More Favourite Movies at Red John Towers Quiz

Answer: Commander Branch

During the planning for "Star Trek: Phase II", Leonard Nimoy declined to return as Spock, leaving a need for a new character to fill that role, for which David Gautreaux was cast. However, Paramount Pictures, the producers of "Star Trek", saw their plans for a new television network, with the series as one of its flagship programmes, collapse, and with it the plans for the series.

Instead a proposal was made for the pilot episode to be reworked as a feature film for cinema release. When director Robert Wise was hired, he pushed for Nimoy to be brought in to play Spock; once this took place, the character of Xon became surplus and was dropped.

As compensation, Gautreaux was recast in the role of Commander Branch. His scenes in the role were shot as part of the second-unit photography on the film during the summer of 1979, several months after the completion of principal photography.

Answer: Telly Savalas

"Kelly's Heroes" was one of the first instances that George Savalas appeared alongside his brother, although in this case George, as Sergeant Mulligan, did not share any scenes with Telly as 'Big' Joe. Their most famous collaboration came in 1973 with the debut of the TV series 'Kojak', which saw Telly cast as the lollipop sucking New York police detective Lt Theo Kojak, with George playing the role of Detective Stavros in 114 of the show's 118 episodes.

Answer: Richard Todd

Richard Todd joined the British Army in 1940, eventually coming to serve in the 7th Battalion, The Parachute Regiment (7 PARA), with which he was among the first Allied soldiers to land in Normandy on D-Day. Part of his unit's mission was to relieve the D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, who had landed in gliders, and who had captured bridges over the Orne River and Caen Canal.

This force was led by Major John Howard, whom Todd met when 7 PARA arrived at the bridges. Eighteen years later, when Todd was approached by producer Daryl F. Zanuck to appear in "The Longest Day", he was offered the opportunity to play himself, to which he is said to have jokingly replied, "I don't think at this stage of my acting career I could accept a part 'that' small." Instead he played the part of Major Howard, appearing in a scene with another actor playing the smaller role of Captain Richard Todd.

Answer: New England

When a film version of the board game "Clue" was being developed, producer John Landis came up with the idea, to tie in with the game's premise, of multiple endings, which would be played randomly during the film's initial theatrical run. In home media and television transmissions subsequent to this, the three endings all formed part of the film, with two stated as being how the action "could have happened", but the third being how it actually did.

The interior sets that were used to represent the fictional Hill House, which is stated in the film as being "off Route 41" somewhere in New England, were built on stages at Paramount Pictures; after the completion of "Clue", the sets were used as the interior of the Carlton Hotel in the TV series "Dynasty".

Answer: Seismology

"Tremors" originally came about when writers S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock, who were producing educational safety videos for the US Navy, climbed on a large boulder in the desert one day while filming and asked themselves, "What if there was something that wouldn't let us off this rock?" From there they developed an idea they called "Land Sharks", which eventually developed into "Tremors". Shooting took place over 50 days in early 1989, with the film planned for release that November.

However, following the MPAA awarding it an R rating, the film was reworked to make it more family friendly, and was eventually released in January 1990 with a PG-13 rating.

Answer: Giuseppe Verdi

As Poirot returns to the hotel on the island, he hears some of the staff singing the canzone "La donna è mobile" from act 3 of Verdi's opera "Rigoletto". While admiring the music, he is approached by another character who points out that, had Verdi been English, his name would have been "Joe Green". It is this that leads Poirot to realise that the name of one of the suspects he is investigating can also be translated into another language, which subsequently leads him to the identity of the killer.

"Evil Under the Sun" was the fourth adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel produced by John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin, and the second to feature Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot. Additionally, Maggie Smith, Jane Birkin, Colin Blakeley and Denis Quilley were all making their second appearances in Brabourne / Goodwin productions, with Blakeley and Quilley both appearing in 1974s "Murder on the Orient Express", while Smith and Birkin were in 1978s "Death on the Nile".

Answer: Michael Ritchie

"Fletch" was Chevy Chase's first role after finishing rehab for a drug problem and, despite being a major star at the time, Universal Pictures had some concerns over the actor, and brought in Michael Ritchie to direct the film partly to keep the actor "in check".

As part of the filmmaking process, Ritchie would shoot a take that would closely follow the script, before doing another allowing Chase the freedom to ad-lib; the first instance came when co-star Tim Matheson as Alan Stanwyk asks Fletch his name, to which Chase immediately and with a straight face improvised the answer "Ted Nugent". Chase himself enjoyed the process as it allowed him the opportunity to play a number of different characters, with different costumes, wigs, glasses and other props.

Answer: Michigan

Screenwriter Tom Jankiewicz first wrote the script of "Grosse Point Blank" in 1991 while working as a substitute English teacher, having received an invitation to his ten-year reunion. The premise came about from an urban legend at Jankiewicz's own high school in Madison Heights, Michigan that a former student had become a professional hitman.

The majority of the film was shot in Monrovia, California, as moving the production to Michigan was too expensive - the only actual footage of Grosse Point itself were aerial shots taken of Lakeshore Drive.

Answer: Christopher Lee

"The Crimson Pirate" was originally written by Waldo Salt, but the script was rejected by Warner Brothers as a result of Salt being placed on the Hollywood Blacklist following his refusal to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The story was subsequently reworked by director Robert Siodmak from the serious piece originally envisaged by Salt into more of a "Boys' Own Adventure", with a new screenplay by Roland Kibbee, who was a frequent collaborator of the film's star, Burt Lancaster.

Answer: Washington

"The Replacements" was loosely based on the experience of the 1987 Washington Redskins who, during the players' strike, were one of only two teams in the NFL not to have any players cross the picket line, but won all three of the games they played with replacement players, including a famous 13-7 win at the Dallas Cowboys, who were able to field an almost full-strength side. Among the replacement players selected for the fictional Washington Sentinels are Clifford Franklin (played by Orlando Jones), a wide receiver who can't catch, Brian Murphy (David Denman), a profoundly deaf tight end, Earl Wilkinson aka "Ray Smith" (Michael Jace), a former pro cornerback serving a prison sentence for assault, and Nigel Gruff (Rhys Ifans), a Welsh kicker with a gambling problem. "The Replacements" was the final screen appearance of Academy-Award nominated actor Jack Warden.