Top Ten Anniversary: All-Time Favorite Movies

List number five in our ongoing series is my (hard-pressed to whittle down) grouping of all-time favorite films. I don't say that they are the best (whatever that is), but they are the ones that have had the most significant and lasting impact on my life and are movies that I cannot turn off if I come upon them on television (when I'm not scheduling a viewing of my own in their entirety.) Even considering that I love all these, there was an attempt to provide a bit of variety (rather than, for example, merely listing ten disaster movies, which are always huge favorites for me.) There's also knowing that some other choices get coverage in other categories so that they aren't totally left out. These are presented alphabetically.

AIRPORT (1970) -- I never liked my stepmother much, but the one good thing she did in the late-1980s was steer me towards this movie. I was instantly in love with it. From the overall look and style to the multi-layered, star-packed story lines, which all come together at once in the climax, it's just a dream movie to me. I think I love every performance in it, though Lloyd Nolan as a curmudgeonly security agent does wear me out a bit and I always find Barry Nelson dull. The females especially (Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, Helen Hayes, Maureen Stapleton and Dana Wynter) each made me into lifelong fans after this. Then there is the wondrously bombastic music by the staggeringly gifted Alfred Newman.

GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) -- It doesn't matter to me at all that this is probably found on many peoples' lists (or that a number of people hate it.) It's just a stunning piece of cinema, especially considering the year in which it was made. That costar Olivia de Havilland is still kicking blows my mind. Producer David O. Selznick (half crazed/obsessed with details) helped forge a masterpiece that could never be equaled in terms of resources used. (One southerner remarked about the train station sequence that if they'd had that many soldiers in the Confederacy, the South would have won the war!) Vivien Leigh's performance is towering... everything anyone could have hoped for in crafting that complex character. Max Steiner's music is unforgettable, too.

MADAME X (1966) -- This could easily have found its way onto the list of Guilty Pleasures, but I feel no guilt about it! Very likely Lana Turner's finest hour as an actress, the glossy, campy melodrama of mother love is nevertheless affecting. She goes all the way to put this thing across. She's ably supported by a rondolet of solid, familiar actors, though the reptilian villainy of Constance Bennett is the most arresting to behold. After seeing this as a child on TV, I knew that any time I saw the name Ross Hunter (producer) on a film, I was more than likely going to adore it... I also learned to get excited if Frank Skinner was behind the score. If I show this movie to someone and they dislike it, the friendship can never progress any further than it has come to that point. Sorry, but that's the way it is!

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) --Probably no other movie had as much an impact on me as this one. I could never add up the number of times I've seen it, though I typically make myself wait a year in-between these days (with a NYE viewing) so that I don't lose that feeling of seeing it fresh once more. Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine are boisterous in the extreme, albeit very good, but my real faves are Stella Stevens (who taught me to cuss) and Shelley Winters (who taught me to cry.) I have never been on a cruise ship because I couldn't imagine any such voyage measuring up to the topsy-turvy thrills of this film. Truth! Many a bored afternoon at relative's houses was spent lying on my back and staring at the ceiling, wondering how it would be to walk on it if the room were upside down! Like most of the films here, this contains a terrific score, in this case courtesy of John Williams.

THE SEARCHERS (1956) -- My stepfather (with whom I was almost as combative as I was with my stepmother!) is the one who turned me on to this movie at an early age. If this isn't John Wayne's best performance ever, it's damned close as he eschews that wry, in-charge, winking characterization which made him famous and instead presents a driven, almost devastated avenger, searching for a niece who was captured by a terrifying Indian chief named Scar (played by the impressive Henry Brandon.) Enhancing the film are eye-popping shots of Monument Valley, a feisty supporting part from Vera Miles and the rugged yet beautiful charms of one Jeffrey Hunter. That a young Natalie Wood makes a climactic appearance only adds to the fun. Director John Ford truly nailed this one (the final tap being a famed shot of Wayne surrounded by a door frame, still an outsider.)

THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) -- The first movie I can ever recall seeing in a cinema, its charms have never left me. The opening scenes of Austria are so luscious and the film only gets better from there with memorable songs, soothing colors and charming performances from a perfect Julie Andrews, a surprisingly sexy Christopher Plummer and the peerlessly elegant Eleanor Parker as a potential spoiler of their budding (and slightly forbidden) romantic feelings. Practically every number was staged in just the right way with just the right locations. Former editor Robert Wise's direction of a sterling Ernest Lehman adaptation ensured staggering success, artistically and financially. Irwin Kostal took the R&H songs and crafted a beautifully orchestrated score.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1958) -- Producer-director Cecil B. DeMille had built a career around elaborate historic and Biblical spectacles and this one (his last as director) was the pièce de résistance. A monumental undertaking, he gathered up a stunning collection of performers to enact the early and middle-aged life of Moses (with Charlton Heston starring, who never looked better than in the opening scenes, and perhaps rarely sillier than in the later ones!) Yul Brynner and Anne Baxter (along with half of Hollywood!) lend more than able support. Virtually every role is played by a familiar and wonderful face. It's unintentionally hilarious time and again, but its striking passion, vivid color and series of effects cannot be denied. Newcomer Elmer Bernstein worked on the movie's majestic musical themes.

THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) -- All my life The Poseidon Adventure was my favorite disaster movie with Inferno a close second, but now they are almost neck-and neck as my appreciation for the mammoth production and the stellar cast has grown over the years. Regardless of the fact that the place practically burns down, the movie presents a glamorous, scenic setting in which I want to exist! Steve McQueen and Paul Newman are rock solid anchors for the famous cast, while the languidly goddess-like Faye Dunaway altered the course of my life in her barely-there gossamer gown and bronzed cheekbones. I never get into a scenic elevator without clasping my hands the way she does. (#crazy) John Williams offered up another terrific score. 

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967) -- Talk about a world I want to live in! Dolls ticks off almost every box for a movie to me (it only fails in having no men that I am in any way attracted to.) I love the way it looks, the way it sounds (even the often-rotten songs!) and the squalid route of its thoroughly over-the-top storyline. Barbara Parkins is a whispering dream girl, Patty Duke makes one excellent shrew and Sharon Tate is lovely beyond words (and heinously underrated as an actress.) But my real thrill comes by way of dragon lady Susan Hayward (in for a swiftly-fired Judy Garland) whose every line is a thing of camp beauty, none ever so much as when she is taking on Duke in the ladies room of a banquet hall. A close friend of mine called this movie "boring" once and it took ages to forgive her (if I even actually have...!)

VERTIGO (1958) -- I worship and adore The Birds (1963) and it was really close to edging out Vertigo, but ultimately I had to acknowledge the mesmerizing, mysterious masterwork of the great Alfred Hitchcock. I can never forget seeing this movie for the first time after it had been out of circulation for years. The effect of someone looking and sounding like Kim Novak's Madeleine was a revelation to my teenaged mind. (And it almost ruined me for anything else Novak did by comparison!) It's also neat to see James Stewart in an atypical part as an obsessed, haunted man. There isn't enough I can say about Bernard Herrmann's superlative musical score, which takes the whole thing to another level. (It's clear from this list that the music in a movie means a lot to me in general.) 

BONUS PICS!

There's no one like Julie Andrews. This was one of the many promotional photos taken of her for The Sound of Music, only one of which made its way onto the back of the soundtrack album.

I love this one, too. Even now, she's such a lovely, gracious and sensationally appealing person. 

Jeffrey Hunter (on the set of The Searchers with Ward Bond) has a set of beefy pecs that follow me around the room no matter where I stand! LOL He was just glorious looking and one of Hollywood's most consistently underrated actors.