Best Action Movies of 1941

After The Daily Planet receives a letter from a mad scientist threatening to wreak destruction with his Electrothanasia Ray, Lois Lane heads out in the hopes of getting more information for a news story.

Superman battles a criminal mastermind and his robot army.

On a scientific expedition to Siam young Billy Batson is given the ability to change himself into the super-powered Captain Marvel by the wizard Shazam, who tells him his powers will last only as long as the Golden Scorpion idol is threatened. Finding the idol, the scientists realize it could be the most powerful weapon in the world and remove the lenses that energize it, distributing them among themselves so that no one would be able to use the idol by himself. Back in the US, Billy Batson, as Captain Marvel, wages a battle against an evil, hooded figure, the Scorpion, who hopes to accumulate all five lenses, thereby gaining control of the super-powerful weapon

Bullfighter Juan Gallardo falls for socialite Dona Sol, turning from the faithful Carmen who nevertheless stands by her man as he continues to face real danger in the bullring.

The evil and masked "Gargoyle" is sabotaging all of America's industrial plants. It is up to the Spider to save the country.

A scientific expedition happens to discover that gold exists on Tarzan's escarpment. The villainous Medford and Vandermeer kidnap Jane and Boy to extort from Tarzan the location of the gold.

An American pilot impulsively joins His Majesty's Royal Air Force in Britain in an attempt to impress his ex-girlfriend.

To bring water to their valley, ranchers have raised money to build a dam. When that money is stolen, Allison suggests the ranchers sell their stock to a friend of his thereby getting the money needed to complete the dam. Roy has a clue that Allison was involved in the robbery and is out to get control of the valley. So Roy and the boys try to delay the sale of the stock while they look for proof against Allison.

Dr. John Meredith has been driven from civilization by the criminal activities of his twin brother Bradley Meredith. With his infant daughter, he settles in the African jungle, where his ability to cure the native ills has resulted in his virtual control of the Masamba tribes, who possess vast diamond mines coveted by a gang of crooks.

The Saturday matinee crowd got two cowboy stars for the price of one in this lavishly budgeted western serial starring former singing cowboy Dick Foran and Buck Jones. The latter contributed deadpan humor to the proceedings, making Jones perhaps the highest paid B-western comedy relief in history. The two heroes defend the Death Valley borax miners from an outlaw gang headed by Wolf Reade. An extraordinarily strong cast -- for a serial, at least -- supported the stars, headed by Charles Bickford as Reade, Leo Carillo, Lon Chaney, Jr., and silent screen star Monte Blue. Leading lady Jeanne Kelly later changed her name to Jean Brooks and starred in the atmospheric RKO thriller The Seventh Victim (1943). Universal claimed to have spent $1 million on this serial and made sure to get their money's worth by endlessly recycling the action footage in serials and B-westerns for years to come.

Tim Hanley, an American agent, posing as a lawyer with the United States Embassy in London, and Reggie Oliver, a Scotland Yard detective, posing as a music critic are both keeping their eye on Carla Nillson, a famous singer, whom they suspect of espionage. They all meet in London, then in Lisbon, and eventually in New York City, where Carla sings on the radio.

A murderous gang of counterfeiters has kidnapped the government's best engraver and is forcing him to print virtually undetectable phony money. The Secret Service's toughest agent, Jack Holt, and a female reporter go after the gang.

The heirs of Anton Benson are searching Bensonhurst for hidden gold; they are joined by a reporter, a gangster...and a masked fiend known as The Iron Claw.

A waitress falls for a foreign businessman (Mohr), while receiving attention from a pair of motorcycle cops, Curtis and Defore. She soon realizes that Mohr is actually a crook and goes back to flirting with her fast cop friends.

Two ex-cons plan to kill the range rider marshal who sent them to prison and, when their plan fails, join forces with their former boss, a crooked saloon owner who has the same idea.

Marianne Jannetier, a well-to-do Parisian, engaged to Andre Benoit, a high-ranking government official, flees the city when the goose-stepping Nazi storm-troopers arrive. When her mother dies on the road to Bordeaux as a result of Nazi bombing, she returns to Paris and joins the underground movement. Nicholas Jordan, an American member of the RAF, stranded in Paris after the evacuation is also working with the Paris underground. Marianne kills her former fiancée, a pro-Nazi informant, for the traitorous state papers he is carrying, and she and Jordan try to flee over a French seaport...

The mayor has sent for a gunslinger who, though appearing to clean up the town, is really to be the mayor's means of taking the town over. When Roy and Gabby arrive in Tombstone, Roy is mistaken for the gunslinger. Just as Roy is ready to expose the mayor, the real gunslinger shows up.

The Rough Riders are called in to help save Master's stage line. Taggart has his gang robbing the stages and shooting the drivers. When Buck drives the next stage, Taggart's men rob it and then make it look like Roberts is part of the gang. Written by Maurice Van Auken

When the showboat hits town, two men use the parade as a distraction to rob the bank. Their accomplice is Pop, the clown from the showboat. He leaves the money on the boat and tells his daughter Patsy to bring it to him at a later stop on the river. Gene's investigation of a bank robbery takes him to the showboat where he becomes a performer. Gene and Frog try to find the money while helping Patsy and her father.

