AFI Takes on Movie Quotes With New List
LOS ANGELES – Humphrey Bogart, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jack Nicholson are competing in a war of words. The American Film Institute is surveying Hollywood types for the top 100 quotes from U.S. movies, with contenders including Bogart’s “Here’s looking at you, kid” from “Casablanca,” Schwarzenegger’s “I’ll be back” from “The Terminator” and Nicholson’s “You can’t handle the truth!” from “A Few Good Men.”
Chosen from 400 classic lines of dialogue, the winners will be revealed in the CBS special “AFI’s 100 Years … 100 Movie Quotes” in June.
“Great movie quotes become part of our cultural vocabulary,” said Jean Picker Firstenburg, AFI director.
The top 100 will be chosen through ballots sent to 1,500 directors, screenwriters, actors, critics and others in the film business.
Other contending quotes include Clark Gable’s “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” from “Gone With the Wind,” Mae West’s “Why don’t you come up and see me?” from “She Done Him Wrong,” Tom Hanks’ “Houston, we have a problem” from “Apollo 13,” Cuba Gooding Jr.’s “Show me the money” from “Jerry Maguire” and the “Star Wars” gang’s “May the Force be with you.”
The quotes range from the first full sound feature film with Al Jolson (news)’s “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet” from 1927’s “The Jazz Singer” to creepy creature Gollum (Andy Serkis) hissing “My precious” in 2002’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.”
The TV special is the eighth top-100 list for the AFI, whose previous specials included best U.S. films, comedies, love stories, movie tunes and heroes and villains.
“Casablanca,” which was No. 1 on AFI’s list of best love stories and ranked second on the list of top overall films, leads the competition with seven quotes among the 400 nominees, followed by “The Wizard of Oz” with six.
Bogart has the most quotes on the ballot with 10, followed by Al Pacino and the Marx Brothers with six each. Billy Wilder leads screenwriters with 13 nominated quotes.
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