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Sunday 8 November 2009

Classics in the making

Am I the only person in the western hemisphere who's never been able to sit through the whole of "Gone With the Wind"? (What a relief to discover it didn't make it into Pete Hoskin's choice of 50 essential films.) Molly Haskell, on the other hand, is a devotee, as she demonstrates in her new book, reviewed in the TLS. I can't say I'm surprised to learn that Max Steiner was ordered to  “just go mad with schmaltz in the last three reels".  Only the last three? Re Pete's choice of Number One, I enjoyed "The Night of the Hunter" when I first saw it (Robert Mitchum is wonderful) but when I watched it again recently Charles Laughton's artful direction seemed unbearably distracting. Which is, I suppose, a criticism some people make of "Citizen Kane", a movie I never get tired of seeing. Much as I like "The Magnificent Ambersons", I can't agree that it deserves the higher rating. (The novel is much richer.) But having your blood pressure raised is half the fun of these lists.

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