In a battle up to the very end, The Big Sleep nudged out Rio Bravo, 111 to 105. That 111 points was just 10 shy of the record set by Vertigo back in the Top 5 Hitchcock Films week.
Coming in third was His Girl Friday with 89 points, followed by Red River with 64 and finally Bringing Up Baby (the straight out funniest movie I have ever seen) with 54.
The most noticeable thing this week was the dominance of the top two films, and really, most voting was for what became the eventual (and inevitable?) top eight films (including Scarface, Only Angels Have Wings & To Have and Have Not). Out of 180 votes received, 159 were for those aforementioned eight films.
Anyway, that's it for this week. The Top 5 Project will be taking a two week vacation, but not to worry, it will be back with all new top 5 topics sooner than you can blink an ey....
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Individual lists:
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Albert H. Muth
Auteurophile
The Big Sleep (1946)
Rio Bravo (1959)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
His Girl Friday (1940)
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Jonathan Rosenbaum
Film Critic
Author, Essential Cinema, Movie Mutations and many many others
Rio Bravo (1959)
The Big Sky (1952)
Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Scarface (1932)
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David Sterritt
Chairman, National Society of Film Critics
His Girl Friday (1940)
Scarface (1932)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Red River (1948)
Man's Favorite Sport? (1964)
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Chris Fujiwara
Film Critic & Editor, Undercurrent
Author, Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall
Rio Bravo (1959)
His Girl Friday (1940)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Man's Favorite Sport? (1964)
Hatari! (1962)
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Carrie Rickey
Film Critic, Philadelphia Inquirer
Red River (1948)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Monkey Business (1952)
Scarface (1932)
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David Ehrenstein
Film Critic &
Entertainment Writer
Author, Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928-1998
Rio Bravo (1959)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Hatari! (1962)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Land of the Pharoahs (1955)
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Jeffrey M. Anderson
Film Critic, Cinematical.com, Las Vegas Weekly,
San Jose Metro, Combustible Celluloid.com
Rio Bravo (1959)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
His Girl Friday (1940)
With honorable mentions for the alternately brilliant and abrasive Scarface (1932), the deep-focused screwball genius of Ball of Fire (1941) and the long, inexplicably refreshing Hatari! (1962) -- the ultimate summer movie.
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Christopher Null
Film Critic &
Founder, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Filmcritic.com
Rio Bravo (1959)
The Big Sleep (1946)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
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Erik Childress
Film Critic, efilmcritic.com
His Girl Friday (1940)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Red River (1948)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
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J.E. Snavely
Home Theatre Cinephile
The Big Sleep (1946)
The Thing From Another World (1951)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
To Have And Have Not (1944)
Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953)
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David Oppedisano
Film Critic and Researcher
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
His Girl Friday (1940)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Ball of Fire (1941)
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Peter Sobczynski
Film Critic, eFilmCritic.com
Rio Bravo (1959)
The Thing From Another World (1951)
Scarface (1932)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
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Michael Parent
Film Student
Rio Bravo (1959)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Red River (1948)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Scarface (1932)
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Adam Trovillion
Film Enthusiast
The Big Sleep (1946)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Red River (1948)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
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Jeff Cardarelli
Film Enthusiast
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Red River (1948)
Rio Lobo (1970)
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Doug Pratt
DVD Critic, DVDLaser.com
El Dorado (1966)
The Big Sleep (1946)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
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Matt Severson
Film Enthusiast
& Photograph Department Supervisor, Margaret Herrick Library
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Rio Bravo (1959)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
His Girl Friday (1940)
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Andrew Horbal
Film Enthusiast
Rio Bravo (1959)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Red River (1948)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
His Girl Friday (1940)
I've seen 12 Hawks films including The Thing From Another World, but I've never seen any of them on the big screen, so I decided to choose my favorites based on which of these 12 films I'd most like to see on 35mm at a Pittsburgh theater. Bringing Up Baby is #6 on this list and I Was a Male War Bride, the first Hawks film that ever I saw (on TCM when I was in high school), is #7 for sentimental reasons.
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Kevin Cassidy
Film Enthusiast
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Air Force (1943)
Scarface (1932)
Red River (1948)
Rio Bravo (1959)
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Mathew Viola
Film Enthusiast
I thank The Cinematheque for giving me an excuse to immerse myself in Hawks films all week. However, I also curse The Cinematheque for forcing me to choose a Top Five out of Hawks’ unrivalled oeuvre. How is one supposed to pick favorites among such riches? Damn you, Knox! It can’t be done, I tell you, and therefore, at the risk of disqualifying myself from this week’s voting results, I have decided to provide a chronological list of my “favorite” Hawks films with no reference to a Top Five. Somebody else will have to choose the Top Five. I cannot.
Scarface (1932) - It is a great irony that censors held up the release of Scarface on the grounds that it romanticized organized crime when, in fact, Hawks’ film offers one of the least glamorized depictions of gangsterism in the genre. As portrayed by Paul Muni, Tony “Scarface” Camonte, with his hunched posture, low-hanging arms, shambling walk, inarticulate utterances and brutish behavior, including incestuous feelings for his slutty sister, appears to have devolved into an earlier, more primitive form of hominid, as if he were the missing link between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man. Who would want to emulate this subhuman Cro-Camonte man?
