Ms S's Movie Mergers, Number 1 Online Trivia | Movies

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Tim Robbins was the prime suspect in the murder of the teenaged daughter of his childhood friend (2004); Brad Pitt played the rebellious son of a Presbyterian minister in Montana (1992).

Answer: Mystic River Runs Through It

Clint Eastwood directed Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, who both won acting Oscars for "Mystic River"; Robert Redford directed "A River Runs Through It".

2. Melanie Griffiths was the object of Craig Wasson's peeping Tom activities, which subsequently led to his witnessing murder (1984); Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck schemed up a murder together but then found they were not sure they could trust each other, in this film noir classic (1944).

Answer: Body Double Indemnity

Brian De Palma, known for his homages to Alfred Hitchcock, cast Griffiths (daughter of Tippi Hedron, who starred in Hitchcock's "The Birds" and "Marnie") in "Body Double". Dennis Franz, of "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blue" fame, appeared in "Body Double" as well as in the De Palma films "Blow Out" (which starred John Travolta and De Palma's then wife, Nancy Allen) and "Dressed to Kill" (which starred Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen and Michael Caine). Billy Wilder directed Fred MacMurray in "Double Indemnity", a dark, sinister film, which was the antithesis of the works for which MacMurray later became primarily known, like Disney's "The Shaggy Dog" and "Flubber" and the TV show "My Three Sons".

3. Michael E. Knight was set to wed Phoebe Cates, but complications arose after his bachelor party when he found an injured heavenly entity in his swimming pool (1987); Mickey Rourke starred as a private investigator hired by Robert De Niro's character, Louis Cyphre, to find a missing person, but each person he questioned ended up dead (1987).

Answer: Date with an Angel Heart

Michael E. Knight was most famous for playing Tad Martin on "All My Children" but had his only big screen success in "Date with An Angel"; Alan Parker is one of my favorite directors for making "Angel Heart" as well as "Midnight Express", "Fame", "Pink Floyd the Wall" and "Mississippi Burning".

4. Mia Farrow gave birth to Satan's son (1968); career woman Diane Keaton's priorities changed when a distant relative left an infant in her care (1987).

Answer: Rosemary's Baby Boom

"Rosemary's Baby" director Roman Polanski, whose mother died in a WWII concentration camp, was faced with further tragedy when his wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by Charles Manson's "family" in 1969. Polanski later left the U.S. to avoid prison after he was convicted of statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl.

His other acclaimed films included "Chinatown" and "Tess". "Baby Boom" was a lighter film for Diane Keaton, who had previously won the Best Actress Oscar for "Annie Hall" in 1977.

5. Billy Crudup doubted the sincerity of the tall tales of his dying father, played by Albert Finney (2003); a diamond heist was central to the plot of this wacky comedy, which starred John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline (1988) as criminals in England trying to doublecross each other.

Answer: Big Fish Called Wanda

Tim Burton, of "Beetlejuice", "Batman", and "Edward Scissorhands" fame, directed "Big Fish", a gem of a film that retold the amazing stories of Crudup's father, played by Finney in present day and Ewan McGregor in numerous flashbacks; Michael Palin co-starred in "A Fish Caleld Wanda" with Kline, Curtis and his former "Monty Python" co-star Cleese.

6. Anyone who was made fun of in junior high could have related to this funny/somewhat painful film about Dawn "Wiener-Dog" (1995); Jennifer Connelly refused to give up the home from which she was evicted and faced off against the new owner, played by Ben Kingsley (2003).

Answer: Welcome to the Dollhouse of Sand and Fog

Heather Matarazzo won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance as Dawn, the tortured middle child, sandwiched between her smart older brother and her parents' favorite, her beautiful younger sister; Ben Kingsley was nominated for Best Actor and Shohreh Aghdashloo was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for "House of Sand and Fog".

7. Jane Seymour plays tarot card reader Solitaire in this flick that pits Roger Moore's James Bond against drug lord "Mr. Big" Kananga and features a theme song by Paul McCartney and Wings (1973); Bruce Willis played the N.Y. cop who dealt with a terrorist/hostage situation in an L.A. office building (1988).

Answer: Live and Let Die Hard

The "Live and Let Die" theme song was nominated for an Oscar; Willis reprised his role as John McClane in "Die Hard 2" (1990) and "Die Hard with a Vengeance" (1995).

8. Robert De Niro played middleweight champ Jake LaMotta (1980); baseball groupie Susan Sarandon dated rookie Tim Robbins but ended up with veteran Kevin Costner (1988).

Answer: Raging Bull Durham

De Niro won the Best Actor Oscar for "Raging Bull"; although Sarandon ended up with Costner in "Bull Durham", she paired up with Robbins in real life - they had two children together.

9. John Cusack played Lane Meyer, a teenager who became suicidal after his girlfriend Beth dumped him (1985); Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh played dual roles as their present-day characters attempted to unravel the mystery surrounding their 1940's-era counterparts (1991).

Answer: Better Off Dead Again

"Better Off Dead" had to be one of the funniest teen movies ever, with some of the wackiest characters. The stalking paperboy repeatedly spoke the memorable line, "I want my two dollars, plus tip." The Asian brothers, one of whom talked like Howard Coselle, kept wanting to drag race with Lane.

In 1989, Kenneth Branagh directed and starred with his then-wife Emma Thompson in "Henry V" before doing the same in "Dead Again" in 1991. The couple divorced a few years later. Interestingly, both appeared in "Harry Potter" movies, Branagh in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002) and Thompson in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (2004).

10. Ray Milland's plot to have his cheating wife murdered backfired (1954); this Agatha Christie classic's allstar cast included, among others, Ingrid Bergman, Vanessa Redgrave, Sean Connery, Michael York and Anthony Perkins (1974) as Detective Hercule Poirot attempts to solve a murder aboard a train caught in a snow drift.

Answer: Dial M for Murder on the Orient Express

Grace Kelly's starred first in Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder" but went on to star in his next two films as well, "Rear Window" with Jimmy Stewart and "To Catch A Thief" with Cary Grant. Four years after the success of Sidney Lumet's "Murder on the Orient Express", director John Guillerman had a hit with another star-studded Agatha Christie adaptation when he cast Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Maggie Smith and David Niven, among others, in "Death on the Nile".

Source: Author susanjacosta

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor skunkee before going online.
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Ms S's Movie Mergers, Number 1 Quiz

I'll describe two movies with a word or words in common. You name the merged title. For example, "Star Wars sequel; Michael J. Fox trilogy" would be "Empire Strikes Back to the Future". "A", "An" or "The" at the beginning of any title is omitted.

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