미국 시사주간지 Time의 두 평론가, Richard Corliss와 Richard Schickel이 ALL-TIME 100 Movies 명단을 발표했다. 원래 이런 종류의 명단은 심각하게 받아들일 필요가 없다. 이 경우는 미국 평론가 단 두 사람이 맘대로 뽑은 것이니 두말할 나위도 없겠다. [비정성시]가 없는가 하면 [패왕별희]는 들어가 있는 형편이다. 내가 보기엔, 해당 영화의 개봉 당시 Time 평을 한 번 읽어보라고 꼬드겨놓고 첫 문단만 보여주고는 "전체 기사를 다 보시려면 로그인을 하세요"라고 구독을 권유하는 것이 이 기획물의 진정한 목적이 아닌가 싶다 :-)

그래도 듀크의 영화 가운데 무엇이 목록에 들어있나 살펴보지 않을 수는 없는 것이 팬의 심정. [Baby Face (1933)]와 [The Searchers (1956)] 두 편이다.

[Baby Face (1933)]

Directed By: Alfred E. Green
Screenplay: Darryl F. Zanuck (story) (as Mark Canfield); Gene Markey, Kathryn Scola
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent

In four fabulous years before a strict Motion Picture Code put the cap on audacity, Warner Bros. produced a garish gallery of rude, saucy films. Tough guys used guns and grapefruit to commandeer the urban nightscape; dames like Dorothy Mackaill and the young Bette Davis lured men to a heavenly Hades. But no actor was as tough as Barbara Stanwyck, and no actress used womanly wiles with an intelligence so cool and cutting. In this invigorating affront of a movie, dreamed up by Warners' departing production chief Darryl Zanuck, Lily (Stanwyck) escapes to New York from an Erie, Pa., speakeasy where her father has rented her out to the customers. In a big-city bank, she sleeps her way to the top, leaving a heap of discarded men (and one or two corpses). Even in a version pruned for the New York state censors, Baby Face was the definitive pre-Code statement of how the Depression created a new morality of no morality. Now the missing five minutes have been restored, and we see how the movie snarled every bit as brazenly as Stanwyck did. —R.C.

[The Searchers (1956)]

Directed By: John Ford
Screenplay: Alan LeMay, Frank Nugent
Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Natalie Wood

John Wayne and John Ford made eight westerns together. This one, though it has cowboys and Indians, and Monument Valley vistas shot in gorgeous color, is at heart the grimmest film noir—the story of a man's obsession for the ravages done to his niece (Natalie Wood) by a Comanche chief. Conflicting impulses of race, sex and violence smolder throughout the Frank Nugent script, and on Wayne's implacable face, in an epic that spans five years of brutal winters and scalding summers. The Searchers rides toward vengeance, opens and closes doors that lead to the darkest possibilities, deals with spat-out hatreds and unspoken love. Jeffrey Hunter, noble and hunky, heads the fine supporting cast of this immensely influential film, whose distinguished spawn includes Once Upon a Time in the West and Star Wars. —R.C.

* 배우별 명단에서 듀크를 찾으면 [The Searchers] 하나만 나온다. [Baby Face]에서 듀크의 역할이 단역급이라서 알고도 제외한 건지, 듀크가 나온 걸 아예 알지 못하는 건지 모르겠다.

* [Baby Face]와 관련된 2004년 9월의 뉴스 한 토막: Baby Face, a film starring Barbara Stanwyck and a 26-year-old John Wayne that was banned in 1933 and thought to be "lost," will be screened at the London Film Festival next month after being discovered in the Library of Congress's Motion Picture Archive, the London Times reported today (Thursday). In the film, Stanwyck plays a ruthless woman who uses sex to achieve power, becoming the head of a top banking corporation. The Times reported that the Warner Bros. film was withdrawn following protests by theater owners and local censorship boards.