Reptiles on Film Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Night of the Iguana

Based on a play by Tennessee Williams, the story followed disgraced Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Burton) who was reduced to leading bus tours to Mexico. During a tour, a teenager (Sue Lyon) tried to seduce him, but her aunt thought it was the other way around and threatened to ruin Shannon. Shannon ended up taking the group to a hotel owned by an old friend, hoping to prevent the aunt from contacting his boss. But his friend had died, and the widow (Gardner) now ran the property, bringing more temptation to Shannon. Iguanas appeared throughout the film, including one that was tied up at the hotel where it would be a future meal. Shannon ended up freeing the iguana "so that one of God's creatures could be free from panic, and scamper home safe and free".

The photo is of a handsome green iguana, one of the many residents of a city park in the center of Guayaquil, Ecuador, officially called Parque Seminario, but known colloquially as Parque de las Iguanas.

Answer: Happy Gilmore

Adam Sandler portrayed Happy Gilmore, a would-be hockey player with a powerful slapshot and anger management issues. Gilmore took up golf after being recruited by former golfer Chubbs Peterson (Carl Weathers) who had lost his hand to an alligator. Gilmore eventually met up with said alligator after it stole his golf ball; he chased it into a pond, wrestling and head-butting it before grabbing the ball from the unconscious gator's mouth. He later presented the gator's head to Peterson, with unfortunate consequences. A real alligator was used for the pond scene, but it was a mechanical gator that Sandler wrestled with.

The photo is an American alligator, one of the two living alligator species (the other one hangs out in China).

Answer: Raiders of the Lost Ark

Archeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) was in South America to obtain a statue, but a rival archeologist took it from him and set the natives on him. As Jones was being chased by the natives, he approached the floatplane, yelling for the pilot, Jock Lindsey (Fred Sorenson), to start the engines. When Jones jumped in the plane, he discovered a large snake, which turned out to be Jock's pet, Reggie. