Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 09 Trivia Quiz

Answer: to tell the leaders of earth to disarm

The Visitor has been sent by the leadership on his planet to warn the leaders of all the nations on Earth to destroy their nuclear weapons. Other planets in the solar system fear what will happen to them if the Earth is destroyed by nuclear explosions. He wishes to schedule an interplanetary meeting between his superiors and the world's leaders.

Answer: The Outer Space Killers

"The Killer Shrews" (1959) was about giant man-eating shrews but the creatures were played by dogs in wigs and fur coats. "Killers from Space" (1954) starred Peter Graves and had a space monster with ping-pong balls for eyes. "The Man Who Could Cheat Death" (1959) included a scene in which Hazel Court was topless, but only in the European-release cut.

There was a truly weird film made in 1988 called "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" and a made-for-TV movie in 2010 called "Killer Aliens." But there was no 1950s motion picture called "The Outer Space Killers."

Answer: a giant dinosaur-like creature

The producers of "Godzilla" consulted books and magazines about dinosaurs to develop the look of the monster in this motion picture. They borrowed elements of Tyrannosaurus, Iguanodon and Stegosaurus to invent this creature. The beast produced atomic fire breath which could kill with its radioactivity and set things on fire, as well.

Answer: Peter Graves

Peter Graves (1926-2010) played many memorable roles in his long career: Jim Phelps on "Mission Impossible," Captain Clarence Oveur in "Airplane" (1980) and "Airplane II: The Sequel" (1982), and Ed Wainwright in "Beginning of the End" (1957). As Wainwright, Graves plays an horticultural scientist working for the United States Department of Agriculture.

He is irradiating vegetables to make them huge as a way of addressing world hunger. Unfortunately, insects which eat these vegetables themselves grow to enormous size.

Answer: He is injected with a reptile serum.

Dr. Mark Sinclair notices that many reptilians are capable of regenerating amputated or severely damaged limbs. He experiments with hormones calculated to cause such regeneration in humans. The results are spectacular but are marred by the side-effect of turning patients into alligators. Paul is severely injured in an airplane crash and Dr. Sinclair saves his life with the serum.

Then the alligator extract begins to turn Paul into an alligator.

Answer: Gordon was blacklisted as a Communist.

Bernard Gordon was summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Although he did not testify, he was named as a Communist sympathizer by several witnesses. Using the Marcus pseudonym, he wrote scripts for "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" (1956) and "The Man Who Turned to Stone" (1957). Using another pseudonym, Philip Yordan, he wrote an adaptation of the John Wyndham novel which became "The Day of the Triffids" (1962).

Answer: The She-Creature (1957)

In "Abbott and Costello Go to Mars," the duo travels to Venus (by accident) and meets Queen Allura who tells them that only women live on Venus. In "Cat-Women of the Moon," an expedition to the moon discovers it occupied by cat women wearing skin-tight black leotards, having beehive hairdos, and interested in ruling the Earth.

In "Fire Maidens from Outer Space," a mission to the thirteenth moon of Jupiter finds a small colony of female survivors of a dying civilisation. "Queen of Outer Space" (1958) is also a motion picture about an all-female planet. "The She-Creature" is not about another culture on another planet but rather about a hypnotist who regresses a woman to her former life as a prehistoric humanoid sea creature.

Answer: acting

Walter Pidgeon (1897-1984) certainly earned his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1960) and his Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 1975. He had a great singing voice and appeared in musicals. He starred in many motion pictures, including "Forbidden Planet" (1956) and "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961) but cannot be particularly identified as a science-fiction actor.

Answer: Switzerland

As the opening credits are about to roll, a written prologue says "More than a hundred years ago, in a mountain village in Switzerland, lived a man whose strange experiments with the dead have since become legend. The legend is still told with horror the world over ... It is the Legend of ..." The title, written in Gothic script, then appears on the screen: "The Curse of Frankenstein." The film was shot entirely within England.

Answer: It signifies those bits which happen atop the plateau.

"Lost Continent" was shot in black-and-white. When the party of explorers reaches the plateau, they enter a dense jungle where the dinosaurs live. The film switches, at this point, from black-and-white to green-and-white to create an eerie effect. When seeing green, the audience is alerted to being in the weird jungle where prehistoric monsters survive.