The questionnaire I got from Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule
via Allure has been tempting some of you but others have balked at all the corny, old-fashioned modern films included. I sympathise.
Here, then, is my brand spanking new self-devised classic questionnaire, devoted almost entirely to the thirties and forties.
I COMMAND everyone to have a go, either in my comments or in your own blogs and let me know...
The following have so far posted responses on their own blogs:
Meredith at Or maybe Eisenstein Should Just Relax
Elizabeth at Oh By Jingo! Oh By Gee!
So, thinking caps on (or ask Clara for a lend of hers if yours is at the cleaners) - here goes...
.
1. Your favourite Humphrey Bogart film in which he doesn't play a gangster or a private eye. (Oh, and not including Casablanca either.)
2. Your favourite appearance by a star in drag (boy-girl or girl-boy).
3. Your favourite Laurel & Hardy film; short or feature, or one of each. (This will sort out the men from the boys - or perhaps the men from the girls.)
4. Your favourite appearance by one star in a role strongly associated with another star. (Eg: Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade, Grace Kelly as Tracy Lord, Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates...)
5. The thirties or forties star or stars you most think you'd like, but have yet to really get to know.
6. Your favourite pre-Petrified Forest Bette Davis film.
7. Your favourite post-Mildred Pierce Joan Crawford film.
8. Your favourite film that ends with the main character's death.
9. Your favourite Chaplin talkie.
10. Your favourite British actor and actress.
11. Your favourite post-1960 appearance by a 1930's star.
12. Dietrich or Garbo?
13. Karloff or Lugosi?
14. Chaplin or Keaton? (I know some of you will want to say both for all of the above. Me too. But you can't.)
15. Your favourite star associated predominantly with the 1950's.
16. Your favourite Melvyn Douglas movie.
17. The box-office failure you most think should have been a success.
18. Your favourite performance by an actor or actress playing drunk.
19. Your favourite last scene of any thirties movie.
20. Your favourite American non-comedy silent movie.
21. Your favourite Jean Harlow performance.
22. Your favourite remake. (Quizmaster's definition: second or later version of a work written as a movie, not a later adaptation of the same novel or play.)
23. Your favourite Orson Welles performance in a film he did not direct, not including The Third Man.
24. Your favourite non-gangster or musical James Cagney film or performance.
25. Your favourite Lubitsch movie.
26. Who would win in a fight: Miriam Hopkins or Barbara Stanwyck? (Both in their prime; say in 1934 or so.)
27. Name the two stars you most regret never having co-starred with each other, and - if you want - choose your dream scenario for them. (Quizmaster's qualification: they have to be sufficiently contemporary to make it possible. So, yes to Cary Grant and Lon Chaney Jr as two conmen in a Howard Hawks screwball; no to Clara Bow and Kirsten Dunst as twin sisters on the run from prohibition agents in twenties Chicago, much though that may entice.)
28. Your favourite Lionel Barrymore performance.
29. Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard or Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour? (See note on question 14.)
30. You won't want to answer this, but: there's been a terrible fire raging in the film libraries of all the major studios. It's far too late to save everything. All you can do is save as much as you can. You've been assigned the thirties. All you'll have time to drag from the obliterating inferno is one 1930's film each from Paramount, MGM, RKO, Columbia, Universal and Warners. Do you stomp around in a film buff's huff saying 'it's too hard, I can't choose just one' and watch them all go up in smoke? Or do you roll your sleeves up and start saving movies?
But if the latter: which ones...?
32 comments:
Matthew: I promise I'll get to this the moment I'm not feverishly working on a post that's long overdue (don't you love it when posters like me announce that a post is "overdue," as though we worked for some major publisher or had a huge gaggle of fans harassing us for more words? oh, you’ve all been so patient with me! The deadline, of course, is strictly and only my own!). -- Mykal
Radiation Cinema:
Has the God complex gone over your head, now? It seems like you don't care for us fans, suffering in vain for more blog posts. I think you sleep to much. Write more! (Am I not good as a crazy fan?)
Oh, this was just great, Mr. Coniam! (Yes, I love being formal to an Englishman.) I postpone my planned posts, and will do this questionnaire the next thing I do! (Buy the way, I love your "I will not accept this cliché answer" notes of yours, ha ha.)