Dr. Ralph Snyder and Dr. Frank Blake open an office together but soon split over a rivalry for nightclub singer Diana Wayne and a difference over ethics.

The Mesquiteers return to Texas after the Civil War to find Army carpetbaggers fighting the local bushwackers. They quickly learn that Capt. Hawks and his men are the culprits and join up with Morgan and his men.

Roy and Gabby fight bad guys to save the town of Deadwood.

Roy is a newspaper reporter. He goes to Cheyenne to cover the activities of supposed bad guy Arapahoe Brown. Roy, of course, discovers who the real bad guy is.

Steel-worker brothers compete for the same woman.

On faraway Mosaque, an American pilot finds that he is in a desperate struggle with a military officer intent on sabotaging a local fort.

The story concentrated on a group of test pilots, busily experimenting with a revolutionary all-plastic airplane. Ace flyboy Brad Farrell (Richard Arlen) is determined to prove the practicality of the new aircraft, designed by Professor Blake (Thomas Ross), father of Brad's sweetheart Carol (Jean Parker). Back on solid ground, Brad must vie for Carol's attentions with his own brother, engineer Doug Farrell (Don Castle).

Story of test pilots at a school that trains new flyers.

Tom King Jr. seeks to discover who murdered his father, a Texas Ranger; the trail leads to a network of Axis spies.

Unable to sign boxer Joe Louis to movie contract, Republic Pictures had to make do with the losers of Louis' heavyweight championship bouts. One of these was Billy Conn, who after being knocked out by Louis in the 13th round awakened to star in the Republic programmer The Pittsburgh Kid. The story finds clean-limned pugilist Conn (playing himself) being managed by pretty Patricia Mallory.

Western star Charles Starrett makes one of his periodic forays into the Great White North in Columbia's Royal Mounted Patrol. When villainous lumberman Frenchy Duvalle (Donald Curtis) refuses to limit his wood-chopping activities, he inadvertently touches off a forest fire. Trapped in the middle of the conflagration, Frenchy's only hope for rescue is mountie Tom Jeffries (Charles Starrett), presently scouring the countryside in his scout plane. Jeffries' reasons for bringing Frenchy out safely are twofold: he must deliver the renegade lumberjack to the authorities, and he happens to be in love with Frenchy's sister Betty (Wanda McKay).

Arkansas Judge is a 1941 American film starring Roy Rogers as a young lawyer defending a farmer accused of slander.

An expedition sets out to darkest Africa to find the fabled City of the Dead, and must battle thick jungle, hostile natives, wild animals and a deadly epidemic.

A woman who refuses to become involved with a dedicated police officer unknowingly dates a man who is in cahoots with a criminal mastermind.

A woman hoping to raise cash to pay for an operation to restore her blind brother's eyesight finds herself implicated in a nightclub murder.

Three men survive a plane crashes on an uncharted Pacific island, south of Tahiti. One falls in love with the the daughter of the tribe's leader, heiress to the throne after the death of her brother, who is as savage as her pet leopard. The others try to devise a plan to rob the tribe's gold.

Tim MacGregor, unscrupulous lumber operator, obtains by bribery a contract to cut a vast quantity of timber from land owned by Kay Handley, rich débutante. When Dick O'Hara, forestry inspector, demands a postponement, MacGrgeor refuses and sends his henchman, Jean Collet, to obtain the services of the famous "bull-of-the-woods" Andy Jensen and his partner "Lucky." Kay arrives and gives her permission to cut the timber, defying Dick. Dick, with his two assistants, Withers and "Tex," begins a survey of the timber stand. When Dick and Tex finally reveal MacGrgeor as a crook, Collet is sent to kill "Tex" and obtain the reports. A fight ensues and "Lucky" is killed by one of Collet's flying knives. Kay then admits that Dick is right and helps him trap Collet. Dick and Andy force a confession from Collet and MacGregor is exposed.

A truck convoy traveling the Burma Road is menaced by a group of smugglers.

Two American leave a ship where they had stowed away, in a Middle Eastern port and wind up in the fighting in a brutal civil war

Secret agent Roger Pryor is dispatched below the border to protect an important scientific formula. Believe it or don't, this mixture has the ability to render things invisible.

Rodeo rider Hurricane Smith is wrongly convicted of murder and robbery, but escapes and creates a new life, but one of the real criminals shows up to claim the loot which he believes Smith has.

A spy steals a secret military device, then hijacks an airliner to get away. The airliner crashes in the wilderness & the survivors are threatened by a raging forest fire.

A group of young men who work at an aviation factory begin to suspect that a doctor who runs an air ambulance service is secretly a spy transporting secret information from the plant to enemy agents.