National Film Registry: Part 1 Quiz

Answer: Gone with the Wind

Sets of other movies were burned down for the Atlanta burning scene. The actors were composited in later, and since Vivien Leigh hadn't been cast as Scarlett at the time, a stunt person was used.

Answer: Casablanca

This film about a bar owner, a Resistance leader trying to escape to the U.S., and the woman trying to choose between the two has become a classic. Though it first played in 1942 at a special screening, "Casablanca" actually won Best Picture for 1943 because that was the year it went into wide release.

In the 1990s, Warner Brothers created the cartoon "Carrotblanca" as a Bugs Bunny parody. Quotations include, "We'll always have Paris," "Here's looking at you, kid," "Round up the usual suspects," and "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Answer: The Best Years of Our Lives

This film directly addresses the difficulties war veterans have in readjusting to civilian life. They can't get jobs, have difficulty relating to their children, have marriage woes, and Russell's character fears that his fiancee will shudder at his hook arms. Russell lost both his arms to burn wounds in the war. He died in 2002.

Answer: On the Waterfront

He plays Terry Malloy, a boxer-turned-longshoreman. This movie contains the famous line "I coulda been a contender."

Answer: Sunrise

"Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans" was one of the first movies to have recorded music, rather than the live music played at each theater. The characters have no names; they are the Man, Woman, Wife, etc. The Man has an affair with the Woman, which his Wife knows about.

Answer: Intolerance

"Intolerance" tells four stories from ancient Babylon to what was then modern America (ca. 1916) that show human intolerance. In part, this film was a response to Griffith's own "The Birth of a Nation," which many people believed (and believe) supports racism.

Answer: Some of the events depicted in it were staged.

For one, Nanook was not the Inuit's name. He also was asked to hunt with primitive weapons instead of the modern guns his tribe used. However, "Nanook" was one of the first documentaries, and a silent one, so the idea of presenting reality as it occurred did not carry the kind of weight it does today.

Answer: A train

Keaton's character Johnny loves two things: his train and his girlfriend. The Union soldiers steal both, inciting Confederate Johnny into a train chase to get them back. It features much precise stunt work, including a scene where a bridge is blown up as a real train falls into the river below.

Answer: yes

Because it was a silent film, "The Crowd" had better visuals than the early sound pictures of the time. Director King Vidor didn't have to deal with the limitations that filming with sound posed in the late 1920s. The studio tried to give the film a happy ending, but the director refused and left it with its original, bleak ending.

Answer: Modern Times

This would be Chaplin's last "silent" film; while there is some music and dialogue, it is primarily silent. In one famous scene, Chaplin gets caught in the factory's machinery and spins around the wheels while repairing them.

Answer: So This is Love

"So This is Love" comes from "Cinderella." Walt Disney could have lost his fortune making this movie; instead, the movie was the top grossing film of 1938 (though it premiered in 1937). It also won Disney an honorary Oscar for film innovation, and he was given a normal-sized Oscar statue and seven tiny ones.

Answer: The Wizard of Oz

Upon inspection, the "Dead Munchkin" who supposedly hanged himself is clearly a crane stretching its wings. As this movie was filmed out of order, these scenes were shot before the Munchkinland scenes--the Munchkins hadn't even been hired, much less been on the set.

This legend may have arisen from the fact that many prints deteriorated and became fuzzy over the years, converting crystal-clear details into hazy ones. A colorful film about a girl who goes over the rainbow via tornado and meets new friends while trying to get home, "The Wizard of Oz" has gained popularity from repeated television screenings and has become one of the most beloved films of all time.

Answer: James Stewart

Jean Arthur is his co-star. After the film's premiere, some people in the government claimed the film was anti-American for its portrayal of Congress. Capra's motivation was to show what an impact a single person can make. This movie was banned in Nazi Germany and the USSR.

Answer: 1

Film studios didn't waste any time picking up this one, did they? From 1940, "The Grapes of Wrath" features Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell as part of an Okie family going to California to seek their fortunes. The film alters the ending of the novel, in which Rose of Sharon suckles a starving grown man after her baby dies. Apparently that scene was too intense for Hollywood.

Answer: Citizen Kane

Orson Welles pioneered camera techniques that are used to this day, such as deep focus photography, which enables objects in the foreground and background to be in focus at the same time. "Citizen Kane" lost to "How Green Was My Valley."