Lolita: You have made my day! -- Mykal
just posted my responses at my blog! this was great fun.
Ah, much better! I will fill this in later!
Thanks all, I look forward to your answers!
Hello boy, so here's my answers...
1. Conflict
2. Marlene in Morocco – come on girls, I’m not the only one who fancied her!!
3. Men o' War
4. Grace Kelly as Mary Astor in Mogambo
5. Anna May Wong – Piccadilly was AMAZING
6. Ex-Lady
7. Queen Bee – great bitch
8. Waterloo Bridge with Vivien. So sad :(
9. Limelight
10. Viv & Leslie
11. Joan Blondell in Grease
12. Dietrich
13. Karloff
14. Chappers
15. Doris
16. Counsellor at Law
17. It’s a Wonderful Life. There were people who didn’t like it?? Crazy.
18. Jimmy in Philadelphia Story. (There are rules about those things.)
19. Quite frankly my dear, GWTW (of course!)
20. The Big Parade
21. Dinner at Eight
22. The Man Who Knew Too Much
23. Jane Eyre - Rochester
24. no answer for this – he’s always a gangster in my mind
25. Heaven Can Wait
26. Babs – fun to watch though ;)
27. Viv and Cary
28. A Free Soul
29. Dottie
30. MGM - San Francisco – la, la, la-la…. Not even an earthquake can stop Jeanette McDonald singing!!
RKO - Of Human Bondage
Warners - The box set of Busby Berkeley please
Paramount - Blonde Venus
Universal - Bride of Frankenstein
Columbia - It Happened One Night
Afraid a couple of times I've gone for horrid modern films or multiple choices where it wasn't specifically ruled out.
1. Your favourite Humphrey Bogart film in which he doesn't play a gangster or a private eye. (Oh, and not including Casablanca either.)
African Queen
2. Your favourite appearance by a star in drag (boy-girl or girl-boy).
Ingrid Thulin in Bergman's 'The Magician'
3. Your favourite Laurel & Hardy film; short or feature, or one of each. (This will sort out the men from the boys - or perhaps the men from the girls.)
Feature, Flying Deuces just pips Way Out West, for the flying scene.
Shorts, too damn many possibles to choose. The one in the lumber-yard where their car gets sawn in half at the end. Or the one with the mad scientist where Ollie de-evolves into a monkey. Or the one where Stan finally snaps and starts pelting Ollie with bricks. Picking with a pin, the one where Ollie says, 'Pardon me, I have milk in my ear'.
4. Your favourite appearance by one star in a role strongly associated with another star. (Eg: Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade, Grace Kelly as Tracy Lord, Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates...)
Tempted to go for Cortez. No-one ever believes me that I prefer him to Bogart. But so as not to seem to grab lazily at your suggestion, Alan Arkin as Inspector Clouseau. The film isn't much good but I think he may be funnier than Sellers, and no-one EVER believes that.
5. The thirties or forties star or stars you most think you'd like, but have yet to really get to know.
Having loved the only film of hers I've seen, Jessie Matthews
6. Your favourite pre-Petrified Forest Bette Davis film.
'Three on a Match' is the only one I've seen
7. Your favourite post-Mildred Pierce Joan Crawford film.
Have only seen 'Baby Jane'
8. Your favourite film that ends with the main character's death.
Double Indemnity
9. Your favourite Chaplin talkie.
A Countess from Hong Kong!
10. Your favourite British actor and actress.
Robert Newton and Deborah Kerr
11. Your favourite post-1960 appearance by a 1930's star.
Keaton in 'A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum'
12. Dietrich or Garbo?
Diebo. Garbrich. Logical loop. Hate quizmaster. Flipping a coin, Dietrich.
13. Karloff or Lugosi?
Lugosi, forced at gunpoint.
14. Chaplin or Keaton? (I know some of you will want to say both for all of the above. Me too. But you can't.)
Keaton, no hesitation.
15. Your favourite star associated predominantly with the 1950's.
This was actually the hardest question, simply because most of the people who initially came to mind were equally stellar in the 40s and 60s. (Who has that kind of longevity now?) But I came to rest on Marilyn Monroe, and who wouldn't want to?
