Great screenplay, an extinct art?

A SURVEY carried out earlier this month among the 4,500 members of the Writers Guild of America which represents almost all of Hollywood's screenwriters, has helped a leading publisher shortlist the 10 greatest film scripts ever. The result has thrown up some ``hardy annuals'' which pop up regularly in the listings of memorable movies - but there are some surprises.

The non-profit publishers, `Library of America', hope to use the list to publish an anthology of all-time great movie scripts. The top rated screenplay (the survey was limited to English language American films) is Orson Welles' 1941 opus, ``Citizen Kane'', still considered one of the most innovative products to emerge out of the Hollywood system. Welles who directed and also played the lead role of the megalomaniac newspaper tycoon, Kane, shared the writing credit with Herman Mankiewicz. A close second is that quintessential 1940s action melodrama, ``Casablanca'', whose scripts bristled with corny lines that would have been forgotten if handled by a lesser cast than Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and a director less experienced at clothing hokum, like Michael Curtiz.

The 1950s are well represented with three films including two scripted by Billy Wilder: the elegiac 1950 film, ``Sunset Boulevard'', about an ageing actress played by Gloria Swanson and the 1959 comedy, ``Some Like It Hot!'', where Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon impersonate women and join a troupe including Marilyn Monroe to escape from the Mafia. The situation led to classic exchanges like:

``Have I got things to tell you! I am engaged!''

``Who's the lucky girl?''

``I am''

The only 1960s film in the top ten, is one that defined that decade and launched Dustin Hoffman's acting career: Mike Nichol's ``The Graduate''. The super naivete of the young graduate is typified by one of the film's memorable lines, as he discovers he is being expertly seduced by an older woman played by Anne Bancroft: ``Mrs. Robinson, if you don't mind my saying so, this conversation is getting a little strange.''

For the 1970s, ``The Godfather'' and its sequel ``Godfather II'' both make the list - at number 3 and 10 - a rare achievement for novelist Mario Puzo and director Francis Ford Coppola who collaborated on the screenplay and won Oscars both times. Indeed every film in the `ten' with the exception of ``The Graduate'' won a screenplay Academy Award.

The survey also asked those polled to nominate film scripts which were in their opinion grossly overrated. The responses included ``Gone With The Wind'' - and last year's multiple Oscar-winning Chinese film, ``Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.'' Revealingly, the top two films in the Best Ten - ``Citizen Kane'' and ``Casablanca'' were also cited by many respondents as overrated. Indeed, ``Casablanca'' co-writer Howard Koch, reminisced in recent years that were he to submit such a cliche-ridden dialogue today he would be drummed out of the business.

The complex mystery of ``Chinatown'', with Jack Nicholson playing a 1930s Los Angeles detective, won an Oscar for its finely structured original screenplay by Robert Towne, which made this a classic `film noire'. The 1970s are rounded off by Woody Allen's finest film to date: ``Annie Hall'' - which he as usual, acted in, wrote and directed, by himself.

Interestingly, the 1977 ``Annie Hall' is the most recent film in the list - which means, the screenplay writers polled, many of whom turn out what passes for scripts in today's action-heavy spectaculars, consider all screenplays during the last quarter century (including their own) unworthy of mention.

* * *

The all-time greatest

1. ``Citizen Kane'' (1941); screenplay: Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles (Academy Award).

2. Casablanca (1942); screenplay: Julius J.Epstein; Philip J. Epstein and Howard Koch (Academy Award).

3. The Godfather (1972); screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo (Academy Award).

4. Chinatown (1974); screenplay: Robert Towne (Academy Award).

5. All About Eve (1950); screenplay: Joseph L. Mankiewicz (Academy Award).

6. Some Like It Hot (1959); screenplay: Billy Wilder (Academy Award).

7. Sunset Boulevard (1950); screenplay: Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett (Academy Award).

8. Annie Hall (1977); screenplay: Woody Allen (Academy Award).

9. The Graduate (1967); screenplay: Buck Henry and Calder Willingham.

10. The Godfather Part II (1974); screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo (Academy Award).

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