Other Honorees Include Well-Loved Musicals WEST SIDE STORY, THE WIZARD OF
OZ, SOUND OF MUSIC and CABARET
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- American Film Institute (AFI)
revealed the top 25 movie musicals of all time in The Big Picture -- AFI's
Greatest Movie Musicals, a one-night only presentation produced by the Los
Angeles Philharmonic Association in cooperation with AFI. A jury of over
500 film artists, composers, musicians, critics and historians selected the
Gene Kelly song-and-dance classic SINGIN' IN THE RAIN as the most memorable
movie musical of all time.
Rounding off the top 10 were movie musicals from the 1930s to today,
including: WEST SIDE STORY (#2); THE WIZARD OF OZ (#3); THE SOUND OF MUSIC
(#4); CABARET (#5); MARY POPPINS (#6); A STAR IS BORN (#7); MY FAIR LADY
(#8); AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (#9); and MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (#10).
Spanning a century of film music and counting down from 25 to number one
throughout the evening, Director John Mauceri and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra
performed excerpts from each of the winning musicals, many of them accompanied
by favorite movie scenes shown on the Bowl's big video screens. While
television broadcasts have announced the previous nine installments of AFI's
100 Years ... series, following the success of last year's AFI's 100 Years of
Film Scores, this is now the second time an AFI countdown was revealed before
a live audience.
The Honorees Are ...
FILM TITLE YEAR STUDIO
1 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN 1952 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
2 WEST SIDE STORY 1961 United Artists
3 WIZARD OF OZ, THE 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
4 SOUND OF MUSIC, THE 1965 Twentieth Century-Fox
5 CABARET 1972 Allied Artists
6 MARY POPPINS 1964 Disney
7 STAR IS BORN, A 1954 Warner Bros.
8 MY FAIR LADY 1964 Warner Bros.
9 AMERICAN IN PARIS, AN 1951 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
10 MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS 1944 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
11 KING AND I, THE 1956 Twentieth Century-Fox
12 CHICAGO 2002 Miramax
13 42ND STREET 1933 Warner Bros.
14 ALL THAT JAZZ 1979 Twentieth Century-Fox, Columbia
15 TOP HAT 1935 RKO
16 FUNNY GIRL 1968 Columbia
17 BAND WAGON, THE 1953 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
18 YANKEE DOODLE DANDY 1942 Warner Bros.
19 ON THE TOWN 1949 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
20 GREASE 1978 Paramount
21 SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS 1954 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
22 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 1991 Disney
23 GUYS AND DOLLS 1955 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
24 SHOW BOAT 1936 Universal
25 MOULIN ROUGE! 2001 Twentieth Century Fox
Created as a sidebar to AFI's popular AFI's 100 Years ... series, AFI's
Greatest Movie Musicals continues the mission of this program -- to
reignite an interest in classic American cinema. This theme additionally
befits the Hollywood Bowl's annual movie night, which brings to life the
music of the world's most beloved films.
AFI's 100 Years ... series has garnered considerable attention from
movie lovers around the world -- and consistently sparks national
discussions of America's film history. Previous programs within this series
have included AFI 100 Years ... 100 Movies (1998), ... 100 Stars (1999),
... 100 Laughs (2000), ... 100 Thrills (2001), ... 100 Passions (2002), ...
100 Heroes & Villains (2003), ... 100 Songs (2004), ... 100 Movie Quotes
(2005) and ... 100 Cheers (2006).
About the Jury Process
AFI distributed a ballot with 250 nominated movie musicals to a jury of
over 500 leaders from the creative community, including composers,
musicians, film artists (directors, screenwriters, actors, editors and
cinematographers), critics and historians. Due to the extensive number of
memorable movie musicals in American film, jurors were also allowed to
write in votes for musicals that did not already appear on the ballot. The
jurors were asked to consider the following criteria in making their
selections:
MUSICAL
A feature-length American film* in which music and lyrics significantly
advance the plot, develop character or are otherwise integral to the film
narrative.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Musicals that have left an indelible mark on the history of the moving
image -- through innovation in song and dance, visionary narrative devices
or other groundbreaking achievements.
CREATIVE IMPACT
Musicals with songs that evoke the memory of its film source, thus
ensuring and enlivening both the music and the movie's historical legacy.
LEGACY
Musicals that continue to inspire artists and audiences alike.
