Espionage in Movies 3 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Syriana

"Syriana" was loosely based on a memoir by one-time CIA agent Bob Baer, on whom Bob Barnes was very loosely based. To heighten the anti-American tilt in the movie, the target of the Baer/Barnes assassination plot was changed from Iraq's Saddam Hussein, famed for the torture of his own citizens, to a fictional progressive Arab leader who merely resisted Washington's pressure to favor American oil companies. In the book, Baer's plot failed. In the movie, Barnes' plot also failed, but sinister CIA agents then killed Barnes and the Arab leader together, to make Barnes look like an assassin and discredit anything he might have said while in captivity.

Clooney was the top-billed actor in this ensemble piece, but he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Answer: Children's TV show host

Floop was the host of Juni Cortez's (Sabara) favorite TV show. In the two sequels to this film, Juni and Carmen (Vega) also had to deal with an amusement park operator (Bill Paxton), a mad scientist (Steve Buscemi), and an evil video game designer (Sylvester Stallone), illustrating the range of talented actors who wanted to work with "Spy Kids" writer/director Robert Rodriguez.

One of the best lines in the first movie was Juni's comment to President Devlin: "Weren't you already running the country when you were head of the OSS?"

Answer: Mt. Rushmore

"North by Northwest" was the working title of the picture, because it was supposed to contain a cross-country pursuit from New York City to Alaska. However, director Alfred Hitchcock had always wanted to shoot an ending at Mt. Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, and so the location of the end sequence was moved -- but the title remained unchanged. Despite such flaws, the movie became one of Hitchcock's most successful.

The ending of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was set at Devil's Tower National Monument, Wyoming. The ending of "Grand Canyon" was set at Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. The ending of "Meet the Deedles" was set at Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming-Montana-Idaho.

Answer: The Bourne Identity

Operation Treadstone was a "black ops" group carrying out political assassinations. Jason Bourne chose not to kill either Conklin or Treadstone logistics operative Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) after he recovered some of his memory. However, CIA deputy director Ward Abbott had Conklin killed anyway, so that Abbott could deny any association with the "ineffective" program Treadstone.

Answer: The Eiger Sanction

"The Eiger Sanction" was the fifth movie Eastwood directed, and he mainly focused on the difficulty of filming mountain climbing. Both the Eiger climb and the Jungfraubahn railway running inside the Eiger en route to the highest station in Europe were world-famous, and Eastwood wanted the movie to reflect their beauty and their challenge. A stuntman who was a professional climber was killed by a falling boulder during filming, but Eastwood still did many of his stunts himself despite the risk. Perhaps as a result, over 30 years later climbers generally still regarded "The Eiger Sanction" as the best depiction of mountain climbing ever filmed by Hollywood. Unfortunately, the climbing does not take place until the last segment of the movie.

The cost of Eastwood's focus on the climbing was that much of the rest of the movie seemed disjointed and unrealistic, including Bowman's role as the double agent.

Answer: Irish Republican Army

The Irish Republican Army wanted the briefcase, but the Russians outbid them for it. The IRA tasked Deirdre with forming a team to steal the case, because Seamus was afraid of the risk if he revealed himself to outsiders. When Gregor stole the case from the team, Seamus plotted to steal it back with Deirdre's reluctant help. Sam and Vincent, now working on their own, also planned to get the case.

At the end, Sam revealed to Vincent and Deirdre that he had never left the CIA. His real mission was to kill Seamus, which was a precondition for a new peace agreement in Northern Ireland.

Answer: Publish his memoirs

Kendig was trying to finish writing and publishing his memoirs, even though both the CIA and the KGB were trying to prevent him from doing so. The memoirs exposed both sides as incompetent. After Kendig turned the last chapter of the book in to his British publisher, he apparently died in a plane crash.

After a CIA boss said that Kendig "is dead, finally," Cutter replied that Kendig "better stay dead." The last scene has Kendig going into a bookstore in disguise to check on the book's sales.

Answer: Lektor

MI6 and the CIA had been trying to get a Lektor machine for years without success, so SPECTRE was certain that Tatiana's offer to turn over a Lektor, but only to James Bond, would be accepted. SPECTRE operative Rosa Klebb, who was also an agent in Russian intelligence, ordered Tatiana to appear to defect. SPECTRE leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld wanted to kill Bond for revenge, since Bond had just killed SPECTRE operative Dr. No, as well as to extort money from the Russians for the return of the Lektor. Unfortunately for the plan, Bond managed to save himself and Tatiana from an ambush on the Orient Express, and then Tatiana shot Klebb at the end.

The answer choices included some famous celluloid serial killers: Hannibal Lecktor ("Manhunter", after which it was spelled "Lecter"), Freddy Krueger ("A Nightmare on Elm Street"), Jason Voorhees ("Friday the 13th") and Jigsaw ("Saw").

Answer: The In-Laws

In the convoluted plot of "The In-Laws", Shelly and Vince were just about to be executed after the delivery when the CIA showed up to capture the dictator and save them. The CIA field agent told Shelly that, to maintain security, he couldn't confirm that Vince was really on assignment. Then Vince turned in $10 million to the CIA that he and Shelly had received in payment from the dictator for the theft -- except that they had actually received $20 million. Nobody but the two of them and the insane dictator knew about the other $10 million, and no one believed the dictator. They split the cash and then threw a lavish wedding for their children.

The movie was remade in 2003 with Michael Douglas (Best Actor, "Wall Street") in the Falk role and Albert Brooks in the Arkin role.

Answer: A gun to shoot down the Soviet Hind helicopters

Charlie was obsessed with the threat that the Hind gunships posed to the Afghan rebels. Because the Soviets had reinforced the bottom of the Hinds, they were largely impervious to small-arms fire from the ground, which meant that the Hinds generally dominated the battlefield when they attacked. Finally, to achieve Charlie's goal, the CIA began supplying US-made Stinger missiles to the mujahedeen, and the Hind suddenly turned into a deathtrap.

Not long thereafter, the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan, and the most successful covert operation in U.S. espionage history was over.