWilliam A. SeiterStarsStan LaurelOliver HardyCharley ChaseWhen Stan and Ollie trick their wives into thinking that they are taking a medicinal cruise while they're actually going to a convention, the wives find out the truth the hard way.Stan and Ollie want to go to a Chicago convention, but kid their wives that they are going on a cruise for health reasons.
Archetypal Laurel and Hardy comedy, unsurpassed for gags, pacing and sympathetic characterization.
"Funny all the way through." - New York Times
16 - DirectorMark SandrichStarsFred AstaireGinger RogersEdward Everett HortonAn American dancer comes to Britain and falls for a model whom he initially annoyed, but she mistakes him for his goofy producer.The path of true love is roughened by mistaken identities.
Marvellous Astaire-Rogers musical, with a more or less realistic London supplanted by a totally artificial Venice, and show-stopping numbers in a style which is no more, separated by amusing plot complications lightly handled by a team of deft farceurs.
22 - DirectorMichael CurtizWilliam KeighleyStarsErrol FlynnOlivia de HavillandBasil RathboneWhen Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence in 1190s England, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a resistance movement.Rebel outlaw Robin Hood outwits Guy of Gisourne and the Sheriff of Notingham, and saves the throne for the absent King Richard.
A splendid adventure story, rousingly operatic in treatment, with dashing action highlights, fine comedy balance, and incisive acting all round. Historically notable for its use of early three-colour Technicolor; also for convincingly recreating Britain in California.
"Mostly the picture is full of movement, some of it dashing in fine romantic costume style, some of it just sprightly. The excitement comes from fast action - galloping steeds, men swinging Tarzan-like from the trees, hurling tables and chairs, rapid running swordplay, the sudden whiz of Robin's arrows coming from nowhere to startle his enemies - more from any fear that Robin might be worsted. Somehow the whole thing has the air of being a costume party, a jolly and rather athletic one, with a lot of well-bred Englishmen playing at being in the greenwood." - James Shelley Hamilton, National Board of Review - DirectorLeni RiefenstahlStarsAdolf HitlerHermann GöringMax AmannThe infamous propaganda film of the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Germany.The official record of the Nazi party congress held at Nuremberg in 1934.
A devastatingly brilliant piece of filmmaking - right from the opening sequence of Hitler descending from the skies, his plane shadowed against the clouds. The rally scenes are a terrifying example of the camera's power of propaganda. After World War II it was banned for many years because of general fears that it might inspire a new Nazi party.
19 - DirectorVictor FlemingGeorge CukorSam WoodStarsClark GableVivien LeighThomas MitchellA sheltered and manipulative Southern belle and a roguish profiteer face off in a turbulent romance as the society around them crumbles with the end of slavery and is rebuilt during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods.An egotistic Southern girl survives the Civil War but finally loses the only man she cares for.
The only film in history which could be profitably revived for forty years: 'still pure gold', said the Daily Mail in 1975. Whole books have been written about it; its essential appeal is that of a romantic story with strong characters and an impeccable production. The widescreen version produced in the late sixties ruined its composition and colour, but it is to be hoped that the original negative still survives.
"A major event in the history of the industry but only a minor event in motion picture art. There are moments when the two categories meet on good terms, but the long stretches between are filled with mere spectacular efficiency." - Franz Hoellering, The Nation
53 - DirectorFrank CapraStarsRonald ColmanJane WyattEdward Everett HortonWhen a revered diplomat's plane is diverted and crashes in the peaks of Tibet, he and the other survivors are guided to an isolated monastery at Shangri-La, where they wrestle with the invitation to stay.Escaping from a Chinese revolution, four people are kidnapped by plane and taken to an idyllic civilization in a Tibetan valley, where the weather is always kind and the men are not only gentle to each other but live to a very advanced age.
Much re-cut romantic adventure which leaves out some of the emphasis of a favourite Utopian novel but stands up pretty well on its own, at least as a supreme example of Hollywood moonshine, with perfect casting, direction and music. If the design has a touch of Ziegfeld, that's Hollywood.
"One of the most impressive of all thirties films, a splendid fantasy which, physically and emotionally, lets out all the stops." - John Baxter, 1968
"One is reminded of a British critic's comment on Mary of Scotland, 'the inaccuracies must have involved tremendous research'." - Robert Stebbins
"If the long dull ethical sequences had been cut to the bone there would have been plenty of room for the real story: the shock of western crudity and injustice on a man returned from a more gentle and beautiful way of life." - Graham Greene
47 - DirectorGeorge MarshallStarsMarlene DietrichJames StewartMischa AuerDeputy sheriff Destry tames the town of Bottle Neck, including saloon singer Frenchy.A mild-mannered sheriff finally gets mad at local corruption and straps on his guns.
