50 years ago: My Fair Lady, one of Broadway and Hollywood's most successful musicals

My Fair Lady Released: December 25, 1964 Studio: Warner Bros. Genre: musical/romance/comedy Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 72.00 Worldwide: ? Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: 589.27 Worldwide: 1015.95

Directing: George Cukor Screenwriting: Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe Starring: Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Gladys Cooper, Theodore Bikel Review: Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe crafted one of Broadway’s most successful musicals of all time out of George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion and then adapted the screenplay to be one of Hollywood’s most successful films of all time. Rex Harrison repeated his Tony Award-winning Broadway performance of Henry Higgins, an arrogant linguistics professor, for the screen and was awarded again, this time with an Oscar for Best Actor. He bets he can transform Eliza Doolittle (Hepburn), “a lowly, unrefined flower girl into a sophisticated, elite woman,” VD “just by teaching her to speak properly.” A98 Higgins ends up falling for his street-urchin-pupil-turned-proper-lady by the end. The ”lushly produced” VD is marked by “terrific tunes” VD including “I Could Have Danced All Night,” and “Wouldn’t It Be Lovely,” and “The Rain in Spain.” Sources: A98 American Film Institute (1998). “AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies” A07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition” VD Video Detective (1997). “Top 100 Films of All Time”

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Genre Lists: Box Office: Oscars: Wins: 8 – including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Harrison), Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Score, Best Color Costume Design Nominations: 12 – including Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Holloway), Best Supporting Actress (Cooper), Best Film Editing Other Awards: Other Lists/Honors: First posted 5/29/2023.

 

50 years ago: Mary Poppins, the “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious musical fantasy,” released

Mary Poppins Released: August 26, 1964 Studio: Disney Genre: musical/fantasy/comedy Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 102.27 Worldwide: -- Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: 887.80 Worldwide: 1511.80

Directing: Robert Stevenson Screenwriting: Bill Walsh, Don DaGradi Starring: Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke Review: “This supercalifragilisticexpialidocious musical fantasy” A07 “is proof of how childhood films can be a wonderful salve as you grow into an adult.” RF “There’s charm, wit, and movie magic to spare in Walt Disney’s adaptation of P.L. Travers’s book about a ‘practically perfect’ nanny who brings profound change to the Banks family of London, circa 1910.” LM The movie “introduced Andrews to film history as the magical nanny who…arrives at the home of Jane and Michael Banks via umbrella and teaches them that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” A07 Dick Van Dyke “is equally good as Bert, the whimsical jack of all trades). That’s Jane Darwell, in her last screen appearance, as the bird lady.” LM Sources: A07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition” LM Leonard Maltin “100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century” RF Refinery29.com (2/8/2023). “101 Best Movies of All Time” by Alexandra Koster

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Box Office: Awards: Oscars: Wins: 5 – Best Actress (Andrews), Best Film Editing, Best Special Visual Effects, Best Original Song (“Chim Chim Cher-ee”), Best Substantially Original Score Nominations: 13 – including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art/Set Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Scoring of Music Lists: Experts’ Picks: Genre Lists: First posted 6/11/2023.

   

Hollywood Reporter: “Hollywood’s 100 Favorite Films”

Originally posted 7/28/2019.

Here’s what it says on their website about the making of this list: “Who better to judge the best movies of all time than the people who make them? Studio chiefs, Oscar winners and TV royalty all were surveyed as THR publishes its first definitive entertainment-industry ranking of cinema's most superlative.” Here is the top 100 list:

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1. The Godfather (1972)
2. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
3. Citizen Kane (1941)
4. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
5. Pulp Fiction (1994)
6. Casablanca (1942)
7. The Godfather Part II (1974)
8. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
9. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
10. Schindler’s List (1993)

11. Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
12. Back to the Future (1985)
13. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
14. Forrest Gump (1994)
15. Gone with the Wind (1939)
16. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
17. Apocalypse Now (1979)
18. Annie Hall (1977)
19. Goodfellas (1990)
20. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

21. Chinatown (1974)
22. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
23. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
24. Jaws (1975)
25. The Sound of Music (1965)
26. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
27. The Breakfast Club (1985)
28. The Graduate (1967)
29. Blade Runner (1982)
30. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

31. The Princess Bride (1987)
32. Star Wars – Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
33. Fargo (1996)
34. American Beauty (1999)
35. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
36. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
37. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
38. When Harry Met Sally (1989)
39. The Shining (1980)
40. Fight Club (1999)

