Frankly, it's the greatest line of all

It is 66 years since Clark Gable told Vivien Leigh: 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.'

But that exchange from Gone With The Wind is still fresh in the memory of movie buffs.

They voted Rhett Butler's words to Scarlett O'Hara the greatest movie line of all in a survey to celebrate the last century of cinema.

Second and third places in the American Film Institute poll were both claimed by Marlon Brando.

As Don Corleone in The Godfather he declares: 'I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.'

And as washed-up boxer Terry Malloy in On The Waterfront, he protests: 'You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.'

When it comes to favourite pieces of pop music, compilation lists are notoriously skewed in favour of the most recent songs.

But the opposite appears to apply to movies, with the top ten dominated by films which were released before today's teenagers were born.

Even the most recent quote in the top ten, Clint Eastwood's taunt of 'Go ahead, make my day' is more than 20 years old.

AFI director Jean Picker Firstenberg said quotes from classic films topped the list most probably because it took a long time for the sayings to work their way into popular culture, but once they do, they tend to stick around.

The list was compiled by the institute to celebrate its 100-year history, and the criteria that voters were asked to consider included a quote's cultural impact, the degree to which it has become included in the lexicon of language, and whether it invokes the memory of the film.

Despite this, not all the soundbites are drawn from the cinematic classics. Patrick Swayze's solemn declaration that 'No one puts Baby in the corner' might have been the line best remembered by girls who were in their teens when Dirty Dancing was released in 1987, but neither that, nor Leonardo DiCaprio's 'I'm the king of the world' from Titanic, released a decade later, gets any higher than 98th and 100th respectively.

Meanwhile science fiction fans voted for Harrison Ford's 'May the Force be with you' (8th) from Star Wars, Arnold Schwarzenegger's 'I'll be back' (37) from The Terminator and the rather more friendly 'E.T. phone home' (15th) from 1982's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.