Billy Wilder: The Ultimate Film Maker Multiple Choice Quiz | Movies

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. In 1942 Wilder directed his first American movie "The Major and the Minor", a comedy in which Ginger Rogers disguises herself as a twelve year old minor in order to board a train at half price. Which Welsh actor plays the Major who takes the "child" under his wing?

Answer: Ray Milland

In Billy Wilder's slick US directorial debut "The Major and the Minor", Ginger Rogers plays an out of luck woman in New York who wants to return home to Iowa, but does not have the necessary funds for the full priced train ticket. So, disguised as a young girl she meets Ray Milland, a dashing major, who eventually and inevitably she falls in love with. Wonderful acting, with Rogers' performance as a thirty year old woman impersonating a naive twelve year old sheer perfection. Milland, smooth as ever, would later work with Billy Wilder on "The Lost Weekend", a movie for which he won a best actor Academy Award.

2. The characters Walter Neff, Barton Keyes and Phyllis Dietrichson, played respectively by Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson and Barbara Stanwyck, were central characters in which 1944 Billy Wilder classic film noir?

Answer: Double Indemnity

"Double Indemnity" (1944), possibly the best film noir of all time, tells a story of false love, lust, corruption, greed and betrayal that leads down the ever decaying road to inevitable murder. Stanwyck in particular giving the best performance of her sixty year acting career.

The fact she was passed over for a best actress Oscar, still confounds film critics to this day. Billy Wilder also lost out on an Academy Award as best director to Leo McCarey and "Going My Way". "The Letter", "The Best Years of Our Lives" and "The Desperate Hours" were films directed by William Wyler.

3. "The Emperor Waltz" is a 1948 musical directed by Billy Wilder. It tells the story of a travelling salesman, played by Bing Crosby, journeying to meet Emperor Franz Joseph, with the aim of selling him, and thereafter his compatriots, the latest American invention the gramophone. To which European country does he travel?

Answer: Austria

Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett "The Emperor Waltz" is a light-hearted musical, shot in Technicolor, full of pomp, charm and costume, yet lacking in atmosphere, guts and gravity. The Viennese setting which was actually filmed in the Canadian Rockies is delightful, as is the performance of Bing Crosby and to a lesser extent his co-star Joan Fontaine. Wilder himself was critical, admitting the movie didn't turn out as he had intended.

4. Billy Wilder's 1950 masterpiece "Sunset Blvd." is a bite the hand that feeds you presentation of Hollywood warts and all. The plot ostensibly revolves around a small-time writer looking to make good by scripting a screenplay for a reclusive, demented actress whose glory days have long since departed. What are the names of the male and female lead players?

Answer: William Holden and Gloria Swanson

William Holden and Gloria Swanson played the characters Joe Gillis and Norma Desmond in "Sunset Blvd.", an unlikely couple who become lovers destined for failure. Gillis' naivete interlaced with Desmond's obsessiveness and lunacy, murder and mayhem was bound to ensue. Billy Wilder, the co-writer and director had, since moving to LA, become fascinated by the way the once glittering figures of the silent screen had coped with their shuffle into virtual obscurity. Thus the story and the movie were born.

5. Billy Wilder's tense 1951 drama "Ace in the Hole", starring Kirk Douglas and Jan Sterling, tells of a man who gets trapped underground after the collapse of an old Indian mine whilst excavations are being carried out. Soon the man's welfare, deteriorating condition and rescue becomes a sideshow as greed outweighs good and profit becomes the goal. The film is a thorough no-holds barred examination of which profession?

Answer: Journalism

"Ace in the Hole" tells of a frustrated, news-hungry journalist living and working behind the back of beyond, and the lengths he will go to, to engineer a story. In this case, keeping a dying man entombed longer than is necessary to generate enough national interest to create front page news.

The role of ruthless, heavy-drinking womaniser is played to perfection by Kirk Douglas. The film was not critically acclaimed neither was it a roaring commercial success, but watched today some sixty years on, it still has power to evoke passion and disgust.

6. Wilder's "Stalag 17" (1953) is a gritty, often droll look at life in a fictitious German prisoner of war camp somewhere along the River Danube in 1944. Within the camp there is a security leak and it's costing lives. Suspicion falls upon wheeler-dealer, and all-round five-percenter J.J. Sefton as the obvious German talebearer. Or is he? What is the name of the actor who won a best actor Oscar for his portrayal of the avaricious J.J. Sefton?

