The heart-stopping hundred

The American Film Institute, last week, published the results of a nation-wide poll to rank the 100 most thrilling films made in the U.S. ANAND PARTHASARATHY takes a nostalgic dive into the list of `fright flicks' and nail-biters.

IT'S A crime when gems are made and then no one sees them again, just two years later,'' says Janet Leigh. That is not a fate likely to overtake the film that ranks as her personal 'number one': the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic, ``Psycho'' where her appearance in the brief ``shower sequence'' is one of cinema's most heart-stopping sequences.

``I still don't take showers - that's the truth!'' Ms. Leigh adds. Last week a whole new generation began checking out why - all over again, as the American Film Institute (AFI) released its list ranking the 100 most thrilling films of all time, as part of a two-hour television special in the U.S. which drew a viewership of over 11 million. Selected by a nationwide jury of 1,800 film stars, directors, screenplay writers, cinematographers, stunt artistes and film executives, the AFI list is now an annual ritual that began three years ago to mark the centenary of the cinematic art. The first list of 100 top movies (No. 1: ``Citizen Kane''), was followed by 100 Stars (Male No. 1: Humphrey Bogart; female No. 1: Katherine Hepburn) and 100 Laughs (No. 1: ``Some Like It Hot'').

The new list ``Hundred years..hundred thrills'', was restricted to full length English language films made substantially with American financial or creative inputs - in other words it's a heartpounding

`Hollywood Hundred' of thrills, spills and some gasping nail- biters.

Hitchcock's ``Psycho'' leads the list, and the master of the macabre is also the most represented director, with nine of his films including three in the `top ten': the two others are the Cary Grant-Eva Marie Saint thriller ``North By North West'' and ``Birds'', Hitchcock's Americanisation of Daphne Du Maurier's short story, ``The Birds'', which starred Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren. Ms. Saint recalled last week, that the scene in ``The Birds'' when the feathered fiends finally gather to attack Ms. Hedren is the most terrifying she has seen - outclassing her own slippery climax on the slopes of Mount Rushmore. ``When a film scares you that much, it stays with you,'' she told Associated Press.Other out-and-out ``fright flicks'' include pure horror products like ``Rosemary's Baby'' (No. 9), the 1968 film featuring a terrified Mia Farrow; that all-time scary product, ``The Exorcist'' (No. 3), that came three years later and the film that launched sci fi horror, Seventies style, ``Alien'' (No. 6). Interestingly the two sequels of ``Alien'' do not make the list - indeed audiences in general have shunned sequels and the only one in the AFI ranking is ``Terminator 2'', which outclassed the original by ratcheting up the Arnold Schwarzenegger role with some pathbreaking ``morphing'' effects.

The CBS television programme on June 12, which introduced the highlights of the list, was anchored by Harrison Ford - an actor who is represented by no less than four films.The only other star with four films in the list is Claude Rains who has been in the business from the 1939 ``Adventures of Robin Hood'' to the 1962 ``Lawrence of Arabia'' (with ``Casablanca'' and ``Notorious'' en route). The earliest film in the ranking is that silent classic of 1923 ``Safety Last'', where Harold Lloyd, provides a literally cliff hanging finale at the top of a sky scraper. The most recent is Manoj Night Shyamalan's psycho-analytical 1999 film ``The Sixth Sense.''

The thriller in this countdown emerges as a very ``male thing'' -amidst the hunky high jinks of a Gene Hackman unravelling ``The French Connection'', a Robert Shaw hunting down ``Jaws''; or a Mel Gibson leading the Scots as ``Braveheart'' - women rarely stand a chance. There are exceptions: No. 55 is ``Wait Until Dark'' - Audrey Hepburn's finest, albeit sightless, hour; and ``Thelma and Louise'' (No. 76), surely proved that Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis were a match for any pair of macho males when it came to holding together a ``road movie''.

Many of the films are thrillers only in a very wide sense: what about a classic melodrama like ``Casablanca'' (No. 37) or an archetype ``kidpix'' like ``The Wizard of Oz'' (No. 43)? War films are well represented and include such favourites as ``The Bridge on the River Kwai'' (No. 58), ``The Guns of Navarone'' (No. 89) and ``The Dirty Dozen'' (No. 65).The ``Western'' comes off well - with Gary Cooper's personal best, ``High Noon'' leading at No. 20 and that Steve MacQueen-Yul Brynner entertainer of the 1960s, ``The Magnificent Seven'' at No. 79. ``Ben Hur'' was memorable cinema - but a ``thriller''? The AFI disarms such criticism by saying that its criterion was ``regardless of genre, the total adrenaline-inducing impact of a film's artistry and craft.'' Adds, the Institute's director, Ms. Jean Picker Firstenburg: ``Each of the genres can affect you with the same emotional response - which is, that your heart races!''

By that generous yardstick, AFI's thrilling hundred is one endless nostalgic ride back into Hollywood's best and brightest moments:

- ``Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship''... the last spoken words in ``Casablanca'', as Bogie and Claude Rains, walk away into the fog.

- ``Mr Bond... Once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence... three times is enemy action''... ``Goldfinger'' sizing up Sean Connery/007.

- ``Madness! Madness!''... The only sane man in ``The Bridge on The River Kwai'', the camp doctor, played by James Donald, delivering the epitaph over a shattered bridge at the film's final moment.

- ``We've got to think beyond our guns... those days are closing fast!'' - William Holden signaling the end of the Old West in ``The Wild Bunch''.

- ``Last night I went to Manderley again'' - Joan Fontaine's opening words as she recalls the horror that was ``Rebecca''.

- ``As I grow old, this picture will always remain young!'' - Hurd Hatfield in ``The Picture of Dorian Gray'' ... He could have said the same about most of the pictures in AFI's fond recollection of a thrilling century in Cinema.

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