Nothing funnier than a man in a dress

There is nothing funnier than men dressing up as women - if a new list of the funniest American films is anything to go by.

The two top films in the American Film Institute's list of the 100 best comedies featured leading Hollywood actors dressed up as women - Some Like It Hot and Tootsie.

Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe

Tony Curtis (left) fooled Marilyn Monroe

The list of 100 best comedies was drawn up by a jury of 1,800 film industry people, included actors, directors, studio executives, critics and historians.

In Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder's 1959 classic, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis play musicians who dress up as women to avoid being recognised by the mob.

The film also stars Marilyn Monroe, who is initially completely unaware of the real gender of the two men.

Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie

Dustin Hoffman dressed as a woman to land a part

In Sydney Pollack's film Tootsie, Dustin Hoffman plays an unemployed actor who dresses up as a woman to get a role in a soap opera.

Two other transvestite tales also made the top 100 - Mrs Doubtfire at 67 and Victor/Victoria at 76.

"I can't figure it out. I guess with Americans in the year 2000, transgender is no longer transgressive," said Time magazine film critic Richard Schickel.

The runners up

The other top 10 films featured a variety of themes, from New York Jewish angst in Annie Hall to a black sheriff trying to maintain law and order in the Wild West in Mel Brook's Blazing Saddles.

Top 10 American comedies

Some Like It Hot, 1959

Tootsie, 1982

Dr Strangelove, 1964

Annie Hall, 1974

Duck Soup, 1933

Blazing Saddles, 1974

M*A*S*H*, 1970

It Happened One Night, 1934

The Graduate, 1967

Airplane! 1980

Third in the list was Stanley Kubrick's Cold War classic Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in which Peter Sellers plays an unlucky American president, among other roles.

The list - presented on television in a three-hour CBS special - was the third from the institute.

Last year, AFI ranked the top 50 screen legends, which was topped by Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn.

Two years ago, Citizen Kane came top of a list of the best 100 American films.

Scene from Dr Strangelove

Dr Strangelove came in third in the list

Voters in the jury chose their funniest movies from a list of 500 nominees drawn up by AFI.

The poll suggests that Cary Grant was the most popular comedy actor. He appeared in 17 of the films balloted.

Myrna Loy, the star of such films as A Girl in Every Port (1928) and The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), led the comedy actresses, appearing in 10 of the AFI's best 500 chosen comedies.