Answer: William Holden

"Stalag 17" was adapted by Billy Wilder and Edwin Blum from a stage play by Edmund Trzcinski and Donald Bevan, both of whom were actual prisoners of war in Austria. William Holden's character Sergeant J.J. Sefton was supposedly based on an inmate incarcerated at Edmund Trzcinski's barracks. Holden's speech when collecting his Oscar is one of the shortest in history. He simply said "Thank you".

7. The 1959 Billy Wilder classic "Some Like It Hot", is near the top of most critics' favourite movie list. Wonderful story, acting, humour and dialogue. This is a dialogue question: The movie ends with Jack Lemmon removing his wig and telling Joe E. Brown that he's really a man. What does Joe E. Brown say in response?

Answer: "Nobody's perfect."

Joe E. Brown's character Osgood Fielding III utters one of the most famous movie last lines, "Nobody's perfect", still insistent he wants to marry Jack Lemmon's character Jerry, even if it's not in the female guise of Daphne. The American Film Institute ranked the quote number 48 but the movie "Some Like It Hot" as the greatest comedy of all time. Beside directing, Billy Wilder, along with I.A.L. Diamond wrote the flawless screenplay.

8. "The Apartment" (1960) Billy Wilder's multi-award winning black comedy, features Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray in a scalene love triangle. All three work in a corporate New York high-rise. Lemmon is a clerk, MacLaine an elevator operator and MacMurray is a personnel director. What sort of business are they engaged in?

Answer: Insurance

"The Apartment" is a bitter-sweet tale of relationships within Consolidated Life of New York insurance company. A young office pen-pusher C.C. Baxter, attempts to climb the corporate ladder by allowing his superiors use of his city apartment for illicit rendezvous. Unforeseen complications occur and emotions flare when a tryst goes badly wrong and Baxter is left to pick up the pieces.

He ultimately has to re-evaluate his own feelings and morality. "The Apartment" received ten Academy Award nominations, eventually carrying off five Oscars.

9. In 1974 Billy Wilder directed a comedy drama based on a 1927 stage play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Starring the consummate coupling of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, the storyline tells of a jaded news-reporter who wants to quit his job and get married. Unfortunately his conniving editor has other ideas. What's the movie title?

Answer: The Front Page

There have been a number of different versions of "The Front Page" made, but none handled with the adeptness and subtlety of Wilder, or the brilliance of the acting ensemble. Set in Chicago in the 1920s, an incompetent, accidental murderer is due to be hanged and ace reporter Hildy Johnson (Jack Lemmon) is expected to cover the execution. Johnson, however has had enough of journalism and wants to leave the newspaper and marry concert pianist Peggy Grant (beautifully played by Susan Sarandon). Scheming editor Walter Burns (Walter Matthau) wants otherwise.

The depths Burns will descend to achieve his aims, and the peripheral cast of oddballs and their outrageous escapades make this a delightfully wry, funny movie.

10. In 1981 at the age of 75, Billy Wilder directed his last movie. Again he used his favoured pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. The film is a black comedy about a mob hitman (Matthau) who has to eliminate a potentially dangerous witness. Things do not go to plan. His billet is a hotel room next to a defeated man,(Lemmon) bent on suicide. Which movie am I describing?

Answer: Buddy Buddy

"Buddy Buddy", is an ok piece of cinema, an original, breezy comedy bordering on an extravagant farce. Funny and sad in parts, well scripted and well acted with a delightful, warm conclusion. That being said, it feels like Wilder's last directorial offering leaves us more with a beleaguered shrug of the shoulders rather than the massive 21 gun salute his career richly deserved.

The film is a remake of a French comedy entitled "L'emmerdeur", which in turn is an adaptation of Francis Veber's 1971 play "Le contrat".

Source: Author nickdrew55

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor spanishliz before going online.
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Billy Wilder: The Ultimate Film Maker Quiz

If not the best director of all time, Billy Wilder is certainly right up there with the best. If you're a classic movie buff, I'm sure you will appreciate the man and hopefully this quiz.

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