topic Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME in Community Spirit

MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 14:24:58 GMT

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

A Place in the Sun (1951)

All About Eve (1950)

All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)

Anastasia (1955)

Back to the Future (1985)

Basic Instinct (1992)

Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Breakfast at Tiffanys (1961)

Bullets Over Broadway (1993)

Cabaret (1971)

Cape Fear (1991)

Casino (1995)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Capricorn One (1978)

Changeling (2008)

Chicago (2002)

Cocoon (1985)

Crocodile Dundee (1986)

Death On The Nile (1978)

Dinner at Eight (1933)

Double Indemnity (1944)

Duel (1971)

East of Eden (1955)

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Educating Rita (1981)

Falling Down (1993)

Fargo (1996)

Final Destination (2000)

Flowers in the Attic (1987)

Frances (1981)

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)

Gone With the Wind (1939)

Good Will Hunting (1997)

Grease (1978)

Great Expectations (1941)

Halloween (1978)

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Hostel (2005)

Imitation of Life (1958)

It Happened One Night (1934)

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Jaws (1975)

Jezebel (1938)

Lake Mungo (2008)

Love Finds Andy Hardy (1937)

M (1931)

Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

Metropolis (1927)

Midnight Express (1978)

Mildred Pierce (1945)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Misery (1990)

Muriel's Wedding (1994)

My Fair Lady (1964)

Ordinary People (1980)

Philadelphia (1993)

Psycho (1960)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Rear Window (1954)

Rocky (1976)

Secrets and Lies (1996)

Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Sister Act (1992)

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Somewhere in Time (1979)

Stand By Me (1986)

Strictly Ballroom (1991)

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

The Enchanted Cottage (1943)

The Goonies (1985)

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

The Labyrinth (1986)

The Letter (1941)

The Little Princess (1939)

The Lovely Bones (2008)

The Others (2001)

The Pawnbroker (1964)

The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1945)

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

The Queen (2005)

The Road (2008)

The Shining (1981)

The Sixth Sense (1999)

The Spiral Staircase (1945)

Thelma and Louise (1991)

Titanic (1997)

Tootsie (1981)

Uncle Buck (1989)

Vertigo (1958)

War of the Roses (1988)

Waterloo Bridge (1940)

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1994)

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Wizard of Oz (1939)

Wolf Creek (2005)

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amber-eyed-girl — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 14:32:41 GMT

There's a few on there I haven't seen (mostly the more modern ones).

Love All About Eve, A Place in the Sun, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Double Indemnity, It Happened One Night, GWTW...the list goes on.

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amber-eyed-girl — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 14:36:56 GMT

You mentioned Flynn and Bette Davis...

She kiboshed him as Rhett Butler. He was seriously considered, and put forward as Rhett to Bette Davis, who was offered Scarlett.

She said "over my dead body".

Negotiations with her studio fell apart, she couldn't do Scarlett, but Errol was out of it.

I don't see her as Scarlett but all of America did.

I think Errol would have made a decent, but different Rhett.

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 14:50:39 GMT

@amber-eyed-girl wrote:
You mentioned Flynn and Bette Davis...

She kiboshed him as Rhett Butler. He was seriously considered, and put forward as Rhett to Bette Davis, who was offered Scarlett.

She said "over my dead body".

Negotiations with her studio fell apart, she couldn't do Scarlett, but Errol was out of it.

I don't see her as Scarlett but all of America did.

I think Errol would have made a decent, but different Rhett.

Oh, that's an old story Davis used to tell for decades to save face but it's not entirely accurate. She said Jack Warner bought her the rights to the book before she left for Europe to break her contract in 36. The truth is, Selznick optioned Mitchell's Gone With The Wind when it was still in galley form. All the major studios had dibs on it but there was no way a cheap-skate studio like Warners would pay the $50,000 asking price on an unpublished book. Only the independant Selznick studios risked it. Later when MGM would only loan out Gable for half the movie's gross profits, Selznick did consider Flynn for Rhett Butler and Warner offered Selznick a package deal with Davis thrown in as Scarlett, De Havilland as Melanie etc... but the truth is, Selznick didn't think Bette Davis had sex appeal, his same criticism of Katharine Hepburn in the role. Also, in 1938, Davis appeared in Jezebel which was more or less trying to cash in on the "hooped skirt" craze and while Jezebel is a great movie, Davis basically plays Scarlett O'Hara in that so she did her dash completely. Also, Gable refused to work with her. He like pretty co-stars and thought Davis was also difficult. No, I feel even if Davis had been cast, the moment Selznick clapped eyes on Vivien Leigh, it would have been all over red rover. Vivien Leigh is the only actress of the era who had the ability and energy of Bette Davis but also great beauty and sex appeal. She was basically Davis but better and Davis knew this. I am not a fan of Gable but I think he was good in the part. I can't imagine Flynn going to all of the trouble Butler did, for a girl. He would have left her in rags at Tara, impregnated Mammy and hitch-hiked a carriage out of there with the first handsome soldier 😉

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amber-eyed-girl — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 14:55:46 GMT

I know she said that about the rights and it weren't true...and it was to save face...but popular American opinion saw noone else as Scarlett...so Selznick, at a desperate and loose end, did go into talks...

Selznick didn't think she had the looks, but that she could act...but you are right, he never thought she was right.

But...everyone in America would have seen it for her...oh hang on a minute, they still went and saw it 🙂

I don't agree with you about Mammy. She wasn't svelte.

Hepburn would have been dire.

