Top 100 Movies

85. if.... (Lindsay Anderson, 1968) has the spirit of revolution coursing through its veins, hitting cinemas just as the lefties hit the streets of Paris and the US. Malcolm McDowell is a public school radical who switches from minor dissenter to bloody rebel when the Establishment tries to crush his spirit. Righteous fury, bizarre fantasy sequences and a headteacher who keeps a pupil in his desk drawer – Lindsay Anderson's counter-culture masterwork has it all. I've never seen a film that celebrates and then incinerates tradition with quite the same reckless glee.

Favourite bit: It's hard to look beyond the climactic carnage.

See also: Musical sequel, O Lucky Man!, but not the second follow-up, Britannia Hospital, which is useless. Anderson's 1963 kitchen sink movie, This Sporting Life, is tremendous.



84. The Edge of the World (Michael Powell, 1937) - Michael Powell cut his teeth (ouch) on quota quickies - low-budget programmers designed to ensure as many British films reached British theatres as was dictated by law. The Edge of the World was his first personal film and possesses themes that would dominate his work: obsession, outmoded lifestyles and the cruelty, fury and opulence of nature. Based on the depopulation of St Kilda, the film tells its story in flashback, as a remote Shetland island community breathes its last. The slender narrative is bolstered by marvellous vignettes and spectacular set pieces. Masses are said, crops are raised and two young friends settle an argument with a perilous cliff-climbing race. As the dignified, harsh lives of the island's inhabitants inch towards redundancy, the waves crash endlessly, remorselessly against the rocks. This is a bewitching, beguiling film: realistic yet romantic, and possessing the sense of fatality more commonly associated with film noir.

Favourite bit: Two wanderers quiz a third about the remote island they're touring. As he begins the tale of its depopulation, we switch from the present to the past, a time-slip that brings a lump to the throat.

See also: Our #99 returned to the Scottish Isles, and many of the film's themes. Flaherty's Man of Aran, already namechecked above, blazed a trail for poetic realism, portraying life on the Aran Isles, off the coast of Ireland.



83. Judge Priest (John Ford, 1934) is an early masterwork from John Ford, who had been making features for a full 17 years, but was still a year away from his first Oscar win - for The Informer. Many of his '30s films are characterised by visual lyricism and gentle heroes, who face hypocrisy and hysteria with unexpected mettle. That's certainly true of Judge Priest, one of three films Ford made with Will Rogers, a newspaper columnist and movie star known for coining the saying: "I never met a man I didn't like" and often cited as the most popular man in America. Rogers is the eponymous figure, whose folksy wisdom is needed to resolve brewing conflicts in a Deep South town. His banjo-playing assistant is portrayed by the enduringly controversial black comedian Stepin Fetchit. Some claim Fetchit's recurring stereotype of a slow, drawling African-American was shameful, others point to his pioneering role in a racist industry, earning more than £1m and giving black audiences a representative on screen, however compromised. In the 1960s, he became one of Muhammad Ali's entourage. Judge Priest is a whimsical film that packs a hefty punch. Like its central character it's easy to patronise, appearing rambling and aimless, but not to be underestimated as it spears falsity and small-town bigotry, whilst being charming, poignant and so warm you could toast your bread next to it. The only disappointment comes in learning that two of its more controversial planned segments were excised - a near-lynching and a prostitute's funeral - though these were reinstated in Ford's 1953 remake, The Sun Shines Bright, which was his favourite of his movies. That's an inferior but still unmissable movie, with Charles Winninger in the Rogers role.

Favourite bit: Rogers' intensely moving monologue, spoken to a portrait of his departed wife.

See also: Ford and Rogers' final collaboration, Steamboat Round the Bend, which is a notch below Judge Priest but bears many similarities and entertains greatly on its own terms. The film was released after Rogers' untimely death; Ford removed the final shot, of Rogers waving goodbye to the young lovers, in case it traumatised audiences. If you're looking for more Americana, then keep your eyes glued to this list. Or get hold of Come Next Spring, a lovely, unassuming film made at Republic. Steve Cochran, who also produced, plays a reformed alcoholic who returns to his family after eight years on the road and tries to mend the lives he ripped apart. It's a fine little movie and even if the ending is a touch obvious, it works.



82. Hud (Martin Ritt, 1963) is in many ways a precursor to Bogdanovich's Last Picture Show, being a Texas-set portrait of moral dissolution based on a Larry McMurtry book, though its scope is slightly narrower. Paul Newman is Hud, a womanising, boozing scoundrel whose behaviour is increasingly difficult to accept for both nephew Brandon de Wilde and the viewer. Hud loathes his stern father (screen legend Melvyn Douglas, who's sensational), lusts after their housekeeper Patricia Neal (superb as ever) and leads de Wilde astray. Heightened performances, impeccable scripting and James Wong Howe's crisp monochrome photography make this modern Western one of the key American films of its decade.

Favourite bit: Douglas' question: "Hud, how'd a man like you come to be a son to me?"

See also: For more of Newman at the peak of his powers, before he started smirking all the time, try the heavyhanded version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Robert Rossen's The Hustler or anti-establishment classic Cool Hand Luke. OK, so he smirks a bit in the last one.



81. A Thousand Clowns (Fred Coe, 1965) also sees a magnetic, self-destructive force of nature forming his nephew in his own image, though here it's easy to side with the questionable influence. Jason Robards, Jr. was an unforgettable actor: his oversized features, gravelly, expressive voice and prowling presence lighting up films both worthy (Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, All the President's Men, Parenthood and Magnolia) and less so (Once Upon a Time in the West). Despite its notable credentials, being based on Herb Gardner's Tony-nominated play, it is essentially the greatest Robards vehicle imaginable - a conduit for the left-field sensibilities, anti-authoritarian posturing and understated humanism present in so many of his characterisations. He plays Murray N. Burns, a happily unemployed former gag writer who revels in his carefree existence until he's told to get a job, or risk losing custody of his nephew. Though that might sound a bit soapy, the treatment is anything but, with inventive, stylised direction, consistently surprising plotting and countless belly laughs. Robards, recreating his stage role, gives what might just be my favourite performance of all time, launching bitter, complex, contradictory diatribes against anything and everything, fouling up his interviews by being a complete smartarse and having an affair with a social worker, who he's encouraging to rebel against her boss (and boyfriend). Barry Gordon is just great, playing Robards' precocious, sensible nephew, and Barbara Harris and Martin Balsam (who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar) offer fine support, but it's Robards' show all the way.

Favourite bit: Robards spells out exactly what it is he wants for his nephew, concluding: "I want him to know the subtle, sneaky, important reason why he was born a human being and not a chair."

See also: Angels Over Broadway, Ben Hecht's idiosyncratic crime drama, touched with gold dust, in which cynical Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. comes to the rescue of suicidal embezzler John Qualen, with the help of Rita Hayworth and Thomas Mitchell - whose grandstanding intellectual laid the groundwork for Murray N. Burns.


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