16. Your favourite Melvyn Douglas movie.
Ninotchka
17. The box-office failure you most think should have been a success.
As I don't know this kind of thing I go with the smart-alec answer of 'Meet the Parents'. I recently read an interview with Emo Philips, who was supposed to get a percentage of the take having made the original short on which it was based, but didn't see any money due to creative accounting. He said, "I think if God went up to Universal and said 'I'll give you everything in the universe, including Meet the Parents, in exchange for Meet the Parents', it would still not be in profit."
18. Your favourite performance by an actor or actress playing drunk.
Limiting to a single scene, Jimmy in Philadelphia Story. Playing drunk for most of the film, Richard E Grant in Withnail and I.
19. Your favourite last scene of any thirties movie.
The Man Who Could Work Miracles
20. Your favourite American non-comedy silent movie.
American, non-comedy, I don't think I've seen any
21. Your favourite Jean Harlow performance.
Public Enemy
22. Your favourite remake. (Quizmaster's definition: second or later version of a work written as a movie, not a later adaptation of the same novel or play.)
The 1970s Bridges-Lang King Kong, and I will fight any man or preferably woman who sneers
23. Your favourite Orson Welles performance in a film he did not direct, not including The Third Man.
The preacher in 'Moby Dick'
24. Your favourite non-gangster or musical James Cagney film or performance.
Billy Wilder's 'One, Two, Three', easily.
SCHLEMMERRRR!
25. Your favourite Lubitsch movie.
To Be or Not To Be. Cluny Brown. Ninotchka. Logical loop. Hate quizmaster.
26. Who would win in a fight: Miriam Hopkins or Barbara Stanwyck? (Both in their prime; say in 1934 or so.)
Stanwyck
27. Name the two stars you most regret never having co-starred with each other, and - if you want - choose your dream scenario for them. (Quizmaster's qualification: they have to be sufficiently contemporary to make it possible. So, yes to Cary Grant and Lon Chaney Jr as two conmen in a Howard Hawks screwball; no to Clara Bow and Kirsten Dunst as twin sisters on the run from prohibition agents in twenties Chicago, much though that may entice.)
Bogart and Bob Hope, in a time-travelling remake of 'Twins'
28. Your favourite Lionel Barrymore performance.
'It's a Wonderful Life'
29. Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard or Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour? (See note on question 14.)
Forced at gunpoint, Lamour, narrowly, on the strength of 'My Favourite Brunette'. However the correct answer is 'Bob Hope and Jane Russell'.
30. You won't want to answer this, but: there's been a terrible fire raging in the film libraries of all the major studios. It's far too late to save everything. All you can do is save as much as you can. You've been assigned the thirties. All you'll have time to drag from the obliterating inferno is one 1930's film each from Paramount, MGM, RKO, Columbia, Universal and Warners. Do you stomp around in a film buff's huff saying 'it's too hard, I can't choose just one' and watch them all go up in smoke? Or do you roll your sleeves up and start saving movies?
But if the latter: which ones...?
Not expert enough to have a clue who made what, but my tears would act as a sprinkler system.
--
I can't be alone in hoping the quizmaster intends to man up and give us his answers at some point.
-- George
Cool quiz! I just did it over at my blog!
Nice set of questions. Here are some answers.
1. The Caine Mutiny
2. Garbo, Queen Christina; don't believe it for a moment, though.
3. Big Business
4. Speaking of Cortez as Spade, how about Dwight Frye as Wilmer in the same film?
5.Not sure. Deanna Durbin?
6.Of Human Bondage, I guess.
7.Johnny Guitar
8.The Public Enemy
9. Monsieur Verdoux
10. Actor=Laughton; Actress=Kerr
11. Karloff in Targets
12. Dietrich
13. Karloff
14. Keaton
15. Cyd Charisse
16. The Old Dark House
17. Barry Lyndon
18. James Gleason in Meet John Doe
19. The Public Enemy.
20. Sunrise
21. Platinum Blonde
22. The Magnificent Seven
23. Cesare Borgia in Prince of Foxes
24. Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream
25. Ninotchka
26. Don't know why Hopkins is even in comptetition.
27. Wayne and Eastwood as rivals in a Western.
28. Key Largo
29. Goddard
30.Par=Sign of the Cross; MGM=Queen Christina; RKO=Kong; Col=Mr. Deeds; Univ=Frankenstein; WB=The Public Enemy
George -
Flying Deuces is a nicely eccentric choice for which I commend you.