*AFI defines an American film as an English language motion picture
with significant creative and/or financial production elements from the
United States. AFI defines a feature-length film as a motion picture of
narrative format that is typically over 60 minutes in length.
About the American Film Institute
AFI is a national institute providing leadership in screen education
and the recognition and celebration of excellence in the art of film,
television and digital media. AFI trains the next generation of filmmakers
at its world-renowned Conservatory, maintains America's film heritage
through the AFI Catalog of Feature Films and explores new digital
technologies in entertainment and education through the AFI Digital Content
Lab and K-12 Screen Education Center. As the largest nonprofit exhibitor in
the US, AFI ON SCREEN encompasses the annual AFI FEST presented by Audi:
AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival -- as well as year-round
programming at ArcLight Hollywood and the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural
Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, including SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery
Channel Documentary Festival. AFI AWARDS, the annual almanac for the 21st
century, honors the most outstanding motion pictures and television
programs of the year, while AFI's 100 Years ... series has ignited
extraordinary public interest in classic American movies. And, during the
past 34 years, AFI's Life Achievement Award has become the highest honor
for a career in film. Additional information about AFI is available at
AFI.com.
About the Hollywood Bowl
Born in New York City in 1945, conductor/composer JOHN MAUCERI
graduated from Yale University. He made his professional conducting debut
in 1973 at Wolf Trap. Since his 1974 orchestral conducting debut with the
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mr. Mauceri has appeared with numerous major
orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San
Francisco Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, the
London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia
Orchestra, the Gewandhaus, the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia in Rome, the
Orchestre National de France, the DSO Berlin, the Leipzig Radio Orchestra
and the National Orchestra of Portugal in Lisbon. Much in demand as an
operatic conductor, he has led productions at the Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden, La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera and the
Deutsche Oper, Berlin. Mr. Mauceri is one of the world's most accomplished
recording artists and is the recipient of Grammy, Tony, Olivier, Drama
Desk, Edison, Emmy, Diapason d'Or, Cannes Classique, Billboard, and four
Deutsche Schallplatten awards. In 1999, Mr. Mauceri was chosen as a
"Standard-bearer of the Twentieth Century" for WQXR, the nation's
most-listened-to classical radio station. In addition, CNN and CNN
International chose Mauceri as a "Voice of the Millennium." Mauceri has
just concluded his sixth and final season as Music Director of the
Pittsburgh Opera, where he led productions of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos,
with soprano Jane Eaglen in the title role, as well as Puccini's Tosca and
Mozart's Cosi fan tutte. This past winter Mauceri conducted Leipzig's
legendary Gewandhaus Orchestra for the 7th consecutive season, which is
unprecedented in the orchestra's 200-year history. He will be appearing
with them in four different programs in 2007 and 2008. This winter he also
completed the world premiere recording of Danny Elfman's first work for
symphonic orchestra, Serenada Schizophrana, which was recorded in Los
Angeles and will be released on Sony Classical this autumn.
One of the largest natural amphitheaters in the world, with a seating
capacity of nearly 18,000, the HOLLYWOOD BOWL has been the summer home of
the Los Angeles Philharmonic since its official opening in 1922, and in
1991 gave its name to the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, a resident ensemble
that has filled a special niche in the musical life of Southern California.
The 2004 season introduced audiences to a revitalized Hollywood Bowl,
featuring a newly-constructed shell and stage and the addition of four
stadium screens enhancing stage views in the venue. To this day, $1 buys a
seat at the top of the Bowl for many of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's
concerts. While the Bowl is best known for its sizzling summer nights,
during the day California's youngest patrons enjoy "SummerSounds: Music for
Kids at the Hollywood Bowl," the Southland's most popular summer arts
festival for children, now in its 38th season. Attendance figures over the
past several decades have soared: in 1980 the Bowl first topped the
half-million mark and close to one million admissions have been recorded.
In February 2006, the Hollywood Bowl was named Best Major Outdoor Concert
Venue for the second year in a row at the 17th Annual Pollstar Concert
Industry Awards; the Bowl's summer music festival has become as much a part
of a Southern California summer as beaches and barbecues, the Dodgers and
Disneyland.
The complete list of 25 Movie Musicals can be found at both http://www.AFI.com
and http://www.HollywoodBowl.com.
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