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939) – The atmosphere of macho romanticism is as thick as the fog these courageous fliers routinely risk their lives flying through, so thick, in fact, that even Jean Arthur's gotta do what a man’s gotta do. George Raft’s iconic coin-flipping in Scarface resurfaces here in the form of Thomas Mitchell’s two-headed coin, which figures prominently in the wonderfully romantic conclusion, offering a sublime example of Hawks’ tendency to reveal a character’s deepest, unspoken feelings through behavioral gestures and physical objects rather than through explicit dialogue.
His Girl Friday (1940) – As great as Grant is (how delicious are his malicious manipulations of the hapless Bellamy!), the picture truly belongs to Russell, for this classic screwball comedy is less a battle-of-the-sexes between Walter and Hildy as it is a battle-of-the-sexes between Hildy and herself. If Tony Camonte was half ape, half man, Russell’s Hildy Johnson is half woman, half man (or, rather, half “newspaperman”) who talks, types, writes and wisecracks circles around her all-male competition, all while retaining her femininity and sexiness, even in her “manly” pin-striped suit.
Ball of Fire (1941)
To Have and to Have Not (1944)
The Big Sleep (1946) – If I had to pick Hawks’ best film, this would probably be it. I say it here, but I deny it here as well.
Red River (1948)
The Thing From Another World (1951)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Rio Bravo (1959)
El Dorado (1967)
Pssst. The bolded titles constitute my Top Five. What can I say? I guess I couldn’t bear not to have my vote counted after all.
As we celebrate Hawks this week, let’s not forget that the great auteur had the good fortune (or good sense) to work with many of Hollywood’s greatest stars (Muni, Barrymore, Cagney, Hepburn, Grant, Cooper, Stanwyk, Bogart, Wayne, Monroe, among many others, including, of course, the inimitable Ricky Nelson!), screenwriters (Hecht, Nichols, Furthman, Lederer, Brackett, Wilder, Chase), cinematographers (Garmes, Metty, Walker, Toland, Harlan) and composers (Newman, Waxman, Steiner, Tiomkin, not to mention the inimitable Ricky Nelson!).
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Kevin LaForest
Film Critic,
Montreal Film Journal
Rio Bravo (1959)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Scarface (1932)
His Girl Friday (1940)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
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Jesse Richards
Outlaw Painting, Film and Photography
Scarface (1932)
Twentieth Century (1934)
Red River (1948)
The Big Sleep (1946)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
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Jeff Vorndam
Film Enthusiast
The Big Sleep (1946)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Ball of Fire (1940)
Scarface (1932)
It's killing me to leave out RED RIVER.
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Jason Mlinarsik
Film Enthusiast
The Big Sleep (1946)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Red River (1948)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
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Luke Stadel
Film Studies MA student at the University of Iowa
Rio Bravo (1959)
Scarface (1932)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Twentieth Century (1934)
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Eric Enders
Film Critic, Out There in the Dark
The Big Sleep (1946)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Red River (1948)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
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Stan Czarnecki
Film Enthusiast & Critic
Rio Bravo (1959)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Red River (1948)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
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Dennis Schwartz
Film Critic Ozu's World Movie Reviews
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
His Girl Friday (1940)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Red River (1948)
The Thing From Another World (1951)
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Mike Staat
Film Addict and Disgruntled Video Store Employee
Scarface (1932) - Also named the "Best American sound film" by Jean-Luc Godard!
His Girl Friday (1940)
Red River (1948)
Rio Bravo (1959)
I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
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Ben Dalton
Film Student & Enthusiast
Red River (1948)
The Big Sleep (1946)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
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Nathan Deen
Film Buff & Staff Writer, FilmSchoolRejects.com
Red River (1948)
Scarface (1932)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
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Alan Smithee
Cinema Ex-Patriot
Red River (1948)
Twentieth Century (1934)
Scarface (1932)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
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Scott Klus
Film Enthusiast
Rio Bravo (1959)
The Big Sleep (1946)
His Girl Friday (1940)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
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Jericho Chua
Cinephile from The Philippines
Red River (1948)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
To Have or Have Not (1944)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
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Alex Gein
Film Enthusiast
The Big Sleep (1946)
Rio Bravo (1959)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Scarface (1932)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
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Jesse Walker
Film Enthusiast and Managing Editor, Reason Magazine
The Big Sleep (1946)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Red River (1948)
His Girl Friday (1940)
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Josh Dean
Contributor to MuchoMovies.net
The Thing from Another World (1951)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Scarface (1932)
Red River (1948)
Other Hawks movies I've seen are Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940), To Have and Have Not (1944), Monkey Business (1952), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) & El Dorado (1966).
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Matthew Griffiths
Film Enthusiast
The Big Sleep (1946)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
Today We Live (1933)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Scarface (1932)
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Le Hinton
Jazz Aficionado & Film Enthusiast
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
His Girl Friday (1940)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Rio Bravo (1959)
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Kevyn Knox
Film Critic, Essayist + Historian
Rio Bravo (1959)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
The Big Sleep (1946)
His Girl Friday (1940)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
I must (sadly) admit to having never seen Red River, so perhaps my top 5 is a touch tainted this week, but alas, it is what it is.
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