Rocky Horror Picture Show added to National Film Registry  | Entertainment News | Advocate.com

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December 28, 2005
Rocky Horror Picture Show added to National Film Registry

The Library of Congress added 25 more titles to the National Film Registry Tuesday, and the list includes everything from silent documentary footage of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to the cross-dressing musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The Hollywood Reporter notes that the 2005 lists include several films that were a part of film history—the racy Barbara Stanwyck melodrama Baby Face (1933) helped usher in the Hays Code, which dictated what Hollywood films could and couldn't show; Rocky Horror helped solidify the "midnight movie" and brought audience participation to new cinematic heights; and Amy Heckerling's 1982 Fast Times at Ridgemont High ushered in a new generation of high school comedies. Also included was George Steven's landmark Giant (1956), starring queer film legends Rock Hudson and James Dean.

Rocky Horror "changed the whole movie experience as the audience became part of the show for good or bad," said National Film Preservation Board staff coordinator Steve Leggett to The Hollywood Reporter. Warner Bros. cut some of the more objectionable content from Baby Face upon the film's original release, but it was the uncensored version, discovered last year, that was named to the registry. Selection to the National Film Registry singles out films for preservation, either by the Library of Congress or elsewhere.

The 2005 selections are: Baby Face (1933), The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man (1975), The Cameraman (1928), Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort, S.C., May 1940 (1940), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), The French Connection (1971), Giant (1956), H20 (1929), Hand Up (1926), Hoop Dreams (1994), House of Usher (1960), Imitation of Life (1934), Jeffries-Johnson world championship fight (1910), Making of an American (1920), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Mom and Dad (1944), The Music Man (1962), Power of the Press (1928), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), San Francisco earthquake and fire, April 18, 1906 (1906), The Sting (1973), A Time for Burning (1966), Toy Story (1995). (Advocate.com)

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