‘Casablanca’ Tops List of Movie Romances
When it comes to movies and romance, they don’t make them like they used to.
At least, that is what directors, writers, actors and other filmmakers polled by the American Film Institute think. They chose 1942’s “Casablanca,” starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, as the best U.S. love story ever told on film.
In the No. 2 spot was 1939 classic “Gone with the Wind” with Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh as the rakish Rhett Butler and determined southern belle Scarlett O’Hara, and behind those two on-again, off-again lovers were the impossibly compatible Tony and Maria of 1961 musical “West Side Story” in No. 3.
In fact, no movie made in the last 40 years could crack the top five, and only two films from the 1970s, “The Way We Were” at No. 6 and “Love Story” at No. 9 were among the top 10.
Los Angeles-based American Film Institute is a national group dedicated to film and television, and it trains filmmakers, writers and others interested in making movies and TV shows.
Five years ago, it began a series of programs naming the top American films in the industry’s first 100 years, starting with the favorite 100 films of all-time and including the top stars, best comedies and last year’s biggest thrills.
“This year, AFI … celebrates matters of the heart in a whole different way — more heartbreaks, heartaches and hearts bursting with love, rather than heart attacks and hearts in the throat,” said AFI chief Jean Picker Firstenberg.
Rounding out the top five on the list of favorite American romances were No. 4 “Roman Holiday,” a 1952 comedy that paired Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, followed by 1957’s “An Affair to Remember” with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.
Completing the top 10 were No. 7, “Doctor Zhivago” (1965), No. 8 “It’s A Wonderful Life” (1946) and No. 10, “City Lights” (1931).
Curiously, seven of the top 10 films have couples that, in the end, do not stay together, and AFI counts 187 fights in the movies compared to 260 kissing scenes.
Cary Grant stars in more of the top 100 films than any actor, and Katharine Hepburn is the most prevalent actress on the romance list, appearing in films like “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “On Golden Pond.”
Of the modern love stories, 1990’s “Pretty Woman” starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere landed in position No. 21. “Titanic,” with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, was No. 37. “Titanic” is the highest grossing movie of all time with $1.8 billion in global box office receipts.
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