I remember seeing Arkin as Clouseau as a kid and just not accepting it - which is obviously not the same thing as fairly judging it bad. Perhaps I'll give him another chance, though that film rarely comes round. Of course, Sellers doesn't exactly do much in the role; it's grotesque sentimentality that prevents us from admitting the basically disposable nature of those films, isn't it? (Me guilty as much as anyone.)
But everyone knows Clouseau was a role that was basically sitting around for forty years waiting for Steve Martin.
Have you seen the episode of The Jack Benny Show where they do a spoof gangster film with the real Bogart? It's the closest you'll get to your Bob Hope-Bogie film.
Good point about Jane Russell. I should have added her to the choice.
I'll post my answers in a minute...
Thanks for being diverted by my diversions.
Millie -
Thanks! I'm off to have a look at your answers now.
Samuel Wilson -
Yes, Karloff in Targets for me too! What a role for an actor like that to be offered at that time in his life. he must have thought he'd died already and this was his heavenly reward. I like Welles in Prince of Foxes, as well.
That Wayne-Eastwood collaboration is all the more tantalising for the fact that it so nearly happened a couple of times.(Despite the fact that Wayne sent Eastwood a letter telling him how much he disliked High Plains Drifter!)
Thanks for answering!
Here's my answers, for the record!
1. Bogie as the wife-killer bursting like a giant bat through Stanwyck's window in The Two Mrs Carrols.
2. I am always struck by the unacceptable degree of absurdity, even in context, of Herman and Grandpa getting jobs as waitresses in The Munsters' Revenge, and admire the fact that the laugh track breaks into applause for their initial sighting in wigs and gingham dresses.
3. Feature: Sons of the Desert
Short: Men o'War
4. If I was writing this in 1973 the obvious answer would be Roger Moore as James Bond, but since nobody even remembers that Connery fellow anymore, I'll admit to feeling very protective of Bela Lugosi's shot at the Frankenstein monster, hobbled at the editing stage by typical Universal crassness but not without charm even then.
5. Jessie Matthews
6. Three On a Match and Of Human Bondage come closer than close, but Ex-Lady has it.
7. I want to say Berserk. But I must be true to myself, and go with Humouresque...
8 ... and stay with it here.
9. Limelight. Only Chaplin could get away with filming his own sentimental obituary.
10. Charles Laughton and (brain to hand: don't type Keira Knightley, they won't understand) Margaret Lockwood.
11. Karloff in Targets. If only every great star could have had something similar in that miserable, self-adoring decade.
12. Dietrich - my first old film star crush after seeing Destry Rides Again as a wee lad.
13. Lugosi.
14. Chaplin.
15. Jane Russell. Mmmmmm!!!
16. The Old Dark House.
17. The Ghoul (1975)
18. Interesting that everyone's gone for the funny drunks rather than the tragic ones. No Ray Milland, I notice. So I'll stick with Dudley Moore as Arthur. Oh come on, he was funny.
19. City Lights. That last three minutes sits as near the high water mark of human creativity as anything in movies.
20. The Big Parade
21. Red-Headed Woman is close, Platinum Blonde is close, stomping about in her wedding dress, tearing Spencer Tracy a new ass in Libelled Lady is close, Wife V. Secretary is close... but it's got to be Red Dust I suppose.
22. I made this ridiculously hard by cutting out literary adaptations. I just wanted to ensure that the first film was in the mind of those making the second... I mean, the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice is in no sense a remake of the Greer Garson one, that was my point. But Van Sant's Psycho IS obviously a remake of Hitchcock's - but my rule disallows that too. (Good thing it isn't any good.) I'll go for The Flying Serpent - a remake of The Devil Bat in all but bat.
24. It was going to be Cardinal Wolsey in A Man For All Seasons. But now I've seen that champagne commercial over at Lolita's Classics I'm inclined to go with her.
