Classic Fractures Trivia Quiz

Answer: Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola's attempt to update Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" to the Vietnam War proved a very costly one. Martin Sheen suffered a near-fatal heart attack while filming. Marlon Brando played Colonel Kurtz, a renegade Green Beret who fights the Viet Cong on his own demented terms and becomes a god to the jungle tribesmen. Sheen is sent by the army to kill Brando.

Answer: Cinema Paradiso

Writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore spins a tale of an Italian boy (Salvatore Cascio) who befriends the projectionist (Philippe Noiret) of the movie house of the title just after WW2. The film won a Jury Prize at Cannes and the Best Foreign Film Oscar.

Answer: The Deer Hunter

Robert DeNiro, Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken headlined Michael Cimino's study of young steelworkers in Pennsylvania whose lives are forever changed by their experience as Vietnam POWs. Cimino's film won five Oscars but was as controversial as Coppola's, especially the Russian roulette sequence.

The only music in the film is the haunting "Cavatina" for guitar and orchestra by Stanley Myers, a favorite of mine.

Answer: Harry and Tonto

Best known for his Ed Norton from the "Honeymooners" TV show, Art Carney won the Oscar for his Harry, an old man evicted for his New York apartment and setting out on a cross-country odyssey with his orange tabby Tonto. Remember Carney singing "Roamin' through the Gloaming" to a dying Tonto in an animal shelter? The stuff tearjerkers are made of! Writer-director Paul Mazursky also lensed "An Unmarried Woman" with Jill Clayburgh.

Answer: The Manchurian Candidate

Sure, Jonathan Demme tried to update the Richard Condon thriller to the Gulf War era with Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber and Meryl Streep. But accept no substitutes! It's the 1962 original that's the real thing: with Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh and a chilling portrayal by Angela Lansbury as Harvey's evil mother, it's a benchmark work of the 60s.

The director, the late John Frankenheimer, co-produced with screenwriter George Axelrod; Frankenheimer never did anything as good ever again.

Answer: Notting Hill

Roger Mitchell directed this comedy of bookseller Hugh Grant and his romance with American movie star Julia Roberts. The script is by Richard Curtis, who also wrote Grant's breakout film "Four Weddings and a Funeral".

Answer: The Red Shoes

How many girls were inspired to be ballerinas after seeing this Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger opus, even though Moira Shearer (her film debut) died in the end under a train's wheels? Dancers Leonid Massine and Robert Helpmann co-starred, but it was Anton Walbrook's obsessed impresario that really stood out.

Answer: The Shawshank Redemption

A rare work outside the horror tales he's known for, King's novella of a falsely accused man trying to escape prison was brought to the screen by writer-director Frank Darabont. Though not a hit when first released theatrically, it became a cult smash on home video. Unjustly sentenced for his wife's murder, Tim Robbins befriends lifer Morgan Freeman (the film's narrator).

After years in prison, he finally escapes the hellish penitentiary.

Answer: Sunset Boulevard

Four Oscars went to Billy Wilder's macabre study of the decadent side of Tinseltown. Fleeing repo men after his car, washed-up screenwriter William Holden lands at the mansion of demented former silent movie star Gloria Swanson. Tragedy eventually follows. "All Right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up!"

Answer: Tobacco Road

It was John Ford who lensed this adaptation of the Erskine Caldwell bestseller in 1941. Charley Grapewin, Ward Bond, and Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews (who would star in the classic "Laura") all star in this partly comic study of a poor Georgia family just barely surviving.