Classic Western which manages to encompass suspense, comedy, romance, tenderness, vivid characterization, horseplay, songs and standard Western excitements, without moving for more than a moment from a studio main street set. It starts with a sign reading 'Welcome to Bottleneck' and an outburst of gunfire; it ends with tragedy followed by a running joke. Hollywood expertise at its very best.
"I think it was Lord Beaverbrook who said that Marlene Dietrich standing on a bar in black net stockings, belting out See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have, was a greater work of art than the Venus de Milo." - Richard Roud
35 - DirectorWilliam CottrellDavid HandWilfred JacksonStarsAdriana CaselottiHarry StockwellLucille La VerneExiled into the dangerous forest by her wicked stepmother, a princess is rescued by seven dwarf miners who make her part of their household.Disney's first feature cartoon, a mammoth enterprise which no one in the business thought would work. The romantic leads were wishy-washy but the splendid songs and the marvellous comic and villainous characters turned the film into a worldwide box-office bombshell which is almost as fresh today as when it was made.
"The sort of film that happens once in a generation. It is as necessary a part of our film upbringing as The Birth of a Nation or The Jazz Singer. Crude, tentative, and born of compromise it may be, but it is still history in the making." - C. A. Lejeune
40 - DirectorFrank CapraStarsJames StewartJean ArthurClaude RainsA naive youth leader is appointed to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. His idealistic plans promptly collide with corruption at home and subterfuge from his hero in Washington, but he tries to forge ahead despite attacks on his character.Washington's youngest senator exposes corruption in high places, almost at the cost of his own career.
Archetypal high-flying Capra vehicle, with the little man coming out top as he seldom does in life. Supreme gloss hides the corn, helter-skelter direction keeps one watching, and all concerned give memorable performances. A cinema classic.
"A totally compelling piece of movie-making, upholding the virtues of traditional American ideals." - NFT, 1973
"More of the heartfelt than is good for the stomach." - New Yorker, 1977
52 - DirectorW.S. Van DykeStarsClark GableJeanette MacDonaldSpencer TracyA Barbary Coast saloonkeeper and a Nob Hill impresario are rivals for the affections of a beautiful singer, both personally and professionally, in 1906 San Francisco.The loves and career problems of a Barbary Coast saloon proprietor climax in the 1906 earthquake.
Incisive, star-packed, superbly-handled melodrama which weaves in every kind of appeal and for a finale has some of the best special effects ever conceived.
22 - DirectorSergei EisensteinDmitriy VasilevStarsNikolay CherkasovNikolai OkhlopkovAndrei AbrikosovThe story of how a great Russian prince led a ragtag army to battle an invading force of Teutonic Knights.In 1242, Prince Alexander Nevsky defeats the invading Teutonic Knights in a battle on the ice of Lake Peipus.
A splendid historical pageant that shows the director at his most inventively pictorial and climaxes in a superb battle sequence that uses music instead of natural sound.
"The picture will meet with good results wherever its political sentiments find established adherents. Otherwise it's almost nil for general appeal." - Variety
"Superb sequences of cinematic opera that pass from pastoral to lamentation and end in a triumphal cantata." - Georges Sadoul
26 - DirectorJohn CromwellW.S. Van DykeStarsRonald ColmanMadeleine CarrollC. Aubrey SmithAn Englishman on a Ruritarian holiday must impersonate the king when the rightful monarch, a distant cousin, is drugged and kidnapped.An Englishman on holiday in Ruritania finds himself helping to defeat a rebel plot by impersonating the the kidnapped king at his coronation.
A splendid schoolboy adventure story is perfectly transferred to the screen in this exhilarating swashbuckler, one of the most entertaining films to come out of Hollywood.
"One of those rare movies that seem, by some magic trick, to become more fascinating and beguiling with each passing year." - John Cutts, 1971
29 - DirectorJean RenoirStarsMarcel DalioNora GregorPaulette DubostA bourgeois life in France at the onset of World War II, as the rich and their poor servants meet up at a French chateau.La Règle de Jeu
A count organizes a weekend shooting party which results in complex love intrigues among servants as well as masters.
Celebrated satirical comedy with a uniquely bleak outlook.
It is a question of panache, of preserving a casual indifference to the workings of fate." - The Times
"How brilliantly Renoir focuses the confusion! The rather fusty luxury of the chateau, the constant mindless slaughter of wild animals, the minuets of adultery and seduction, the gavottes of mutual hatred or mistrust..." - Basil Wright, 1972
The film was originally banned as indicting the corruption of France, and during the war the negative was destroyed during an air raid; but eventually a full version was pieced together from various materials.
