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April 9, 2006

Frankly, my dear, I'm #23

casablanca.jpg

The Writer's Guild West is following in AFI's listomania footsteps and come up with the 101 Greatest Screenplays. We won't keep you in suspense — #1 is everyone's favorite B-movie-made-good, Casablanca:

I'm not good at being noble, Ilsa -- But it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Not now. Here's looking at you kid.

OK, that's pretty good.

We love that LA is well represented in the top 10: Chinatown (#3) and Sunset Blvd. (#7). But it's also very NY: The Godfather (part 1 is #2, part II is #10) and Annie Hall (#6). And three top 10 films are so entertainment-focused they belong to both NY & LA: Citizen Kane (#4), All About Eve (#5) and Network (#8).

The list is chock full of good, quotable movies, like Gone With the Wind (#23). All of them are certainly worth watching, from #1 Casablanca all the way down to #101, Notorious — and since both star Ingrid Bergman, they'd make a nice double feature. Lists like these serve as reminders to see all those movies you've been meaning to get to (queue the Netflix!)

But we couldn't help notice that serious, grown-up movies beat out comedies, science fiction, action and horror. And while we know he's a good writer, should there really be 4 Woody Allen films on the list? We start playing the Missing Game:

- Jaws (#63) makes the list, but Carrie doesn't
- trickster script The Sixth Sense is #50, but there's no Blair Witch Project
- Amadeus (#73) makes it, but Dangerous Liaisons doesn't
- The Verdict ranks 91, but 12 Angry Men is missing
- Star Wars (#68) makes it, but 2001 doesn't

What would you add to the 101 greatest screenplays list?

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Comments (3) [rss]

This is absurd. Anyone who knows their "Casablnca" lore is aware that Julius J. Epstein and his writing partner (cannot recall his name just now) were rewriting the "Casblanca" screenplay day by day during production. In fact, Bogart and many of the other cast members complained openly that no one knew what the ending of the film was gong to be until they shot it.

 

Sweet Jesus, how many times can I mistype the word "Casablanca"?

Answer: Twice, apparently.

 

Lame, where is Donald Westlake's script for The Grifters?

 
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