1940s

The most important film of the decade was unquestionably Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles in 1941. With its deep-focus photography, stylised lighting, overlapping dialogue, and roaming camera, Kane is perhaps America's most significant contribtion to the development of the cinema. Furthermore, it was Welles's cinematic debut, directed when he was a mere twenty-six years old. Previous to directing and starring in Kane, Welles had directed and starred in The War Of The Worlds, often cited as the world's greatest radio production. Although he was given total artistic control over Citizen Kane, his later films (including The Magnificent Ambersons, 1942) were often re-edited by studios without his supervision.

In Carol Reed's British classic The Third Man (1949), the anticipation of Welles's character Harry Lime rivals that of Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger co-directed a series of British masterpieces in the 1940s, including the celestial fantasy A Matter Of Life And Death (1946; an influence on the 1987 Wim Wenders film Der Himmel Uber Berlin), the sexual frustration of Black Narcissus (1947), and the balletic The Red Shoes (1948), produced by their company The Archers (launched in 1943, with a five-point unpublished manifesto). Also in Britain, Ealing perfected their niche for delightful and satirical comedies with Kind Hearts And Coronets (Robert Hamer, 1948), starring Alec Guinness.

During World War II, producer Walt Disney's animated features, including Pinocchio (Ben Sharpsteen, 1940), Dumbo (Ben Sharpsteen, 1941), and Bambi (David Hand, 1942), provided much-needed escapism, as Technicolor had done during the Depression in the 1930s. They consolidated Disney's position at the forefront of animation, following the success of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (David Hand, 1937). The self-mythologising Disney studio claims Snow White as the first feature-length animated film, however that honour actually belongs to the Argentine film El Apostol by Quirino Cristiani (1917, no longer extant).

Film Noir

After the War, directors turned increasingly towards social realism and reverted to monochrome cinematography. This visually, thematically, and psychologically dark style was known as Film Noir, influenced by German Expressionismus, the French Realisme Poetique films of the 1930s, the B-movie Stranger On The Third Floor (Boris Ingster, 1940), and Fritz Lang's downbeat You Only Live Once (1937). Recurrent motifs of Film Noir (and its melodramatic offshoot, Film Gris) include world-weary detectives, sultry femmes-fatales, and urban crime narratives. Classic Films Noirs include Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944), Edgar G Ulmer's Detour (1945), Jacques Tourneur's Out Of The Past (1947), and John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Charles Laughton's lyrical The Night Of The Hunter (1955) is also stylistically a Noir film.

Films Noirs were named after a series of French crime novels, and a cycle of German films derives its name from a similar source: Krimi films, including Der Frosch Mit Der Maske (Harald Reinl, 1959) were named after a series of German crime novels. Humphrey Bogart played the archetypal Noir detectives Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941) and Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946). Marlowe was also played by Dick Powell in Murder My Sweet (Edward Dmytryk, 1944) and by Robert Montgomery in Lady In The Lake (1947, directed by Montgomery). The latter film is shot entirely from a first-person-perspective, thus Montgomery is only ever seen by the audience when he is reflected by a mirror.

Bogart was perhaps the biggest star of the 1940s, and appeared in Michael Curtiz's perfect wartime romance Casablanca (1942) in addition to his Film Noir roles. Other major stars of the time were James Stewart in Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life (1946) and Cary Grant in Howard Hawks's brilliant Screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940).

Neo-Realism

Throughout the Fascist regime in Italy, one method of avoiding political censorship was simply to concentrate on producing escapist, non-political cinema. These opulent, glamorous films, such as Il Signor Max (Mario Camerini, 1937) starring future director Vittorio DeSica, were known as Telefoni Bianchi. After the collapse of Fascism and Italy's defeat in World War II, and the resultant lack of funds for its national film industry, the opulent escapism of the past was impossible. Instead, Luchino Visconti's Ossessione (1943) and La Terra Trema: Episodio Del Mare (1947) took Italian cinema in a new direction: Neo-Realismo. In 1935, Visconti worked as an uncredited assistant to Jean Renoir on Toni, a film whose style can be seen as a prototype of Neo-Realismo. Dmitri Kirsanoff's short film Menilmontant (1926) is another precursor of Neo-Realismo.

Ossessione was filmed on location, bypassing the need for expensive studio sets. It also used non-professional actors and relied upon donated film-stock. Neo-Realismo came to international attention with the release of Roberto Rossellini's Roma: Citta Aperta in 1945 and Paisa in 1946. Equally significant are the films of Vittorio DeSica, especially Sciuscia (1946), Ladri Di Biciclette (1948), and Umberto D (1952). Ossessione is also regarded as the first Giallo film, a genre later dominated by superior exploitation director Mario Bava (La Ragazza Che Sapeva Troppo, 1963; Sei Donne Per L'Assassino, 1964) and Dario Argento (Suspiria, 1977).

In the early 1950s, the Italian government funded film production only selectively, denying funds to overtly political films. Thus, elements of escapist comedy were introduced into Neo-Realismo films, to make them more politically acceptable. This new style was known as Neo-Realismo Rosa, and is typified by films such as Due Soldi Di Speranza (Renato Castellani, 1952). The comic element soon eclipsed the Neo-Realismo components altogether, and a distinctive Italian comedy style, Comedia All'Italiana, was born with the films of Mario Monicelli, notably his I Soliti Ignoti (1958).

The location-shooting of Neo-Realismo was replicated by Hollywood in the latter half of the decade. Noir themes such as urban crime were given more naturalistic treatments in a number of films both set in and filmed on the city streets. The first of these documentary-style, 'police procedural' thrillers was The House On 92nd Street (1945) by Henry Hathaway, who also directed Kiss Of Death (1947) and Call Northside 777 (1948), though the most well-known is Jules Dassin's The Naked City (1948). Elia Kazan directed two of the best documentary-style thrillers, Boomerang (1947) and Panic In The Streets (1950), and Anthony Mann's T-Men (1947) is another classic example.

In contrast to the prevailing Noir and Neo-Realismo aesthetic, producer Val Lewton's series of horror films for RKO were more notable for their atmospheric, suspenseful style; Jacques Tourneur directed Cat People in 1942, produced by Lewton. Film Noir's most striking antithesis was the Hollywood musical, which Vincente Minnelli reinvented with Meet Me In St Louis (1944) by integrating songs directly into the melodramatic narrative.