Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 109 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Doctor Wernher

Larry Johns plays Doctor Wernher who is replaced by a body-double look-alike with ill intent at the beginning of "Project Moonbase". His secret plan, on behalf of the "enemies of freedom", is to destroy the US' Earth-orbiting space station and the rocket used to survey the moon by crashing the two into each other.

He is detected mid-flight because, despite supposedly having taught in Brooklyn, he does not know who the Brooklyn Dodgers are. He repents and helps Major Moore set up a communications link with Earth, falling to his death in doing so.

Answer: The Last Day on Earth

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) is about a flying saucer which lands in Washington, D.C. "The Day the Sky Exploded" (1958) is an Italian movie about a giant cluster of asteroids on a cataclysmic course for the Earth. "Day the World Ended" (1955) is a Roger Corman film about a post-nuclear world infested with a scary and hungry mutated monster.

Marilyn Manson released "The Last Day on Earth" on his album "Mechanical Animals" in 1998. "Last Day on Earth" is the last track on Duran Duran's 2000 album "Pop Trash". Uri Niv wrote and directed the little known motion picture "Last Day on Earth" (2012) starring Bellamy Young. American author Eric Puchner published a collection of short stories titled "Last Day on Earth" in 2018. There does not appear to have been a movie made in the 1950s called "The Last Day on Earth".

Answer: white glowing blurry hominids

The invaders in "Invisible Invaders" were mostly invisible. The only times they could be seen were when they entered and animated the body of a deceased human and when they became momentarily visible at the point of their death. The filmmakers borrowed special effects artist Paul Blaisdell's monster suit from "It! The Terror from Beyond Space" (1958) and clothed the materialising monsters in it.

The image on film was then overexposed (to make it whiter) and slightly blurred (so no one would recognize it as a previously-worn costume).

Answer: John Carradine

Carradine played no part in the original Swedish version of "Invasion of the Animal People". His role as narrator was added as part of the Americanisation of the film for US release. The directors replaced some of the very slow action in the original with narration, in order to shorten the overall length of the film from 73 minutes to 55 minutes.

Answer: They were put in cages in Dr. Myra's basement.

The teenagers are captured by the hulking, bearded zombie Ivan (Chuck Niles) and imprisoned in cages down in Myra's basement. In her laboratory, she has several barred cells in which to keep the subjects of her experiments. The poster printed to advertise "Teenage Zombies" reads: "Young Pawns Thrust into Pulsating Cages of Horror in a Sadistic Experiment." (They don't write 'em like that anymore.)

Answer: a short story called "The Cosmic Frame"

Paul W. Fairman wrote a short story called "The Cosmic Frame" the film rights to which he sold to Forrest J. Ackerman of Ackerman Science Fiction Agency. The "frame" referred to the scheme whereby the aliens removed their dead comrade from in front of Johnny and Joan's automobile and replaced it with the dead body of Joe Gruen, who they had killed.

Their intent was to "frame" Johnny for Joe's death. Robert J. Gurney Jr. and Al Martin wrote the screenplay based on Fairman's short story.

Answer: White Sands Proving Ground / Nova Scotia

A crew of four men and a woman enter the RX-M (Rocketship Expedition Moon) and blast off from the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico, USA. When the RX-M returns from Mars, the survivors have insufficient fuel to land and their ship crashes in the wilds of Nova Scotia, Canada.

Answer: acting

American actor Morris Ankrum (1897-1964) worked in radio, television and motion pictures. Ankrum had a look and a manner which suited figures in authority. He played military officers, judges, and doctors. Perhaps his best-known television role was as the judge in 22 episodes of "Perry Mason".

He appeared in over 275 motion pictures in a 30-year career, many of them horror or science fiction films, including "Rocketship X-M" (1950), "Flight to Mars" (1951), "Red Planet Mars" (1952), "Invaders From Mars" (1953), "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" (1956), "Zombies of Mora Tau" (1957), "Kronos" (1957), "The Giant Claw" (1957), "Beginning of the End" (1957), "Giant from the Unknown" (1958), "How to Make a Monster" (1958), "Curse of the Faceless Man" (1958), "From the Earth to the Moon" (1958), "Half Human" (1958), and "X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes" (1963).

Answer: Jacksonville, Florida

The Gill Man is captured in the same Black Lagoon where he did battle with the humans in "Creature from the Black Lagoon". When it nearly kills expedition member Joe Hayes, dynamite is exploded on the water's surface which stuns it. The Gill Man is captured and taken to Ocean Harbor Oceanarium in Florida.

In the movie, Marineland of Florida stands in for Ocean Harbor Oceanarium. The Lobster House restaurant, from which the Gill Man kidnaps Helen Dobson, was located in Jacksonville, Florida, until it burnt down in 1962.

Answer: It is burnt in the basement.

Tanga, the Amazonian drummer, and Dr. Moran fight. The doctor tells him, "You've cheated me. Now I'll destroy your Idol as you've destroyed me." Moran throws a liquid onto the tree, which bursts into flames. Tanga throws his knife at Moran, hitting him in the back and killing him. Tanga then kneels before the burning bush and worships it as it is destroyed by fire.