31 - DirectorAnthony AsquithLeslie HowardStarsLeslie HowardWendy HillerWilfrid LawsonA phonetics and diction expert makes a bet that he can teach a cockney flower girl to speak proper English and pass as a lady in high society.A professor of phonetics takes a bet that he can turn a Cockney flower seller in six months into a lady who can pass as a duchess.
Perfectly splendid Shavian comedy of bad manners, extremely well filmed and containing memorable lines and performances; subsequently turned into the musical My Fair Lady. One of the most heartening and adult British films of the thirties.
47 - DirectorJohn FordStarsHenry FondaJane DarwellJohn CarradineAn Oklahoma family, driven off their farm by the poverty and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl, joins the westward migration to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.After the dust-bowl disaster of the thirties, Oklahoma farmers trek to California in the hope of a better life.
A superb film which could scarcely be improved upon. Though the ending was softened from the book, there was too much here for filmgoers to chew on. Acting, photography, direction combine to make this an unforgettable experience, a poem of a film.
"The most mature motion picture that has ever been made, in feeling, in purpose, and in the use of the medium." - Otis Ferguson
"A sincere and searing indictment of man's cruel indifference to his fellows." - Basil Wright
53 - DirectorMichael CurtizStarsJames CagneyPat O'BrienHumphrey BogartA priest tries to stop a gangster from corrupting a group of street kids.A Brooklyn gangster is admired by slum boys, but for their sake pretends to be a coward when he goes to the electric chair.
A shrewd, slick entertainment package and a seminal movie for all kinds of reasons. It combined gangster action with fashionable social conscience; it confirmed the Dead End Kids as stars; it provided archetypal roles for its three leading players and catapulted the female lead into stardom. It also showed the Warner style of film-making, all cheap sets and shadows, at its most effective. - DirectorHoward HawksStarsCary GrantRosalind RussellRalph BellamyA newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.A remake of The Front Page, with Hildy Johnson turned into a woman.
Frantic, hilarious farce with all participants at their best; possibly the fastest comedy ever filmed, and certainly one of the funniest.
"The kind of terrific verbal slam-bang that has virtually vanished from current film-making." - New Yorker, 1975
"Overlapping dialogue carries the movie along at breakneck speed; word gags take the place of the sight gags of silent comedy, as this vanished race of brittle, cynical, childish people rush around on corrupt errands." - Pauline Kael, 1968
39 - DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsMargaret LockwoodMichael RedgravePaul LukasWhile travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.En route back to England by train from Switzerland, an old lady disappears and two young people investigate.
The disappearing lady trick brilliantly refurbished by Hitchcock and his screenwriters, who even get away with a horrid model shot at the beginning. Superb, suspenseful, brilliantly funny, meticulously detailed entertainment.
"If it were not so brilliant a melodrama, we should class it as a brilliant comedy." - Frank S. Nugent
"Directed with such skill and velocity that it has come to represent the very quintessence of screen suspense." - Pauline Kael, 70s
36 - DirectorJames W. HorneStarsStan LaurelOliver HardySharon LynnStanley and Ollie are enlisted to deliver the deed to a goldmine in a small village, only for it to be stolen.Laurel and Hardy come to Brushwood Gulch to deliver the deed to a gold mine.
Seven reels of perfect joy, with the comedians at their very best in brilliantly-timed routines, plus two song numbers as a bonus.
"The film is leisurely in the best sense; you adjust to a different rhythm and come out feeling relaxed as if you've had a vacation." - New Yorker, 1980
24 - DirectorJohn FordStarsJohn WayneClaire TrevorAndy DevineA group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo and learn something about each other in the process.Various Western characters board a stagecoach in danger from an Indian war party.
What looked like a minor Western with a plot borrowed from Maupassant's Boule de suif, became a classic by virtue of the firm characterization, restrained writing, exciting climax and the scenery of Monument Valley. Whatever the reasons, it damn well works.
"The basic western, a template for everything that followed." - John Baxter, 1968
32 - DirectorGeorge CukorStarsCary GrantKatharine HepburnJames StewartWhen a rich woman's ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.A stuffy heiress, about to be married for the second time, turns human and returns gratefully to number one.
Hollywood's most wise and sparkling comedy, with a script which is even an improvement on the original play. Cukor's direction is so discreet you can hardly sense it, and all the performances are just perfect.
Cary Grant donated his salary to war relief. - DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsJoel McCreaLaraine DayHerbert MarshallOn the eve of World War II, a young American reporter tries to expose enemy agents in London.An American journalist is sent to Europe in 1938 and becomes involved with spies.
Thoroughly typical and enjoyable Hitchcock adventure with a rambling script which builds up into brilliantly managed suspense sequences: an assassination, a windmill, an attempted murder in Westminster Cathedral, a plane crash at sea. The final speech was an attempt to encourage America into the war.
