Booze News: W.C. Fields' IT'S A GIFT inducted into the National Film Registry

Back on October 1st, I urged readers to email the National Film Preservation Board to recommend that a handful of soused cinema classics be included in the National Film Registry. Today, the Library of Congress announced the 2010 inductees, and W.C. Fields' comedy classic It's a Gift made the list! Here's a blurb from today's announcement:

It’s a Gift (1934)
The popularity and influence of W.C. Fields continues with each succeeding generation, distinguishing him as one of the greatest American comedians of the 20th century. "It’s a Gift" has survived a perilous preservation history and is the third Fields film to be named to the National Film Registry. The film’s extended comic sequence featuring Baby LeRoy, and depicting Fields’ travails while trying to sleep on the open-air back porch of a rooming house, was adapted from one of his most successful live theatrical sketches.

A number of other worthy films were also inducted this year, including another personal favorite, Robert Altman's best film, McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971). Here's the complete list:

Airplane (1980)
All the President’s Men (1976)
The Bargain (1914)
Cry of Jazz (1959)
Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (1967)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The Exorcist (1973)
The Front Page (1931)
Grey Gardens (1976)
I Am Joaquin (1969)
It’s a Gift (1934)
Let There Be Light (1946)
Lonesome (1928)
Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)
Malcolm X (1992)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)
Newark Athlete (1891)
Our Lady of the Sphere (1969)
The Pink Panther (1964)
Preservation of the Sign Language (1913)
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Study of a River (1996)
Tarantella (1940)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
A Trip Down Market Street (1906)

Let's lift an Orange Blossom (gin and orange juice) tonight in honor of the Great Man and his film, It's A Gift!

Cheers,
garv

W.C. Fields Comedy Collection, Vol. 1 (The Bank Dick / My Little Chickadee / You Can't Cheat an Honest Man / It's a Gift / International House)