Favourite Movies at Red John Towers Quiz

Answer: Office of Strategic Services

"Where Eagles Dare" originally came about when actor Richard Burton approached producer Elliott Kastner to see if he had any film ideas that were action oriented, as his stepsons had requested him to do something that they could enjoy; most of his film work at that point having been fairly highbrow. Kastner approached novelist Alistair MacLean who, having had most of his novels either filmed or in the process of being filmed, produced an original story called "Castle of Eagles". Kastner loved the story, but hated the title, and instead chose a line from Act I, Scene III of "Richard III" - "The world is grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch" - as his title. Burton and his co-star Clint Eastwood subsequently dubbed the film "Where Doubles Dare", as a result of the amount of time their stand-ins were used in the film's extensive action sequences.

Answer: Dallas

Although the setting for RoboCop was Detroit, the majority of location shooting for the film took place in Dallas between August and October 1986. A number of Dallas landmarks, such as the Reunion Tower, are visible in the cityscapes seen over the course of the film.

The front of the seven storey Dallas City Hall, completed in 1978, served as the headquarters of OCP with the addition of a matte painting that turned it into a skyscraper, while the old Dallas Municipal Building was used as Detroit City Hall. Owing to the high temperatures prevalent in Texas in the summer, Peter Weller, who played the lead role of Murphy/RoboCop, was losing up to three pounds a day simply through sweating as a result of the bulky costume and working in temperatures up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Answer: Venice

In the musical films produced by RKO Radio Pictures and starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, of which "Top Hat" is perhaps the most famous, what became known as the "Big White Set", the massive, Art Deco inspired set upon which the majority of the action in the film would take place, tended to absorb most of the production budget. On "Top Hat", a winding canal feature, spanned by a pair of staircase bridges at one end and a flat bridge at the other, was constructed across a pair of sound stages. Around the curve of the canal at the flat bridge end was a stylistic interpretation of the Lido di Venezia built on three levels, which formed the backdrop for the film's climactic musical number, "The Piccolino".

Answer: A Tale of Two Cities

After being hired as producer of the second "Star Trek" movie, Harve Bennett, who had never seen the series, watched every episode, from which he determined that the issue with "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was the lack of a discernible enemy. Focusing on the episode "Space Seed", featuring Ricardo Montalban as Khan Noonien Singh, Bennett saw the character of Khan as perfect to fill that space in the new film. Director Nicholas Meyer, using the outlines and ideas that Bennett and others had come up with, then produced a screenplay that eventually became "The Wrath of Khan".

This included, at actor Leonard Nimoy's request, the death of Spock; this part of the script was eventually transferred to the film's finale, with Spock making a noble and heroic sacrifice in the manner of Sydney Carton at the end of "A Tale of Two Cities".

Answer: Terry Kiser

Although Terry Kiser has had an acting career going back to the late sixties, he is best known for his portrayal of Bernie Lomax in "Weekend at Bernie's". For the majority of the film, the character of Bernie is a corpse, having been murdered approximately 20 minutes in, but despite this very little use of models or mannequins was used in the production process - the only major sequence where a dummy had to be used was the boat scene, where Bernie is pulled behind the speeding powerboat.

Besides this, the corpse of Bernie was portrayed largely by Kiser or his stunt double.

Answer: HMS Achilles

The Battle of the River Plate was a surface action that took place in December 1939 between the German ship "Admiral Graf Spee" and three cruisers of the Royal Navy. When Powell and Pressburger came to produce a film based on the events, they worked alongside the Royal Navy to obtain the use of warships to provide realistic exterior footage of ships at sea, which was part of a then policy of cooperation between the Royal Navy and film producers.

In addition, both the US Navy and the Indian Navy also provided ships for use in the film - the cruiser INS Delhi, which was provided by India, had originally been built as HMS Achilles, one of the three cruisers that took on the Admiral Graf Spee in the original battle.

Another cruiser, HMS Cumberland, also appeared in the film as herself; although part of the force in the South Atlantic, Cumberland did not take part in the battle, but joined up with Achilles and HMS Ajax subsequent to its taking place.

Answer: San Francisco 49ers

Spearchucker is drafted into the 4077th as a 'ringer' on the recommendation of "Hawkeye" Pearce, who has set up an inter-unit football game with the 325th Evac Hospital, with the possibility of winning big on bets placed with General Hammond. In the film, Spearchucker is played by three-time AFL All-Star defensive back Fred Williamson. Two years later, the character transitioned to the TV sitcom based on the film, this time played by former NFL running back Timothy Brown, who had previously appeared in the film as Corporal Judson.

However, the character was dropped early in the first season. Timothy Brown was one of four actors to appear in both the film and the TV series.

Answer: Unicorn

One of the elements of "Blade Runner" is the presence of replicants, which are synthetic lifeforms created to appear human. A continuing debate among fans of the film is whether the character of Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, the eponymous 'Blade Runner' of the film's title, is actually a replicant himself.

The scene in which Deckard daydreams of the unicorn is included in both the Director's Cut and Final Cut of "Blade Runner"; included in every version of the film is a scene at the end where Deckard, while fleeing Los Angeles, discovers an origami unicorn left by the character of Gaff.

This has been taken to mean that Gaff knows that Deckard has implanted memories, just as a replicant would. However, although director Ridley Scott has stated his belief that Deckard is a replicant, Harrison Ford has equally stated his belief that the character isn't.

Answer: Italian

The 1974 film version of "Murder on the Orient Express" sees a number of significant changes to the names of various characters, with the most obvious one being the switch of Poirot's friend, and the director of the railway company, Monsieur Bouc, a fellow Belgian, to become the Italian Signor Bianchi, played by Martin Balsam.

This is somewhat ironic, as in the novel, Bouc himself has a dislike of Italians.

Answer: Michael Lonsdale

Michael Lonsdale was born in Paris to an Irish mother and an English father, being brought up first in London and then Casablanca, before moving back to the city of his birth following the Second World War, where, despite plans to study painting, he eventually came to become an actor. Fluent in both English and French, Lonsdale has appeared in almost 200 film and television productions in both languages, most famously in the role of the billionaire Hugo Drax in "Moonraker" opposite Roger Moore as James Bond.

In addition to appearing with Sean Connery in "The Name of the Rose", he has played opposite a third James Bond actor when he was in the 2005 film "Munich" with Daniel Craig.