"The most excitingly shot and edited picture of the year." - Basil Wright
"A masterpiece of propaganda, a first class production which no doubt will make a certain impression upon the broad masses of the people in enemy countries." - Joseph Goebbels
"This juxtaposition of outright melodramatics with deadly serious propaganda is eminently satisfactory... Hitchcock uses camera tricks, cinematic rhythm and crescendo to make his points." - Howard Barnes, New York Herald Tribune
54 - DirectorOrson WellesStarsOrson WellesJoseph CottenDorothy ComingoreFollowing the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'A newspaper tycoon dies, and a magazine reporter interviews his friends in an effort to discover the meaning of his last words.
A brilliant piece of Hollywood cinema using all the resources of the studio; despite lapses in characterization and gaps in the narrative, almost every shot and every line is utterly absorbing both as entertainment and as craft. See The Citizen Kane Book by Pauline Kael, and innumerable other writings.
"On seeing it for the first time, one got the conviction that if the cinema could do that, it could do anything." - Penelope Huston
"What may distinguish Citizen Kane most of all is its extracting the mythic from under the humdrum surface of the American experience." - John Simon, 1968
"More fun than any great movie I can think of." - Pauline Kael, 1968
82 - DirectorWilliam DieterleStarsCharles LaughtonMaureen O'HaraCedric HardwickeIn 15th-century France, a gypsy girl is framed for murder by the infatuated Chief Justice, and only the deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral can save her.The deformed Notre Dame bellringer rescues a gypsy girl from the evil intentions of her guardian.
This superb remake is one of the best examples of Hollywood expertise at work: art direction, set construction, costumes, camera, lighting and above all direction all brilliantly support a irresistible story and bravura acting.
"Has seldom been bettered as an evocation of medieval life." - John Baxter, 1968
31 - DirectorWilliam DieterleStarsEdward ArnoldWalter HustonJane DarwellA nineteenth-century New Hampshire farmer makes a pact with Satan for economic success, then enlists famed orator Daniel Webster to extract him from his contract.All that Money Can Buy
A hard-pressed farmer gives in to the Devil's tempting, but is saved from the pit by a famous lawyer's pleading at his 'trial'.
A brilliant Germanic Faust set in 19th-century New Hampshire and using historical figures, alienation effects, comedy asides and the whole cinematic box of tricks which Hollywood had just learned again through Citizen Kane. A magic act in more ways than one.
35 - DirectorZoltan KordaStarsJohn ClementsRalph RichardsonC. Aubrey SmithA British Army officer resigns, burning his last-day summons to war in the Sudan. Accusing him of cowardice, his girlfriend and three friends give him white feathers. To gain redemption, he shadows his friends to save their lives.A man accused of cowardice by his friends proves himself a hero.
The standard version of the story, perfectly cast and presented, with battle scenes which have since turned up in a score of other films from Zarak to Master of the World; also a triumph of early colour.
"Keeps the screen packed with movement, spectacle and excitement. Beyond these box-office virtues, however, it has another quality. It tells a thumping good personal story." - C. A. Lejeune
32 - DirectorJohn HustonStarsHumphrey BogartMary AstorGladys GeorgeSan Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.A private eye is hired to find a black sculpture of a bird.
A remake which shows the difference between excellence and brilliance; here every nuance is subtly stressed, and the cast is perfection.
"A work of entertainment that is yet so skillfully constructed that after many years and many viewings, it has the same brittle explosiveness - and some of the same surprise - that it had in 1941." - Pauline Kael, 1968
"The trick which Mr Huston has pulled is a combination of American ruggedness and the suavity of the English crime school - a blend of mind and muscle - plus a slight touch of pathos." - Bosley Crowther, New York Times
52 - DirectorJames AlgarSamuel ArmstrongFord Beebe Jr.StarsLeopold StokowskiDeems TaylorThe Philadelphia OrchestraA series of eight famous pieces of classical music, conducted by Leopold Stokowski and interpreted in animation by Walt Disney's team of artists.A concert of classical music is given cartoon interpretations.
Brilliantly inventive for the most part, the cartoons having become classics in themselves. The least part (the Pastoral Symphony) can be forgiven.
"Dull as it is towards the end, ridiculous as it is in the bend of the knee before Art, it is one of the strange and beautiful things that have happened in the world." - Otis Ferguson
Multiplane cameras, showing degrees of depth in animation, were used for the first time.
39 - DirectorNorman FergusonT. HeeWilfred JacksonStarsDickie JonesChristian RubMel BlancA living puppet, with the help of a cricket as his conscience, must prove himself worthy to become a real boy.The blue fairy breathes life into a puppet, which has to prove itself before it can turn into a real boy.
Charming, fascinating, superbly organized and streamlined cartoon feature without a single second of boredom.
