Star Wars tops movie music poll

It's all go in the wonderful world of movie polls, and hot on the butt-naked heels of last week's revelation that the pool romp scene between Elizabeth Berkley and Kyle MacLachlan was the worst screen rumpy-pumpy ever, we have the news that Star Wars has claimed the best film music crown.

That's according to the American Film Institute, which gives John Williams no less than three spots in the top twenty, with Jaws and E.T. also getting a round of applause.

The 500 film artists, composers, musicians, critics, pundits and historians polled placed Gone With The Wind in second, closely followed by the rather marvellous Lawrence Of Arabia. The full listing is:

1. Star Wars - John Williams
2. Gone With The Wind - Max Steiner
3. Lawrence Of Arabia - Maurice Jarre
4. Psycho - Bernard Herrmann
5. The Godfather - Nino Rota
6. Jaws - John Williams
7. Laura - David Raksin
8. The Magnificent Seven - Elmer Bernstein
9. Chinatown - Jerry Goldsmith
10. High Noon - Dimitri Tiomkin
11. The Adventures Of Robin Hood - Erich Wolfgang Korngold
12. Vertigo - Bernard Herrmann
13. King Kong - Max Steiner
14. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial - John Williams
15. Out Of Africa - John Barry
16. Sunset Blvd. - Franz Waxman
17. To Kill A Mockingbird - Elmer Bernstein
18. Planet Of The Apes - Jerry Goldsmith
19. A Streetcar Named Desire - Alex North
20. The Pink Panther - Henry Mancini.

Sadly, no gong for Showgirls on this occasion, despite its heady mix of full-frontal nudity and cracking dialogue set to a throbbing backbeat of Las Vegas production numbers. For shame. ®