25. Either the Charles Laughton raspberry scene from If I Had a Million, or Design For Living, Hollywood's most sophisticated film about two men having the same girl.
26. Such a close call. I'll play it out in my mind and let you know when the final bell rings. Come back in two hours.
27. Fay Wray and Thelma Todd as air hostesses; messy slapstick and lots of falling about in the aisle during flight, then they crash on an island and have to fend for themselves in the wilds - humorously and always in good taste of course, but obviously in shredded and tattered dresses.
28. A Free Soul gets the silver, You Can't Take It With You takes the gold.
29. Dorothy, I love you. But it's Paulette in The Cat and the Canary and there's nothing can change that.
30. I'm trying to balance selfishness and posterity here, but I think I've merely alternated them.
Paramount - Animal Crackers
MGM - Madam Satan
RKO - The Gay Divorcee (Sorry, Fay.)
Columbia - It Happened One Night
Universal - Dracula
Warners - Angels With Dirty Faces (Sorry, Bette.)
Great answers, Mr. Coniam!
I love how I affected you with a sad, intoxicated Orson, ha ha.
The last question was hard, but I went with thinking only of myself. As usual.
30 is just plain evil. ;)
I like your answers a lot (Bette, on the other hand...)
Grand idea, you're swell. I'll most definitely be doing this.
Hurrah! Eagerly I await!
1.Answer: In a Lonely Place (Ray, 1950)
2. Answer:– Terence Stamp – The Adventures of Prescilla, Queen of the Desert
3. Answer: I haven’t ever watched an entire Laurel and Hardy film (gulp). I loath comedies
4. Answer: Zandor Varkov as Count Dracula in Al Adamson’s 1971 Dracula Vs. Frankenstein
5. Answer: Agnes Moorehead
6. Answer: Only one I’ve seen is Of Human Bondage, and she was too cute by half.
7. Answer: Trog
8. Answer: the Incredible Shrinking Man
9. Answer: Chaplin? Talkie?
10. Answer: Peter Cushing
11. Answer: Dietrich for her sharpness
13. Answer: Wow – toughest one yet. Lugosi – for his sense of dark drama.
14. Answer: Chaplin for City Lights
15. Answer: Montgomery Cliff
16. Wow, so many to choose from. None.
17. Answer: Jail Bait – Edward D. Wood.
18. Gig Young – They shoot Horses, don’t they.
19. Bride of Frankenstein (We belong dead)
20. Answer: Three Musketeers – Douglas Fairbanks
21. wer: Never have seen one – don’t plan to. Hate the woman.
22. King Kong - 2005
23. Answer: the Long Hot Summer
24. Ragtime
25.Answer: Trouble in Paradise
26. Answer: Miriam: Stanwyck was all talk and no walk. Hopkins was the velvet hammer! For those answering Stanwyck – Pffft. Whatever.
27. Answer: Marlon Brando and Edward D. Wood Jr. – playing brothers – Brando the viscous thug brother continually has to protect his sweet, loser brother.
28. Answer: It’s a Wonderful Life.
29. Hope and Lamour, all the way. Lamour had the sense of humor.
30. Sorry – on this one I break the rules I would grab all the Universal Horror – screw the other studios.
-- Mykal
Matthew: crap, I misspelled Montgomery Clift's name. I hate when that happens. -- Mykal
ooh this is going to be fun!!
Mykal-- Barbara Stanwyck told me to give you a message: "Back alley. Eleven o'clock. No rules." Do you have any idea what she coulda meant by that?
Good answer for 18, by the way. As for 17...I'd have gone with Glen or Glenda. :)
Mykal -
You are, I think, the only person to come out unequivocally for Miriam in the big fight. I hadn't realised Babs had so many ardent supporters. I would speculate on the reasons for this, but as I have decided to do a dead horse-flogging follow-up post collating the various answers I'll save it for there!
Rest assured, sir, that your rabid aversion to Jean Harlow will be probed further, too!!!
Oh I SO nearly went for Zandor as Dracula, but in the event played safe with Lugosi's monster. That is certainly some performance... what all the old boys in the cast must have made of it is impossible to imagine.