"A work that gives you almost every possible kind of pleasure to be got from a motion picture." - Richard Mallett, Punch
27 - DirectorThorold DickinsonStarsAnton WalbrookDiana WynyardFrank PettingellTwenty years after the murder of Alice Barlow, her house is finally occupied again. However, the husband from the couple who have moved in has a secret which he will do anything to keep hidden.A Victorian schizophrenic drives his wife insane when she seems likely to stumble on his guilty secret of an old murder and hidden rubies.
Modest but absolutely effective film version of a superb piece of suspense theatre.
"For one who has seen the stage play, much of the tension is destroyed on the insistence on explaining everything rather than hinting at it." - Dilys Powell
"The electric sense of tension and mid-Victorian atmosphere are entirely cinematic." - Sequence, 1950
MGM is said to have tried to destroy the negative of the film when it made its version four years later.
26 - DirectorPreston SturgesStarsJoel McCreaVeronica LakeRobert WarwickHollywood director John L. Sullivan sets out to experience life as a homeless person in order to gain relevant life experience for his next movie.A Hollywood director tires of comedy and goes out to find real life.
Marvellously sustained tragi-comedy which ranges from pratfalls to the chain gang and never loses its grip or balance.
"A brilliant fantasy in two keys - slapstick farce and the tragedy of human misery." - Jame Agee
"The most witty and knowing spoof of Hollywood movie-making of all time." - Film Society Review
"A deftly sardonic apologia for Hollywood make-believe." - New York Times
"Reflecting to perfection the mood of wartime Hollywood, it danced on the grave of thirties social cinema." - Eileen Bowser, 1939 - DirectorHumphrey JenningsHarry WattStarsQuentin ReynoldsKing George VIQueen Elizabeth the Queen MotherA tribute to the courage and resiliency of Britons during the darkest days of the London Blitz.Quentin Reynolds, an American war correspondent, shows Americans what the London blitz was like.
Historically significant short, credited with inclining America towards participation. In its own right, a brilliant job of editing and presentation.
11 - DirectorMichael CurtizStarsHumphrey BogartIngrid BergmanPaul HenreidA cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.Rick's Cafe in Casablanca is a centre for war refugees awaiting visas for America. Rick abandons his cynicism to help an old love escape the Nazis with her underground leader husband.
Cinema par excellence: a studio-bound Hollywood melodrama which after various chances just fell together impeccably into one of the outstanding entertainment experiences of cinema history, with romance, intrigue, excitement, suspense and humour cunningly deployed by master technicians and a perfect cast.
"It's humour is what really saves it, being a mixture of Central European irony of attack and racy Broadway-Hollywood Boulevard cynicism." - Herman G. Weinberg
"The happiest of happy accidents, and the most decisive exception to the auteur theory." - Andrew Sarris, 1968
"A film which seems to have been frozen in time... the sum of its many marvellous parts far exceeds the whole." - NFT, 1974
"It's far from a great film, but it has an appealingly schlocky romanticism, and you're never really pressed to take its melodramatic twists and turns seriously." - Pauline Kael, 70s - DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsLaurence OlivierJoan FontaineGeorge SandersA self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat's wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife's spectral presence.The naive young second wife of a Cornish landowner is haunted by the image of his glamorous first wife Rebecca.
The supreme Hollywood entertainment package, set in Monte Carlo and Cornwall, with generous helpings of romance, comedy, suspense, melodrama and mystery, all indulged in by strongly-drawn characters, and directed by the English wizard from a novel which sold millions of copies. It really couldn't miss, and it didn't.
"Hitchcock fans will have to put up with a surprising lack of the characteristic Hitchcock improvisations in the way of salty minor personages and humorous interludes, and satisfy themselves with a masterly exhibition of the Hitchcock skill in creating suspense and shock with his action and his camera." - National Board of Review
"Riveting and painful - a tale of fear and guilt, class and power." - Time Out, 1988
72 - DirectorErnst LubitschStarsCarole LombardJack BennyRobert StackDuring the German occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.Warsaw actors get involved in an underground plot and an impersonation of invading Nazis, including Hitler.
Marvellous free-wheeling entertainment which starts as drama and descends through romantic comedy and suspense into farce; accused of bad taste at the time, but now seen as an outstanding example of Hollywood moonshine, kept alight through sheer talent and expertise.
"The comedy is hilarious, even when it is hysterically thrilling." - Commonweal
"As effective an example of comic propaganda as The Great Dictator and far better directed." - Charles Higham, 1972
"Lubitsch's comic genius and corrosive wit are displayed at every turn." - John Baxter - DirectorWilliam WylerStarsBette DavisHerbert MarshallJames StephensonThe wife of a rubber plantation administrator shoots a man to death and claims it was self-defense, but a letter written in her own hand may prove her undoing.A rubber plantation owner's wife kills a man in what seems to have been self-defence; but a letter from her proves it to have been a crime of passion, and becomes an instrument of blackmail.
