1941
FILM
The Little Foxes
Cheers for Miss Bishop
Citizen Kane
The Devil and Miss Jones
Dumbo
The Great Lie
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
The Lady Eve
Manpower
The Sea Wolf
DIRECTOR
William Wyler (The Little Foxes)
Michael Curtiz (The Sea Wolf)
John Ford (How Green Was My Valley)
Tay Garnett (Cheers for Miss Bishop)
Edmund Goulding (The Great Lie)
Alexander Hall (Here Comes Mr. Jordan)
Walter Lang (Moon over Miami)
Preston Sturges (The Lady Eve)
Raoul Walsh (Manpower)
Orson Welles (Citizen Kane)
ACTOR
Edward G. Robinson (The Sea Wolf)
Charles Coburn (The Devil and Miss Jones)
Gary Cooper (Ball of Fire)
Gary Cooper (Meet John Doe)
Gary Cooper (Sergeant York)
Thomas Mitchell (Flight from Destiny)
Robert Montgomery (Here Comes Mr. Jordan)
Raimu (La Fille du puisatier / The Well-Digger's Daughter)
Edward G. Robinson (Manpower)
Orson Welles (Citizen Kane)
ACTRESS
Bette Davis (The Little Foxes)
Jean Arthur (The Devil and Miss Jones)
Mary Astor (The Great Lie)
Joan Crawford (When Ladies Meet)
Greta Garbo (Two-Faced Woman)
Greer Garson (When Ladies Meet)
Vivien Leigh (That Hamilton Woman)
Martha Scott (Cheers for Miss Bishop)
Barbara Stanwyck (The Lady Eve)
Barbara Stanwyck (Meet John Doe)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Sydney Greenstreet (The Maltese Falcon)
Eric Blore (The Lady Eve)
Charles Dingle (The Little
Foxes)
Reginald Gardiner (The Man Who Came to Dinner)
Walter Huston (All That Money Can Buy / The Devil and Daniel Webster)
Peter Lorre (The Maltese Falcon)
Herbert Marshall (The Little
Foxes)
Robert Morley (Major Barbara)
Claude Rains (Here Comes Mr. Jordan)
Carl Benton Reid (The Little
Foxes)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Anna Magnani (Teresa Venerdi)
Mary Astor (The Maltese Falcon)
Constance Bennett (Two-Faced Woman)
Spring Byington (The Devil and Miss Jones)
Patricia Collinge (The Little
Foxes)
Rita Hayworth (Blood and Sand)
Marie Lohr (Major Barbara)
Ann Sheridan (The Man Who Came to Dinner)
Simone Simon
(All That Money Can Buy)
Teresa Wright
(The Little Foxes)
SCREENPLAY
Herman J. Mankiewicz & Orson Welles
(Citizen Kane)
Philip Dunne (How Green Was My Valley)
Sheridan Gibney & Adelaide Heilbron (Cheers for Miss Bishop)
Lillian Hellman (The Little
Foxes)
John Huston (The Maltese Falcon)
Norman Krasna (The Devil and Miss Jones)
Richard Macauley & Jerry Wald (Manpower)
Seton I. Miller & Sidney Buchman (Here Comes Mr. Jordan)
Robert Rossen (The Sea Wolf)
Preston Sturges (The Lady Eve)
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane)
Tony Gaudio (The Great Lie)
Ernest Haller (The Bride Came C.O.D.)
Ray June (Ziegfeld Girl)
Arthur C. Miller (How Green Was My Valley)
Ernest Palmer & Ray Rennahan (Blood and Sand)
Robert Planck (A Woman's Face)
Sol Polito (The Sea Wolf)
Gregg Toland (The Little
Foxes)
Joseph A. Valentine (The Wolf Man)
ORIGINAL SCORE
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (The Sea Wolf)
Bernard Herrmann (Citizen Kane)
Edward Ward (Cheers for Miss Bishop)
AltFG's Best of the Best Annual List
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Best of the Best Rules and Regulations
RSS
To not have the revolutionary Citizen Kane
as Best Picture of 1941 is to commit a major cinematic sacrilege, punishable
by myriad fates worse than death. Bravely—or perhaps madly—we
have dared to choose another film. But rest assured: Our picture of choice
is not How Green Was My Valley. Instead, we've picked William
Wyler's retelling of Lillian Hellman's merciless take on American Family
Values and Valuables, The
Little Foxes. True, the film version has had some sugar
added to the plot—in the form of a silly juvenile romance—but
it remains as potent an indictment against greed and powerlust as the
original play, partly because Hellman herself penned the screenplay and
partly because of the generally superb performances from the top-notch
cast. Now, to say that Bette Davis's acting could be hammy and/or hysterical
is quite an understatement. However, in the two roles for which she has
topped our 1940s Best Actress list, the murderess in The
Letter and the greedy matriarch in The
Little Foxes, Davis is a model of self-control. In both
pictures, she's a woman who knows what she wants and is out to get it—no
matter the costs—and in order to succeed she must keep her emotions
in check. In the process, her ruthless villainesses win our respect and,
gasp, even our admiration. Davis probably should be thankful to director
William Wyler, who guided her with a sure hand in both films.