The Great Silence (1968) is arguably the best of the spaghetti westerns. Directed by Sergio Corbucci, it has his usually feel, including shaky cam, lots of gore, wild zooming, and otherwise frenetic camera work. It also has possibly the darkest ending ever filmed. It stars Jean-Louis Trintignant as a mute (Silence) who had his throat cut by a bounty hunter after his father. Silence has dedicated his life to killing bounty hunters, but will not draw first. A group of bounty hunters is living off of killing so called wanted people (many of whom were merely poor Mormans). A land owner/banker made sure they got paid. The worst of the bounty hunters, Loco, was played by Klaus Kinski, who always makes a credible bad guy. The exposure is from Vonetta Mc Gee in her first film as the wife of a man killed by the bounty hunters who ends up as love interest for Trintignant. She shows breasts and buns in very brief flashes.

IMDB readers score it at 7.7/10, which is very respectable indeed. The film is of interest to Italian western fans, students of cinema, and anyone one else interested in a very dark non-traditional western. C+

As if the world wasn't sad enough this week, I found out Thursday that the Fun House lost one of our contributors this week, and another is missing

Thursday morning, unrelated to the international tragedies of the week, The Industry Insider passed away, about two months after suffering a stroke. The Insider's real identity was Dale Davis, the king of the 60's surfing films, and former producer/director of the soap opera, Never Too Young. He was a close friend of several people in the entertainment biz, from Leonard Nimoy to Jan and Dean to Richard Hatch and (I'm proud to say) Uncle Scoopy. Dale even did a little acting. (His brief bio is in IMDb) You probably know that he often sent us comments, clips, and pictures from the parties at his house in L.A. (Perhaps you remember Tiffany Minx smoking that cigarette with her crotch - filmed by Dale at his house.)

Some of his surfing reminiscences are included in my article about the movie Big Wednesday. 

Dale was only in his early 60's, and his own dad just passed away a couple of months ago.

Also, you old timer readers may remember our profane humor columnist, Stone Cold. His dad has informed friends and family that he has not been heard from. He was working in the WTC at the time of the attack, and is simply unaccounted for at this point. We'll share more when we know something.

Now how am I supposed to start talking about who you chose as the ultimate babe? Let's just get to it, I guess.

Who continues to be hot.

The following women were in the top 10 in our last poll in 1999, and are still in the top 10:

Jennifer Connelly (#1), Laetitia Casta (#2), Sophie Marceau, Alyssa Milano, Salma Hayek, Anna Kournikova

Connelly returned to number one, after dropping to #2 during the last poll, when Casta was the flavor du jour. There is no question that Connelly is the most popular woman in the history of our site. When those other two women started claiming to be the most downloaded on the internet, their "record" total downloads were less than the number of Connelly and Gellar from my site alone, and Gellar never even got naked! 

When I started doing the site in 1995, Connelly was the most requested woman, and she's still number one in your hearts. She has managed to remain at that pinnacle despite never having appeared in any major popular hit movie or TV show. My son and daughter, who are high school age, do not know who she is, and I can't explain it to them because she hasn't been in anything they might have seen! Requiem for a Dream and Pollock are not exactly kid's movies, nobody has seen Waking the Dead or Inventing the Abbots, and not many have seen Dark City. (It lost a bunch of money - $14 million gross, $27 million budget).

Come to think of it, Connelly has generally made some excellent movies, but not very popular ones. 

OK, you caught me. Maybe Waking the Dead sucked, but the others are solid. Dark City and Requiem for a Dream are two of the best of the past decade.

Salma has never really been a big star, despite her popularity on these polls. As far as I can see, she has no physical flaws, unless you like your women taller. When we held our previous categorical polls, she did well in all categories: lovely face, breasts, buns .... and she is, by all accounts, a pleasant person to deal with. So, if you have any jobs for her ... hire her, man!

I suspect Casta may not be on the next leaderboard, if we wait two years. I guess she's going into semi-retirement to start a family or something, but who knows? There's no question in my mind that she could have been number one for a long time if she had chosen the career route, but she seems to have other aspirations for her life. Good for her.

Who is heating up.

The following women entered the top 10 for the first time

Jessica Alba, Christina Ricci, Kirsten Dunst, Katie Holmes, Jennifer Aniston

I don't think there should be any surprises there, at least in terms of current career popularity. I guess we all have our own concepts of babetude. I like Ricci, but I sure don't think of her as a babe, and she actually tied Casta for second place on the list. 

Of course, Alba is certainly a babe by any measurement.

Who is cooling off.

Most of the former top 10 just dropped a hair down to the next 10 in order to admit the youngsters, but Heather Graham fell the most precipitously, from 5th to 28th. She's still plenty sexy, another woman with the complete package like Salma, but her tepid and fully-clothed recent performances in mediocre movies have cost her some support.

Michelle Pfeiffer dropped from 11th to completely off the Top 30 list, and I don't suppose she'll return to the list, but she still garnered some support, which is a tribute to her lasting beauty and elegance. Think about it. Nearly a dozen guys still voted for her as the hottest babe - when they had only one vote, and all those young tootsies to choose from. You have to be impressed with that. 

TomCat was one busy boy this week.

• Asia Argento in The Scarlet Diva. Good pic!
• Brigitte Bardot in Nero's Week-Ends. As I recall, Nero really didn't need a weekend as an excuse to party down. I have never seen this Bardot picture before, never heard of this movie.
• Joanna Cassidy in The Fourth Protocol. I would like to see this film on DVD.
• Kim Cattrall in Live Nude Girls. This is another film that should be transferred to DVD, although not necessarily for the same reasons.
• Bo Derek in Bolero. This film, on the other hand, should probably be burned, but Bo did show some good stuff. (1, 2)
• Bridget Fonda in The Road to Wellville
• Janine Turner in Dr T and the Women
• Holly Pelham in Dr T
• Joanna Cassidy in Blade Runner
• Clara Bellar in The First 9 1/2 Weeks (1, 2)
• Christine Boisson in Rue Barbare
• Liz May Brice in Fortress 2
• Monica Bellucci in Malena (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West (non-nude) (1, 2)
• Karoline Eichhorn in Der Sandmann

First...from the movie "Secret Needs"