Excellent performances and presentation make this the closest approximation on film of reading a Maugham novel of the Far East, though censorship forced the addition of an infuriating moral ending.
29 - DirectorSam WoodStarsAnn SheridanRobert CummingsRonald ReaganThe dark side and hypocrisy of provincial American life is seen through the eyes of five children as they grow to adulthood at the turn of the century.In a small American town during the early years of the century, three children grow up into a world of cruelty and madness.
Superb Hollywood melodrama, a Peyton Place with great visual strength, haunting music and a wholly absorbing if implausible plot.
"Half masterpiece and half junk." - James Agee
"Tranquilly accepting many varieties of psychopathic behaviour as the simple facts of life, this film has its own kind of sentimental glow, yet the melodramatic incidents are surprisingly compelling." - New Yorker, 1982
The film was made in 1941, but its release was delayed a year because the studio thought it too downbeat. It was not a great box-office success. - DirectorLudwig BergerMichael PowellTim WhelanStarsConrad VeidtSabuJune DuprezAfter being tricked and cast out of Bagdad by the evil Jaffar, King Ahmad joins forces with a thief named Abu to reclaim his throne, the city, and the Princess he loves.A boy thief helps a deposed king thwart an evil usurper.
Marvellous blend of magic, action and music, the only film to catch on celluloid the overpowering atmosphere of the Arabian Nights.
Aged King (Morton Selten): "This is the Land of Legend, where everything is possible when seen through the eyes of youth."
31 - DirectorOrson WellesFred FleckRobert WiseStarsTim HoltJoseph CottenDolores CostelloThe spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.A proud family loses its wealth and it control of the neighbourhood, and its youngest male member gets his come-uppance.
Fascinating period drama told in brilliant cinematic snippets; owing to studio interference the last reels are weak, but the whole is a treat for connoisseurs, and a delight in its fast-moving control of cinematic narrative.
"Nearly every scene is played with a casual perfection which could only come from endless painstaking planning and rehearsals, and from a wonderful sense of timing." - Basil Wright, 1972
"Even in this truncated form it's amazing and memorable." - Pauline Kael, 70s
The credits are all at the end and all spoken, ending with: 'I wrote and directed this picture. My name is Orson Welles.' - DirectorJames AlgarSamuel ArmstrongDavid HandStarsHardie AlbrightStan AlexanderBobette AudreyThe story of a young deer growing up in the forest.The story of a forest deer, from the book by Felix Salten.
Anthropomorphic cartoon feature, one of Disney's most memorable and brilliant achievements, with a great comic character in Thumper the rabbit and a climactic forest fire sequence that is genuinely thrilling. A triumph of the animator's art.
"The film, charming and touching as it can be, belongs more to the Disney of whimsy and sentiment than it does to the creative artist; and those who remember the Schubert in Fantasia will know what I mean when I say that a good deal of this tale of a forest deer is in Disney's Ave Maria manner." - Dilys Powell
29 - DirectorBilly WilderStarsFred MacMurrayBarbara StanwyckEdward G. RobinsonA Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.'You can't kiss away a murder!'
An insurance agent connives with the glamorous wife of a client to kill her husband and collect.
Archetypal film noir of the forties, brilliantly filmed and incisively written, perfectly capturing the decayed Los Angeles atmosphere of a Chandler novel but using a simpler story and more substantial characters. The hero/villain was almost a new concept.
"One of the highest summits of film noir... without a single trace of pity or love." - Charles Higham, 1971 - DirectorSamuel ArmstrongNorman FergusonWilfred JacksonStarsSterling HollowayEdward BrophyHerman BingRidiculed because of his enormous ears, a young circus elephant is assisted by a mouse to achieve his full potential.A baby circus elephant finds that his big ears have a use after all.
Delightful cartoon feature notable for set-pieces such as the drunken nightmare and the crows' song.
16 - DirectorMarcel CarnéStarsArlettyJean-Louis BarraultPierre BrasseurThe theatrical life of a beautiful courtesan in 1830s Paris and the four men who love her.Les Enfants du Paradis
In the 'theatre street' of Paris in the 1840s, a mime falls in love with the elusive Garance, but her problems with other men keep them apart.
A magnificent evocation of a place and a period, this thoroughly enjoyable epic melodrama is flawed only by its lack of human warmth and of a real theme. It remains nevertheless one of the cinema's most memorable films. - DirectorHumphrey JenningsStewart McAllisterStarsLeonard BrockingtonJoseph MacleodBud FlanaganA depiction of life in wartime England during the Second World War. Director Humphrey Jennings visits many aspects of civilian life and of the turmoil and privation caused by the war, all without narration.Images of Britain at war.