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:08:46 GMT

@amber-eyed-girl wrote:
I know she said that about the rights and it weren't true...and it was to save face...but popular American opinion saw noone else as Scarlett...so Selznick, at a desperate and loose end, did go into talks...

Selznick didn't think she had the looks, but that she could act...but you are right, he never thought she was right.

But...everyone in America would have seen it for her...oh hang on a minute, they still went and saw it 🙂

I don't agree with you about Mammy. She wasn't svelte.

Hepburn would have been dire.

Yes, over 50 percent of American audiences wanted Bette Davis to play Jezebel. In temperament she would have been perfect however I always felt, that despite her acting plaudits, she tended to exaggerate and ham her performances and Scarlett called for a sexy covertness that won over every man she met. Bette Davis couldn't help but create conflict on scren whereas Scarlett liked causing trouble behind the scenes. If memory serves, the first line of GWTW is "Scarlett O'Hara was not pretty." However her behaviour and the way every body reacts to her in the rest of the book belies that line so Selznick made the right choice. With Davis the film would have become a Bette Davis vehicle, as it would have with Joan Crawford, Lana Turner and every other star name of the time. I still think it was risky and very silly of Selznick to give the part to a virtual unknown - it could have been a disaster and it was just his luck he found Vivien Leigh was the perfect actress. Had anyone else played the part the movie would not hold the reverance it does today - casting is everything as implies to most classic films I guess. I couldn't imagine Vivien Leigh as Margo Channing in All About Eve either. (Incidentally, Davis was offered the stage role of Blanche du Bois and the film version before Vivien Leigh who won her second Oscar for the role)

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amber-eyed-girl — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:14:56 GMT

"Scarlet O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were."

Beautiful is different to pretty...she was described in the book in ways that would be pretty...the eyes, her figure, the way she used her dimples to good effect 🙂

and charm is the key. Vivien Leigh had the kittenish charm Scarlett had. Bette Davis didn't.

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:16:06 GMT

Oh, you just had to google the line and show me up didn't you!

In that case, the line could apply to Bette Davis and more so than to Leigh who was indisputedly beautiful. She's my favourite actress, who's yours?

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:17:57 GMT

I meant over 50 percent of audiences wanted Bette Davis to play Scarlett, you're right.

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amber-eyed-girl — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:26:57 GMT

I have the book you know! 🙂

and I knew it was beautiful...that kinda sticks 🙂

Well, can't imagine anyone else in the role.

OK.

Favorite actress...tough one.

I'd say either Vivien Leigh (who really could act) or Gene Tierney. She never overplayed a scene.

There's a scene in the Razor's Edge where the author is criticizing her lack of ethics and morals, essentially, and there's a line she says like "I thought that was the one thing you did like about me" referring to her beauty, and he capitulates...it's priceless.

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:34:15 GMT

Well, I haven't read the book since I was 15 (the dark ages) so cut me some slack! (although I also still have the book so there's no excuse)

I love Tierney in a technicolor movie, can't recall the title (what a surprise) where every single shot is so beautifully photographed, she looks stunning. There's a scene where she's rowing a boat on a lake giving a swimming lesson to a crippled boy who I believe is the son of her lover. Well she wants the boy out of her life and as he runs out of energy and starts drowning, she just sits there with this hardened look on her face. It was so chilling and I've never forgotten it. For a beautiful woman, she could really scare the *bleep* out of the audience at times.

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amber-eyed-girl — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:38:53 GMT

Or in Leave Her To Heaven, when she's in the rowboat watching the boy drown..that look in her eyes is chilling.

Edited here: Hey...that's one hell of a coincidence...you posted while I was typing the exact same thing!!

So now you know the name of the movie 🙂

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:40:11 GMT

Jeez, now that is chilling! Posted within seconds of eachother; we mention the same particular scene out of all her movies filled with iconic moments, which is coincidence enough and then happen to use the same adjective to describe it - we really are on the same page, aren't we?

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:47:13 GMT

Either that or we're both psychopaths.

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amber-eyed-girl — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:47:15 GMT

looks like it. I also like Olivia de Havilland, have you seen The Dark Mirror?

Favorite actors?

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:47:37 GMT

I recall listening to the commentary of Leave Her To Heaven where the actor who was the boy in the film describes how cruel Gene Tierney was to him in real life. He didn't mention it but apparently this was after she gave birth to the mentally disabled child. In a cruel irony, the boy actor would grow up and have a son who died when in his 20's.

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amber-eyed-girl — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:51:25 GMT

I always thought Agatha Christie taking that incident and writing a book around the revenge of a famous actress over a child, to be incredibly cruel.

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:54:38 GMT

@amber-eyed-girl wrote:
looks like it. I also like Olivia de Havilland, have you seen The Dark Mirror?

Favorite actors?

I LOVE de Havilland - I'm currently reading a 1980's biography on her and her sister Joan Fontaine's feud - really juicy stuff. I haven't seen The Dark Mirror, is it worth watching? I loved de Havilland in Dodge City and of course Robin Hood, also in her resurgence in the late 40's with The Snake Pit and To Have and To Hold. I even liked her 'horrors" in the 60's with Lady In a Cage and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (although I think Crawford would have been better). The only film I didn't like with Olivia was The Heiress.

My favourite actors are Errol Flynn, James Dean and Montgomery Clift. Yours?

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:54:11 GMT

Agreed, I read The Mirror Cracked, and saw the movie: I was surprised Elizabeth Taylor agreed to play the part.

Re: MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

amy030 — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:59:25 GMT

Oh and James Stewart is a fave 🙂