Oscar posts can take alot out of you. Unless you're content to do it all from memory (I am not) there's a voluminous amount of movie watching that takes place between each post. I'm doing the seventies this month and still have three more movies to refresh myself on for 1970-1974. I plan on watching all three this week and then finally get down to picking. I've seen almost every nominee (there are a few from the twenties and thirties I still haven't seen and a few more from the 2000's I still haven't gotten around to but other than that, I've seen 'em all) and have seen every single winner. The Oscars were kind of an obsession as a kid.
So why am I going on about this? Because while preparing the Oscar post I have little else to post and hate letting my little place here go more than a day or so without a new post, even if it's just a photo or a list. So, anyway, my brain being mush from a hellish week at work I found myself thumbing through The Book of Lists 2 (2: because the world demanded it). Yes - I'm pathetic. So I'm in the movie section (of course) and I come across the contributions of Princess Grace Kelly and John Wayne. Why these two were selected to contribute I have no idea. Some questions remain mysteries through the ages. The Princess and The Duke may be gone but we lucky little people have their neatly listed thoughts on acting and movies written in stone for all time. So let us now examine in this exceedingly lazy ...um, uh, I mean, very thought provoking post their personal choices and select a winner.
The Best Actors of All Time
The Princess picks:
1. Marie Dressler
2. Mae West
3. Greta Garbo
4. Ingrid Bergman
5. Elizabeth Taylor
The Duke picks:
1. Spencer Tracy
2. Elizabeth Taylor
3. Katharine Hepburn
4. Laurence Olivier
5. Lionel Barrymore
The Princess picked only actresses for some reason so I guess the comparison will be a little 
skewed. They have only one name in common: Elizabeth Taylor. I'm guessing a Nobel Prize winning physicist well versed in the minutia of Venusian Vector Calculus couldn't figure that one out so I'm not going to even try. They've got everyone from Tracy to Grant to Bergman to Hepburn to Peck to Redgrave to O'Toole to Loy to Powell to Bacall to Bogart... and Taylor they have in common. Hmmm. Maybe they had both just watched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof the night before. She's pretty damn good in both of those. I'm pretty sure they hadn't just watched Butterfield 8. And it does go to show the Duke didn't let politics get in the way of his decisions as Taylor pretty much stood squarely opposite of everything he held dear.
The Princess restricts herself to actresses and puts Marie Dressler at the top. And eschewing conservative thinking places Mae West at number two. Now I love Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, and certainly feel The Princess limited herself by choosing only actresses, but for having the gumption to go with Marie and Mae at the top I'm giving her the edge over The Duke.
The Best Movies of All Time:
The Princess:
1. The Quiet Man
2. The Bicycle Thief
3. Gone with the Wind
4. Grand Illusion
5. Some Like it Hot
The Duke:
1. A Man for All Seasons
2. Gone with the Wind
3. The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse
4. The Searchers
5. The Quiet Man
Wow. I mean, can I just say... wow. The Duke picks only five movies and two of them are ones 
he starred in. I guess you don't get a nickname like "The Duke" by being modest. This time they have two selections in common: Gone with the Wind (excuse me one second ... ... ... ... okay, I'm back. Sorry about that. I had to go throw up) and The Quiet Man. Unfortunately the scholarly Book of Lists 2 doesn't bother to list years of production or directors or anything foolish like that so we can't be sure if Duke meant the 1921 Four Horsemen or the 1962 Four Horsemen. He was John Wayne - he could have actually meant the 1962 version. But I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant the 1921 Rudolph Valentino classic. And yes, what a jolt for all you fools out there, wasting endless days and nights on garbage from Welles, Ozu, Renoir, Lang, Huston, Visconti, Pasolini and Bunuel only to find out that A Man for All Seasons is the greatest film ever made. You secretly knew it all along didn't you.
As for the Princess, with the single exception of that Civil War film they have in common (ahem) it's a pretty solid list. The Quiet Man may not be the Ford most would go with but there's no denying the greatness of The Bicycle Thief, Grand Illusion and Some Like it Hot. So the Princess gets my vote here as well. And she gets extra points for NOT listing a movie she starred in, and she starred in Rear Window for chrissakes! She truly was grace personified.
And so the battle ends. In a 2-0 knockout, the Princess comes out on top. Yeah, that's it, just 
two lists. The Princess and The Duke couldn't be bothered to list more than five actors/actresses and movies. They were busy people. She had lots of royal stuff to attend to and he was busy being pissed off at baby boomers. Ah, but what a worthless ... um, uh, I mean fascinating look into their mind's eye. And what a tease. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight wondering what the Princess and the Duke would have thought were the five best tv shows of all time, or the best ice creams, or the best lawn furniture. Man, you could write a book. 2.