A brilliant compilation of almost poetic sights and sounds which distil the essence of a year.
7 - DirectorDavid LeanStarsCelia JohnsonTrevor HowardStanley HollowayMeeting a stranger in a railway station, a woman is tempted to cheat on her husband.A suburban housewife on her weekly shopping visits develops a love affair with a local doctor; but he gets a job abroad and they agree not to see each other again.
An outstanding example of good middle-class cinema turned by sheer professional craft into a masterpiece; even those bored by the theme must be riveted by the treatment, especially the use of a dismal railway station and its trains.
"A celebrated, craftsmanlike tearjerker, and incredibly neat. There is not a breath of air in it." - Pauline Kael, 70s - DirectorHarry WattStarsJohn CobbRichard PeirsePercy Charles PickardThe planning and implementation of an RAF night raid on Germany in World War II, concentrating on a low level mission by a Wellington bomber on an oil storage facility by the Rhine.The story of a bombing raid over Germany.
Classic RAF semi-documentary, not quite so genuine as it seems since many scenes were recreated in the studio.
"It looks like a sure grosser... one of the must-see films of 1941." - Variety - DirectorLaurence OlivierStarsLaurence OlivierRobert NewtonLeslie BanksIn the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France in 1415.Shakespeare's historical play is seen in performance in the Globe Theatre in 1603; as it develops, the scenery becomes more realistic.
Immensely stirring, experimental and almost wholly successful production of Shakespeare on film, sturdy both in its stylization and its command of more conventional cinematic resources for the battle.
"His production - it was his first time out as a director - is a triumph of colour, music, spectacle, and souring heroic poetry, and, as actor, he brings lungs, exultation, and a bashful wit to the role." - Pauline Kael, 70s
"What Shakespeare wrote in Henry V, and what the film has splendidly caught in its own fashion is a fanfare; a flourish; a salute to high adventure; a kind of golden and perennially youthful exaltation of man's grim work." - C. A. Lejeune - DirectorAlberto CavalcantiCharles CrichtonBasil DeardenStarsMervyn JohnsMichael RedgraveRoland CulverGuests invited to a weekend in the country share their supernatural stories, beginning with Walter Craig, who senses impending doom as his half-remembered recurring dream turns into reality.An architect is caught up in an endless series of recurring dreams, during which he is told other people's supernatural experiences and finally murders the psychiatrist who is trying to help him.
Chillingly successful and influential compendium of the macabre, especially effective in its low-key handling of the linking sequence with its circular ending.
"One of the most successful blends of laughter, terror and outrage that I can remember." - James Agee
"The five ghost stories accumulate in intensity until the trap closes in the surrealist climax." - Pauline Kael, 1968 - DirectorFrank CapraStarsJames StewartDonna ReedLionel BarrymoreAn angel is sent from Heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman by showing him what life would have been like if he had never existed.A man is prevented from committing suicide by an elderly angel, who takes him back through his life to show him what good he has done.
Superbly assembled small-town comedy drama in a fantasy framework; arguably Capra's best and most typical work.
"One of the most efficient sentimental pieces since A Christmas Carol." - James Agee
"In its own icky, bittersweet way, it's terribly effective." - New Yorker, 1977
"At its best all this seems to me insipid, and at its worst an embarrassment to both flesh and spirit." - Richard Winnington, News Chronicle - DirectorBilly WilderStarsRay MillandJane WymanPhillip TerryThe desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four-day drinking bout.Two days in the life of a young dipsomaniac writer.
Startlingly original on its release, this stark little drama keeps its power, especially in the scenes on New York streets and in a dipso ward. It could scarcely have been more effectively filmed.
"A reminder of what celluloid is capable of achieving when used by a good director." - Spectator
"Most to be admired are its impressions of bare dreadful truth: the real crowds in the real streets as the hero-victim lugs his typewriter to the pawnshop, the trains screaming overhead, the awful night as he makes his escape from the alcoholics' ward." - Dilys Powell - DirectorDavid LeanStarsJohn MillsValerie HobsonTony WagerA humble orphan boy in 1810s Kent is given the opportunity to go to London and become a gentleman, with the help of an unknown benefactor.A boy meets an escaped convict on the Romney Marshes, with strange consequences for both of them.
Despite the inevitable simplifications, this a superbly pictorial rendering of a much-loved novel, with all the famous characters in safe hands and masterly judgement in every department. - DirectorFrank CapraAnatole LitvakStarsWalter HustonVictor Bulwer-LyttonKai-Shek ChiangThe official World War II US Government film statement defining the various enemies of the Allies and why they must be fought.Why We Fight (series)
A series of feature-length compilations released during 1942-5, primarily for showing to the armed forces, these were superbly vigorous documentaries which later fascinated the public at large. Editing, music and diagrams were all used to punch home the message. - DirectorMichael PowellEmeric PressburgerStarsAnton WalbrookMarius GoringMoira ShearerA young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina.A girl student becomes a great ballet star but commits suicide when torn between love and her career.