Two final observations: 1. There are, I think you'll find, far more embarrassing ways to mis-spell Clift. 2. Your Newcastle looks a hell of a lot nicer than ours.
Panavia 999 -
I look forward to your answers!
Just realised I buggered my answers by labelling 23 as 24 and missing out the real 24 (Man of a Thousand Faces).
Sorry!
Matthew: Regarding my entry in your excellent survey, you are being too generous. You are ever the gentleman, but you and I know the truth: Mine was a poorly conceived, tawdry effort. I'm afraid my eagerness to play with my friends exceeded my ability to do so. I am still struggling with this damn post, which I should finally beat into submission today or tomorrow.
It was like I could hear my buddies calling me from out in the yard; and I put aside my homework, climbed out my bedroom window, and shimmied down the tree. I could only give the game half attention, though, as I needed to get back to my homework.
Anyway, the question I am most ashamed of is the last one, regarding one pick from each studio. I clearly shucked that one off in shameful fashion, and would like a redo on that one. Regarding Jean Harlow, I have never been able to explain my disinterest in her even to myself. I mean, Hemingway particularly used to giggle and drool over her.
The only answer that I feel I answered well was the one regarding a possible Stanwyck/Hopkins cage match. I stand by my answer. To all those predicting an easy Stanwyck victory, I can only say Hopkins has hands of stone and a mean streak a mile wide. -- Mykal
Not at all; some great answers there, including some amusingly vehement ones! I've collated everybody's choices into a new post, now up.
Now back to your homework!
(Hope it's going well; will read it the second it materialises...)
Best,
Matthew
1 To Have and Have Not
2 Cary Grant: Bringing Up Baby and I was a Male War Bride
3 Sons of the Desert
4 Charles Laughton, Henry VIII (The Private Life...)
5 Fred Astaire
6 Of Human Bondage
7 Johnny Guitar
8 King Kong
9 Limelight
10 Dirk Bogarde
11 Bette Davis (& Joan Crawford) What Happened to Baby Jane?
12 Dietrich
13 Lugosi
14 Keaton
15 Elizabeth Taylor
16 Ninotchka
17 Citizen Kane
18 Ray Milland, The Lost Weekend
19 KIng Kong
20 Sunrise
21 Dinner at Eight
22 A Star is Born
23 The Director in Pasolini's La ricotta (Ro.Go.Pa.G)
24 Man of a Thousand Faces (as Lon Chaney)
25 To Be Or Not To Be
26 Stanwyck
27 Louise Brooks & Erich von Stroheim
28 It's a Wonderful Life
29 Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour
30
Paramount: Paramount on Parade
MGM: Fury
RKO: King Kong
Columbia: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Universal: Frankenstein
Warner: The Public Enemy
I posted my answers on my blog.
http://panavia999.blogspot.com/2009/08/answer-to-movietone-news-quiz.html
Thea and Panavia - Thanks - I have added your results in a stop press in my statistical breakdown --- some big changes thanks to you two!
Hallo Matthew.
Your command is my wish, so here are my answers. This was really hard (but fun). Apologies if my choices are dull and merely echo those of others...
1. 'Sabrina'
2. Cary Grant - 'Bringing Up Baby' (briefly)
3. Short: 'Helpmates'; feature: 'Fraternally Yours' (aka ‘Sons of the Desert’)
4. Laughton - 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' (cf. Chaney)
5. Loretta Young
6. Do people have favourite Bette Davis films? How quaint…
7. See previous answer. (Seriously though, I admire both ladies, but they are not hugely in my radar most of the time…)
8. King Kong (1933 or Peter Jackson)
9. Modern Times
10. Actor, easy - Cary Grant; actress, nearly impossible, but let’s go Madeleine Carroll
11. Peter Lorre – ‘Tales of Terror’
12. Dietrich
13. Karloff
14. Keaton
15. Doris Day
16. 'Ninotchka'
17. ‘The Great Moment’ (Preston Sturges)
18. Carole Lombard in ‘Nothing Sacred’ (come to think of it, isn’t she just drugged or on medication? Anyway, it’s Carole Lombard, who cares?)
