Favorite Forgotten Films Trivia Quiz

Answer: Kristy McNichol

McNichol's love interest in this film was played by Michael Ontkean, best known as the sherrif on "Twin Peaks". He is sixteen years older than Kristy. In typical Hollywood double-standard fashion, no big deal is made of their age difference in the film. Had it been the other way around, it probably would have been a major plot element.

McNichol's other films prior to this included the teen camp romp "Little Darlings", the Neil Simon drama "Only When I Laugh", and "The Pirate Movie" which, strangely enough, was a musical. These were neither major successes nor major flops, allowing Kristy to keep plugging away in an attempt to launch a film career. She returned to TV in 1988's "Empty Nest".

Answer: Cheryl Ladd

When Ladd first appears in the film, it appears that she's just another airline employee, but later in the film she shows up in a futuristic jumpsuit and a gravity-defying platinum hairdo. The film was not released in many theaters, but it was a modest success on home video.

Answer: Elizabeth Taylor

Taylor is the only one of the choices who has won more than one Academy Award. (Her third Oscar was the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1993 for her tireless efforts funding AIDS research.) She had much better luck with her second film, "Lassie Come Home", and she was never out of the limelight again. Her brother in this film was played by Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer, best known as one of "The Little Rascals". He became a dog breeder and hunting guide as an adult, but his life was cut short by a gunshot at age 31.

The stars of that film were vaudeville legend Hugh Herbert and actor Peggy Moran, who was best known for a horror film, "The Mummy's Hand" two years earlier. Herbert passed away in 1952, but his screen daughter, Moran, lived another fifty years, passing away the day after her eighty-fourth birthday from injuries suffered in a car crash.

Answer: Don Knotts

The film was not well-received by critics or audiences, mostly because at the time, they could not picture Don Knotts as a ladies' man. Ironically, he would later regain fame on television as Mr. Furley on "Three's Company", a character who fancied himself a ladies' man.

Answer: a robotic dog

"C.H.O.M.P.S." is an acronym for Canine HOMe Protection System. The film was a Hanna-Barbera production, a studio best known for its cartoons. That explains the cartoonish bumbling crooks played by Oscar winner(!) Red Buttons and veteran cartoon voicer Chuck McCann.

After this movie tanked, Valerie Bertinelli auditioned for several other feature films, but became known mostly for TV movies. Wesley Eure never made another motion picture, but found work as a television host ("Totally Hidden Video") before going behind the camera to write and produce for television in the late 1990s.

Answer: Humphrey Bogart

Bogart stayed away from comedy films after this flop. That woman who gave him his first screen kiss was Penny Singleton, who soon would become known to legions of moviegoers as "Blondie". Although her career became greatly eclipsed by Bogart, she outlived him by forty-six years, passing away at age 95 in 2003.

The lady wrestler was played by comic veteran Louise Fazenda, who by then had appeared in over two hundred short films.

Answer: Brian Bosworth

With his extreme bleach blond mullet haircut and arrogant Avia shoe ads, Bosworth seemed a natural to play a rouge cop who infiltrates a biker gang. The film was not a box office success, but it has led to a string of straight-to-video movies. Bosworth "plays" a football player in the 2005 remake of "The Longest Yard", which stars Adam Sandler.

Answer: Mary Poppins

Apparently director John Chaffey had a way with animals. In addition to "Thomasina", he helmed "C.H.O.M.P.S."! (That was his final feature film, he stuck to television projects after that.) His two best known films are vastly different, the family film "Pete's Dragon" and "One Million Years B.C.", which starred Raquel Welch running around in "mankind's first bikini". Chaffey died of heart disease in 1990 at the age of 73.

Matthew Garber died at age twenty-one of pancreatitis in 1977, but mother-of-three Karen Dotrice appeared in a 2001 ABC Television documentary about Walt Disney ("The Man Behind the Myth") at age forty-six.

Answer: Carroll Baker

Carroll Baker was probably one of the best actors of the many that Hollywood tried to turn into another Marilyn Monroe. Choosing to star in an edgy drama like "Something Wild" proved that she would not be pigeonholed into blonde bombshell roles. Carroll titled her 1983 autobiography "Baby Doll", and then embarked on a surprising third act in her acting career with films like "Ironweed", "Kindergarten Cop", and "The Game".

Answer: The Gracie Allen Murder Case

Gracie became George Burns's comedy partner in 1922. They married in 1926, and appeared as comic relief in several films throughout the 'thirties. "The Gracie Allen Murder Case" was one of the few films in which Gracie appeared without George. It was successful enough for Gracie to appear in another mystery ("Mr. and Mrs. North"), but that would be her last film before turning to radio and television with George.

Gracie retired after leaving TV's "The Burns and Allen Show" in 1958, and passed away six years later. Although George lived on for more than thirty years, he continued to pay tribute to her in interviews, and published a book about their life together in 1988. Thanks for playing!