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Reminder that lists are due “today,” which means no later than when I wake up tomorrow (let’s say 9 AM EST)

Voting closed. I won’t be able to tabulate til later today, so don’t refresh this thread like mad til then unless you just like refreshing pages

I think only congressmen are allowed to continually refresh pages.

I'm very curious- how many lists did we get for this one, domino?

27. Second best turnout overall for an Auteur list, just beating Allen but still far behind Hitchcock

Wow, that's heartening, thanks

Surprising indeed. Let's hope the trend continues for Hawks.

Not surprised. A very accessible, well known director, whose films everyone has a favourite and starting point with.

I think doing Godard, Ford and Renoir together possibly cost those ones also delivering well. Hawks will struggle to do 27, but hopefully gets 20+.

I was a little bummed this morning to see Hawks pop up next, for some reason I had thought Kurosawa was FINALLY on deck, but looks like I got the years mixed up. :-p AK may not outperform Hitchcock, but he should post the next best numbers, I'd imagine.

I doubt that very much, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

I caught up with Fedora for this project, and I thought it was very nearly excellent, I particularly liked how the Fedora character composited from Garbo, Bergman and Young (European but retired and became a recluse, European but "abandoned" her first child to pursue her career, had a secret child out of wedlock), but felt it seriously dropped the ball beyond that sketch. The pivot 'surprise' reveal (no not the one obvious from twenty minutes in, the one that absolves the bad guys of culpability) was especially frustrating, because it takes the long systemic Hollywood history of controlling female stars with drugs and crooked studio doctors, and denies it by reversing it.

The film has a lot going for it, lots of fascinating stuff about image making, the star system, women's place in it, the burdens and stressors put on women to stay young (all cleverly contrasted with an image of Holden crafted to appear ancient in his opening scenes), but very little within the film seems to work, the performances are good, the dialog occasionally superb, but just as often lands stiffly, and the film feels like it's pulling its punches rather than following through with anything. It's like a double indemnity without the reveal of why Macmurry is shot, or a sunset blvd with no murder and staircase scene at all--the film just lacks an oomph in its ending and a point to its plotting.

I argued earlier that these flaws actually make the film work by negating objective truth and forming new truths from our subjective desires. In that way, I could see that "reversal" that bothered you as a strength in women swapping genders into reclaiming that position of power in this fantasy bubble! Though since I don't take the film seriously beyond a very self-conscious and reflexive work, the specifics of the plot are about as significant as making concrete meaning out of details in a Freudian dream. I love the film, but concede it has its problems which reinforce my love for it as the very reasons for that passion, and I'm very aware that my reading is kind of ridiculous at worst or near-impossible to explain clearly at best.

Fun fact while we wait: I miscounted as I nearly missed TWBB's ballot, which I put it in the wrong PM folder. So 28 lists! Result within the hour, I think. The efforts of the first submitters to skew the results were highly nullified by the subsequent lists, but I'll take more voices over less any day, even if some of you are wild in a fun way!

THE BILLY WILDER LIST

01 the Apartment (1960) 25 (14)
02 Sunset Blvd (1950) 23 (2)
03 Double Indemnity (1944) 21 (3)
04 Ace in the Hole (1951) 21 (2)
05 Some Like It Hot (1959) 17 (2)

06 Sabrina (1954) 21 (1)
07 Ball of Fire (1941) 13
08 the Lost Weekend (1945) 13
08 Stalag 17 (1953) 12
10 Midnight (1939) 10

11 Witness for the Prosecution (1957) 11 (1)
12 One, Two, Three (1961) 9 (1)
13 Irma La Douce (1963) 10
14 Ninotchka (1939) 10 (1)
15 Avanti! (1972) 7

16 Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) 6
17 Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938) 5
17 Hold Back the Dawn (1941) 8
19 Five Graves to Cairo (1943) 7
20 the Major and the Minor (1942) 6

# of ballots, out of 28 total (# of ballots with film ranked first)

ALSO RANS
A Foreign Affair / Menschen am Sonntag / the Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1) / the Spirit of St Louis / Arise, My Love / the Fortune Cookie / the Seven-Year Itch

ORPHANS
Emil und die Detektive, the Front Page, Love in the Afternoon

Danke schön!

Thanks as usual, domino! Glad to see us squares were able to pull this thing back in the direction of the acknowledged classics...

Thanks, domino!

I'm really curious, since 3 didn't include The Apartment and 5 didn't include Sunset if anyone excluded both from their list...

swo, did you throw on Emil und die Detektive or is there a third silent partner? I really wish I had included it. Oh well, next Wilder list

Thank you as always domino.

therewillbeblus wrote: Mon Jun 01, 2020 10:26 pm swo, did you throw on Emil und die Detektive or is there a third silent partner? I really wish I had included it. Oh well, next Wilder list

I ended up including it after all:

01 The Apartment (1960)
02 Midnight (1939)
03 Irma la Douce (1963)
04 One, Two, Three (1961)
05 Sunset Blvd. (1950)
06 Sabrina (1954)
07 Some Like It Hot (1959)
08 Emil and the Detectives (1931)
09 The Major and the Minor (1942)
10 The Lost Weekend (1945)

Thanks domino! As always, your work keeping these list projects going is much appreciated

1. The Apartment
2. Irma la Douce
3. Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife
4. Sabrina
5. Kiss Me, Stupid
6. Hold Back the Dawn
7. Ace in the Hole
8. Five Graves to Cairo
9. The Lost Weekend
10. Ninotchka

I guess the first four were a foregone conclusion, but the question was the order. Really surprised at seeing the Hawks film ranking so high!

Thanks for the nth time Domino!

1. Double Indemnity
2. Stalag 17
3. Hold Back the Dawn
4. The Major and the Minor
5. The Spirit of St. Louis
6. The Apartment
7. The Lost Weekend
8. Ace in the Hole
9. Ninotchka
10. Sunset Boulevard

For the record, none of the first I think eight lists had the Apartment listed first. Then almost all of them did!

Mine did, but it was in the wrong folder so, like Schrödinger's apartment, it both did and didn't exist

Believe it or not, you weren’t one of the first eight lists. I played this close to the vest to inspire more participation but we had a lot of lists well before deadline (notice how this is the one list I didn’t bring doom and gloom Predix into!). Also fun fact: almost none of the later lists had Some Like it Hot, and since I tabulate in reverse order, I thought it’d barely register on the list til reality seeped in