19. The boys lobbing bread rolls at la Dumont in ‘Duck Soup’
20. 'Sunrise'
21. 'Dinner at Eight'
22. ‘The Maltese Falcon’ (Bogie)
23. 'Jane Eyre'
24. 'Mister Roberts'
25. 'To Be or Not To Be'
26. Barbara Stanwyck
27. Cary Grant and Basil Rathbone
28. 'David Copperfield'
29. Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour; Me and Paulette Goddard
30. Paramount – ‘Duck Soup’
MGM – ‘Tarzan the Ape Man’
RKO – ‘King Kong’
Columbia – ‘Lost Horizon’
Universal – ‘Frankenstein’
Warner Bros. – ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’
I thank you.
Oops. '9' should read 'The Great Dictator' (I was thinking of something else at the time I wrote that - Carole Lombard in a negligee, if you must know...)
Aaargh! This is addictive! My head is in a spin!
I've come up with ten questions of my own - feel free, Matthew, to use or adapt any or all of them when you deliver your next fiendish test of memory and judgement. (And when I say feel 'free', I do, of course, mean, for a small monthly fee.)
1. The greatest loss to world cinema by someone dying too young? My answer: F.W. Murnau
2. The greatest Oscar travesty, in any of the five main categories? Me: Albert Finney - best actor - 'Murder on the Orient Express'.
3. Most famous/loved/respected film you're even ever so slightly embarrassed about still not having seen. Me: 'The African Queen'.
4. Kirk Douglas or Burt Lancaster?
5. A film originally made in black & white, which you wish had been made in colour? (N.B. Not - "that you wish could be colourized" - may the gods forgive you your blasphemy). Me: 'The Sea Hawk'. (Runner-up: 'Witness for the Prosecution'.)
6. George Formby or Will Hay?
7. Favourite performance in a movie, by any one of the ten actors to have so far played the Doctor in BBC TV's 'Doctor Who'? Me: Patrick Troughton - 'The Omen'.
8. Ray Harryhausen's finest moment? Me: Talos (the big bronze statue) slowly coming to life in 'Jason and the Argonauts'.
9. Favourite film adapted (however tangentially) from the writings of H.G. Wells? Me: 'The Time Machine' (1960).
10. Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee? (Well, you started it - 'Karloff or Lugosi' indeed!)
Thanks for your answers - I will include them in a definitive and final rundown of results later this week.
As for your questions - some excellent dilemmas there.
I'm hoping somebody else is going to set the next set, but I will certainly keep these in my back pocket for when I next set one.
I cannot, however, wait that long before answering them myself:
1. Jean Harlow
2. Out of a list of thousands, freshness of memory compels me to settle on Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. How embarrassing for all concerned.
3. Shadow of a Doubt
4. Not mad on either, but I can enjoy Kirk once in a while. I've never enjoyed Burt.
5. Jezebel - I want to see that red dress!
6. As an all-round entertainer: Formby. As a film star: Hay. So presumably Hay.
7. As you well know, only five actors have played the Doctor, and five more have pretended to. This is tricky. William Hartnell did some great work in movies, and I haven't seen Tom Baker as Rasputin - otherwise I suspect that would have taken it. So instead I'll go for Jon Pertwee in The House That Dripped Blood.
8. Assuming he wasn't personally responsible for Raquel Welch's fur bikini in One Million BC, I'll stick with a favourite childhood memory: the skeletons' sword fight in, I think, Jason.
9. My grandad worked on Things To Come so I have a strong affection for it, on the other hand it does reflect Wells in hectoring pro-fascist mode, so I'll plump for The Man Who Could Work Miracles.
10. Karloff or Lugosi was difficult not because I needed a second's thought to come up with my certain answer, but because I really do love Karloff too. This is the same. I love Christopher Lee. But Cushing it is.
Good stuff.
Re 2. I should have clarified - "...didn't win but should have..." - hence Albert Finney, quite wonderful. You've picked one who won but shouldn't have - I suppose it wotks both ways. I think you'll agree with me, the Oscar people got it right in 1927, giving a special merit statue to 'Sunrise', and rarely have they got anything right since.
And I forgot my choices in either/or - Kirk Douglas (though I like Burt), Will Hay and - aargh - Peter Cushing.
And another choice for your Q.27 - Gene Kelly and Doris Day.
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