1950s Movie Quotes Trivia Quiz

Answer: All About Eve

"All About Eve" won the Best Picture Oscar of 1950 and served as a "comeback" for Bette Davis, whose film career began to flounder in the late 1940s. In this sharp film, Davis portrays Margo Channing, a magnificent but aging stage actress. Anne Baxter is Eve Harrington, the deceitful and calculating young fan who worms her way into Margo's life and ultimately takes over her career, becoming the "next" Margo Channing.

Bette Davis' character delivers this biting quote on the evening of her dinner party, when she begins to realize Eve's true motives in her life.

Answer: Sunset Boulevard

"Sunset Boulevard" (1950) stars William Holden and Gloria Swanson. Holden plays Joe Gillis, a broke and cynical young screenwriter desperate for work. Swanson is Norma Desmond, a long-forgotten silent movie star whose mind remains in the past with her illustrious career. Gillis stumbles onto Desmond's decrepit and garish mansion one day, while running away from a pair of repo men, and he finds himself entangled in Desmond's dream of making a comeback with her "Salome" script. Figuring it's easy money, Gillis agrees to work as her screenwriter ... but finds himself becoming her gigolo as well.

The quote above is the last line of the film, delivered by Gloria Swanson's character to the police who have come to arrest her.

Answer: North by Northwest

Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" (1959) stars Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason in a thrilling spy chase from New York City to Mount Rushmore. Grant stars as advertising man Roger O. Thornhill, who is mistaken for U.S. spy George Kaplan and promptly abducted by ringleader Vandamme's thugs. However, Kaplan doesn't exist. He's a decoy invented by the CIA to keep Vandamme from discovering their true agent, played by Eva Marie Saint. This film also features the famous crop-dusting sequence and the climactic scene atop Mount Rushmore.

Cary Grant's character delivers the quote above to the CIA professor played by Leo G. Carroll. Carroll tries to convince Grant to continue playing the role of Kaplan until they can get their own agent safely out of the country ... on Vandamme's plane.

Answer: The Bridge on the River Kwai

"The Bridge on the River Kwai" won the Best Picture Oscar of 1957. Starring William Holden and Alec Guinness, the movie is set in a Japanese prison camp isolated deep in the Asian jungles and ruled by the heartless Colonel Saito. The plot of the movie surrounds the bridge that British Colonel Nicholson (Guinness) and his men are forced to build for Saito. However, Guinness's character becomes pridefully obsessed with making the enemy's bridge perfect, and when an American escapee (Holden) plans to blow up the bridge, Nicholson is determined to stop him.

Colonel Saito sarcastically delivers the quote above to the British POWs near the beginning of the film.

Answer: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958) stars Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, and Burl Ives in Tennessee Williams's sultry Southern drama. Newman is Brick, his parents' favorite son who is now a washed-up, drunken ex-athlete. Taylor is Maggie, Brick's sensual wife desperate for his love. Ives is the wealthy and outspoken Big Daddy, and no one wants to tell him that he's dying of cancer. But the family has all gathered for Big Daddy's 65th birthday, right before all hell breaks loose.

Big Daddy gives this quote near the end of the film after he discovers that he's dying of cancer. When he walks into a room, his family suddenly ceases to speak; they say they weren't talking about anything. However, Big Daddy smells mendacity in their words.

Answer: The Big Country

"The Big Country" (1958) was directed by William Wyler and features an all-star cast, including Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives, Chuck Connors, and Charles Bickford. The central plot of the story surrounds humble Jim McKay (Peck), a retired sea captain who comes West to marry his spoiled sweetheart Pat Terrill (Baker). However, he is soon caught in the middle of a bitter battle over water rights to a dormant plantation owned by a local schoolteacher (Simmons). Both Pat's father, the wealthy Henry Terrill (Bickford), and struggling rancher Rufus Hannassey (Ives) claim water rights to the dormant plantation. However, McKay, the intelligent outsider, sees through the feuding patriarchs, and the movie culminates in one of the greatest showdowns in Western cinema.

Ives delivers the quote above when he catches his son, Buck (Connors), attempting to rape the local schoolteacher (Simmons).

Answer: The African Queen

"The African Queen," the 1951 John Huston classic, stars Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart as an unlikely pair stuck together in the African jungle during WWI. Hepburn is a puritanical missionary spinster on board hard-drinking Bogart's small riverboat. Although they initially share a mutual dislike for one another, the pair soon become friends (and later fall in love) as they plot to build homemade torpedoes and blow up a powerful German ship downriver.

Bogart delivers the quote above one evening when he is quite drunk. Aghast, Hepburn waits until he drifts into sleep, then she empties every bottle of gin into the river.

Answer: Ben-Hur

"Ben-Hur" stars Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd and won an unprecedented 11 Academy Awards in 1959, including Best Picture. The film tells the story of Jewish Prince Judah Ben-Hur and his estrangement from his childhood friend, a Roman named Messala. Ben-Hur loses his family, his wealth, and even his freedom in the course of the film's four hours, all of which feed his hatred for Messala, who was responsible for Ben-Hur's unjustified demise. The movie's most famous scene is, of course, the chariot race.

When Ben-Hur is enslaved as a rower on a Roman ship, his "number" is forty-one. When a prominent Roman meets him and sees Ben-Hur's bitterness and hatred, he delivers the quote above to the seething Ben-Hur.

Answer: On the Waterfront

Elia Kazan's "On the Waterfront" (1954) features Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, and Karl Malden in the story of longshoreman Terry Malloy (Brando) whose conscience is torn between remaining loyal to the mobsters who have taken over his union (one mobster is his older brother, Steiger) and informing the police about the mobsters and their murdering schemes.

Brando's character delivers the quote above during the crucial scene in the taxi with his brother Charlie (Steiger). Charlie has been sent by the big boss to kill Terry to keep him from informing the police about the mob. However, after talking with his younger brother, Charlie can't pull the trigger, which seals his own demise a few minutes later in the film.

Answer: Roman Holiday

"Roman Holiday" (1954) was Audrey Hepburn's first starring role in an American film, and it won her a Best Actress Oscar. Audrey stars as a European princess on a diplomatic visit to Rome. Tired of her duties as the proper princess, Audrey runs away one night, conceals her identity, and meets Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), a tough American reporter on the prowl for the ultimate story. When they first meet, Bradley doesn't know he's got a princess on his hands ... but when he discovers her true identity, he decides to take advantage of the situation.

Audrey's character says this quote when she prepares for bed in Joe Bradley's apartment. Earlier that night at the palace, her physician had medicated her to help her sleep, and she is still in that drugged state. Joe thinks she is drunk, but he remains a gentleman and does not take advantage of his lovely young guest.