Never was a better film made from such a penny plain story so unpersuasively written and performed; the splendour of the production is in the intimate view it gives of life backstage in the ballet world with its larger-than-life characters. The ballet excerpts are very fine, and the colour discreet; the whole film is charged with excitement.
"In texture, like nothing British cinema has ever seen." - Time Out, 1981 - DirectorRené ClairStarsBarry FitzgeraldWalter HustonLouis HaywardSeven guests, a newly hired secretary and two staff are gathered at a manor house on an isolated island by an unknown absentee host and are killed off one-by-one. They work together to determine who the killer is before it's too late.Ten people are invited to a house party on a lonely island, and murdered one by one.
A classic mystery novel is here adapted and directed with the utmost care to provide playful black comedy, stylish puzzlement, and some splendid acting cameos.
"The efforts at sprightly, stylish comedy don't gain much momentum." - Pauline Kael, New Yorker, 70s - DirectorStanley DonenGene KellyStarsGene KellyFrank SinatraBetty GarrettThree sailors wreak havoc as they search for love during a whirlwind 24-hour leave in New York City.Three sailors enjoy 24 hours' leave in New York.
Most of this brash location musical counts as among the best things to ever come out of Hollywood; the serious ballet towards the end tends to kill it, but it contains much to be grateful for.
"A film that will be enjoyed more than twice." - Lindsay Anderson
"So exuberant that it threatens at moments to bounce right off the screen." - Time
30 - DirectorWilliam WylerStarsMyrna LoyDana AndrewsFredric MarchThree World War II veterans, two of them traumatized or disabled, return home to the American midwest to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed.Three men come home from war to a small middle-American community, and find it variously difficult to pick up where they left off.
The situations and even some of the characters now seem a little obvious, but this was a superb example of high-quality film-making in the forties, with smiles and tears cunningly spaced, and a film which said what was needed on a vital subject.
"One recognizes everything and in the end this recognition is all the excitement, because what is on the screen becomes finally as accustomed and undramatic as the shabby decor of the theatre itself." - Robert Warshow, The Immediate Experience
Harold Russell was a handless veteran, with no training as an actor, whose only film this was until Inside Moves in 1980. - DirectorCarol ReedStarsOrson WellesJoseph CottenAlida ValliPulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.An unintelligent but tenacious writer of Westerns arrives in post-war Vienna to join his old friend Harry Lime, who seems to have met with an accident... or has he?
Totally memorable and irresistible romantic thriller. Stylish from the first to the last, with inimitable backgrounds of zither music and war-torn buildings pointing up a then-topical black market story full of cynical characters but not without humour. Hitchcock with feeling, if you like.
"Sensitive and humane and dedicated, [Reed] would seem to be enclosed from life with no specially strong feelings about the stories that comes his way other than that they should be something he can perfect and polish with a craftman's love." - Richard Winnington
"Crammed with cinematic plums which could do the early Hitchcock proud." - Time - DirectorAnthony AsquithStarsMichael RedgraveJohn MillsRosamund JohnThe wartime daily routine on a British bomber base in southeastern England is revealed through the eyes of newly arrived Flying Officer Peter Penrose (Sir John Mills).World War II as seen by the guests at a hotel near an airfield.
Generally delightful comedy drama suffused with tragic atmosphere but with very few flying shots, one of the few films which instantly bring back the atmosphere of war in Britain for anyone who was involved. - DirectorDavid LeanStarsRobert NewtonAlec GuinnessKay WalshIn Charles Dickens' classic tale, an orphan wends his way from cruel apprenticeship to den of thieves in search of a true home.A foundling falls among thieves but is rescued by a benevolent old gentleman.
Simplified, brilliantly cinematic version of a voluminous Victorian novel, beautiful to look at and memorably played, with every scene achieving the perfect maximum impact.
26 - DirectorGarson KaninCarol ReedStarsDwight D. EisenhowerLeslie BanksWinston ChurchillA documentary account of the allied invasion of Europe during World War II compiled from the footage shot by nearly 1400 cameramen.'The Victory You Helped To Make... Now on the screen in all its glory!'
The last year of the war, retold by edited newsreels: D-Day to the Fall of Berlin.
A magnificent piece of reportage, worth a dozen fiction films in its Shakespearean fervour, though the poetic commentary does occasionally go over the top. One of the finest of all compilations.
"An inspiring recital of human endeavour which all the world will want to see." - The Cinema