Top 10 Films of 1943

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Top 3 Musicals of 1943

1. "The Sky's The Limit" (Edward H. Griffith, RKO)


2. "Girl Crazy" (Norman Taurog, MGM)


3. "The Gang's All Here" (Busby Berkeley, 20th-Fox)

Day Of Wrath (1943) ****

Capitaine Fracasse (1943) ***

Impressive adaptation of Theophile Gauthier's novel. One of Abel Gance's best films.

Phantom Of The Opera (1943) ***

A remake of the 1925 classic. Unlike the previous film, a horror movie, this is essentially a musical, and yet the story remains more or less the same.

Przez lzy do szczescia (1943) ***

Light melodrama from Poland, about a kind pediatrician working in an orphanage. Filmed in the summer of 1939, just before the war, the film had to wait more than 4 years before its theatrical release during the Nazi occupation.

Ossessione (1943) ***

The first example of Italian neo-realism.

Happy Journey (1943) ***

Dream (1943) ***

Directed by Mikhail Romm, a Soviet film set in pre-war Poland. Excellent art direction.

This Land Is Mine (1943) ***

Very similar to "Hangmen Also Die", but far more nuanced, realistic and compelling. Often didactic, but at least the ideas it presents are interesting.

Hi Diddle Diddle (1943) ***

Self-reflexive comedy, totally silly, but very smart at the same time. It's as brechtian as Hollywood ever got. Pola Negri steals the movie as a Slavic opera singer, but eveybody else is excellent as well.

Star Spangled Rhythm (1943) ***

Uneven patriotic farce with an all-star cast, a few good musical numbers and a guided tour of the Paramount studio backlot.

War Department Report (1943) ***

Interesting documentary about the strategic situation of the Allies versus the Axis circa 1943. A unique snapshot-in-time-capsule experience, largely free of typical propaganda tricks, coldly analyzing the real situation on the ground. Nominated for an Oscar.

Report From The Aleutians (1943) ***

Well-made documentary about a little known theatre of war against Japan. Nominated for an Oscar.

Watch On The Rhine (1943) ***

A little quizz: name a 1943 Best Picture winner from this description - an anti-Nazi freedom fighter and his wife escape from Europe and find themselves in a neutral city. As the Nazis close in, the hero shoots the main threat to their safety, allowing the freedom fighter and his wife to continue the fight against Hitler. "Casablanca", obviously, except that the neutral city is Washington DC in 1940, the hero and the freedom fighter are the same person, and the Best Picture award is from New York Critics Association, not the Oscars.

The Outlaw (1943) ***

December 7th (1943) ***

A documentary film about the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. There are three versions of this film. The shortest one (20 min.) won an Oscar as best documentary short. A slightly longer version (33 min.) was released in theatres. There is also the original, feature-length cut of the film (81 min.). The short versions focus on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The original cut's main focus is on the Japanese community in Hawaii, questioning their loyalty and allegience.

Confessions Of A Vice Baron (1943) ***

Baron Munchhausen (1943) ***

Sayon's Bell (1943) ***

Beautiful film shot by Hiroshi Shimizu in Taiwan. Story of a native girl who dies in a rainstorm. A fine screenplay by Kihan Nagase, Torashirô Saitô and Hiroshi Ushida. Based on a true story.

Lassie Come Home (1943) ***

Arguably Lassie's best film, featuring Elizabeth Taylor in her film debut.

Mission To Moscow (1943) ***

Pure and undiluted Stalinist propaganda, swallowed whole by, to quote from Ernst Lubitsch's "The Merry Widow" (1934), "the greatest idiot in the diplomatic service", Joseph Davies, US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1936 to 1938. But in 1943, with Stalin being essentially the only thing standing between Hitler and the Nazi conquest of the entire world, such Stalinist propaganda and the official US government propaganda, were, for all practical purposes, identical. So the film denounces Leon Trotsky as a Gestapo agent, defends Soviet agression against Finland, blames France and England for the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact and completely ignores the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939. In other words, a total bullshit, but still extremely interesting (and genuinely fascinating) for revealing a peculiar state of mind that existed at the time, with the severity of the Nazi threat essentially forcing people into accepting mind-boggling Stalinist lies as a price for using communist Russia to defend the capitalist West. But even back in 1943, the film was a complete flop and it only received one Oscar nomination - fittingly enough for Best Art Direction - for its skillful window-dressing of Stalinist genocides and atrocities.

Action In The North Atlantic (1943) ***

Heavy-handed wartime propaganda aside, this is an exciting war drama about a US merchant ship surviving U-boats and dive bombers on the way to Murmansk.

Air Force (1943) ***

Fine war drama about a bomber crew flying to Hawaii during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Amazing Mrs Holliday (1943) **

War orphans, Deanna Durbin and China. Jean Renoir began the film, but he wasn't credited for his work.

The Ape Man (1943) *

Ridiculous horror movie starring Bela Lugosi as a half-man, half-ape creature. There is also a real ape in the picture, but nobody cares anyway.

Hangmen Also Die (1943) *

The events surrounding the killing of Heydrich in Prague in 1942, completely distorted by screenwriter Bertold Brecht in order to accommodate his Communist political views, creating a fairy-tale version of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, as if the real one wasn't compelling enough. Ironically, seeing the disastrous results, Brecht accused director Fritz Lang of distorting his script, but the fault clearly lies with the future citizen of East Germany.

Hers To Hold (1943) *

Pretty dreadful Deanna Durbin vehicle.

Meshes Of The Afternoon (1943) ****

This landmark experimental film by Maya Deren became a model for others to follow.

Action In Slow Motion (1943) ***

The Geography Of The Body (1943) ***

Plan For Destruction (1943) ***

Interesting documentary about Nazi geopolitician Karl Haushofer.

Heavenly Music (1943) ***

Oscar-winning musical curiosity about European classical music influencing contemporary American jazz tunes.

Cameramen At War (1943) ***

Directed by Len Lye. Documentary film about heroic efforts of British cameramen to film actual battle scenes.

Sunde born (1943) ***

Baptism Of Fire (1943) ***

A unique film, neither a documentary nor a work of fiction (but nominated for an Oscar as best documentary feature). Its topic: the hesitations and fears of a raw recruit facing his first battle. Elisha Cook Jr plays one of the soldiers. Part of the "Fighting Men" series. Length: 36 min.

Im Wald von Katyn (1943) ***

A precious rarity - a Nazi propaganda documentary that is actually true. In 1943, Germans discovered mass graves of Polish officers in the forest of Katyn in western Russia. This short film was made to reveal that Stalinist atrocity. It was only in 1990 that the Soviet authorities finally admitted their guilt.

The Spirit Of '43 (1943) ***

US Treasury Department commissioned this Disney commercial to encourage Americans to pay their taxes during World War II. "Taxes to bury the Axis". A super-patriotic cartoon.