41. Psycho (1960)
42. Alien (1979)
43. Toy Story (1995)
44. The Matrix (1999)
45. Titanic (1997)
46. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
47. Some Like It Hot (1959)
48. The Usual Suspects (1995)
49. Rear Window (1954)
50. Jurassic Park (1993)

51. The Big Lebowski (1998)
52. All About Eve (1950)
53. Good Will Hunting (1997)
54. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
55. Taxi Driver (1976)
56. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
57. The Dark Knight (2008)
58. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
59. Thelma & Louise (1991)
60. Amélie (Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain) (2001)

61. West Side Story (1961)
62. North by Northwest (1959)
63. Groundhog Day (1993)
64. Mary Poppins (1964)
65. Raging Bull (1980)
66. The Lion King (1994)
67. Avatar (2009)
68. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
69. Gladiator (2000)
70. Vertigo (1958)

71. Almost Famous (2000)
72. Young Frankenstein (1974)
73. All the President’s Men (1976)
74. Blazing Saddles (1974)
75. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
76. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
77. Ghostbusters (1984)
78. 12 Angry Men (1957)
79. Wall-E (2008)
80. On the Waterfront (1954)

81. Amadeus (1984)
82. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
83. Die Hard (1988)
84. Inception (2010)
85. Se7en (1995)
86. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
87. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
88. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
89. Braveheart (1995)
90. Memento (2001)

91. Rocky (1976)
92. Up (2009)
93. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
94. The Deer Hunter (1978)
95. Doctor Zhivago (1965)
96. Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) (2006)
97. Airplane! (1980)
98. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
99. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
100. The Seven Samurai (Shichinin No Samurai) (1954)

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Resources:

• Hollywood Reporter (6/25/2014). “ Hollywood’s 100 Favorite Films”

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Dr. Strangelove released 50 years ago today

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Released: January 29, 1964 Studio: Columbia Genre: black comedy Box Office (numbers in millions) Domestic: 9.44 Worldwide: ? Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: 88.00 Worldwide: ?

Directing: Stanley Kubrick Screenwriting: Peter George, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern Starring: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens Review: “Perhaps Kubrick’s most perfectly realized film,” T95 Dr. Strangelove is a “classic, cynical Cold War, satirical black comedy.” FS The “sparkling script” T95 by Terry Southern was based on Red Alert, a novel by Peter George. “Blasted and praised when it was released,” TV the movie “remains unchallenged as cinema’s most devastating attack on the military mind.” TV It is “far more effective in its portrait of insanity and call for disarmament than any number of worthy anti-nuke documentaries.” T95 The “scathing humor” FS “is hyperbolic but dead-on accurate about the various species of crazed extremists who handled the Bomb.” ML The movie “contains some of the funniest scenes ever filmed,” VD including “the memorable bucking bronco image of Major Kong (Pickens) riding the fatal bomb,” FS “Sellers’ phone conversation with Soviet premier is classic,” LM and lines like, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.” A07 There are “timeless performances” FS helmed by a “brilliant cast…headed by an inspired Peter Sellers playing three roles – the eggheaded U.S. president, a stiff-upper-lip RAF captain and the wheelchair-bound,” TV “twisted, black-gloved German rocket scientist, Dr. Strangelove.” FS Sterling Hayden is “a crazed, psychotic US general Jack D. Ripper [who]…sparks a nuclear crisis with a pre-emptive strike against ‘the Commies’” FS and George C. Scott is “gung ho military brass Gen. Buck Turgidson.” FS The movie “nearly ended in a pie fight between the Americans and the Russians. That's why there’s a massive food table in The War Room. But…Kubrick felt it ‘too farcical,’ detracting from the satire. The pie scene found its way to a screening at London’s National Film Theatre in 1999. MSN Sources: A07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition” FS Filmsite.org “100 Greatest Films” LM Leonard Maltin “100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century” ML Movieline (Dec. 1995). “100 Best Movies Ever Made” by Virginia Campbell and Edward Margulies MSN MSN Entertainment (7/19/2018). “100 Best Movies” by Shahnaz Mahmud T95 Time Out (1995). “Centenary Top One Hundred Films” TV TV Guide (August 8-14, 1998 issue). “50 Greatest Movies on TV and Video” VD Video Detective (1997). “Top 100 Films of All Time”

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Genre Lists: Awards: Oscars: Wins: 0 Nominations: 4 – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Sellers), Best Adapted Screenplay Other Lists/Honors: Critics’ Picks: Roger Ebert Leslie Halliwell/John Walker Leonard Maltin First posted 8/15/2019; last updated 6/5/2023.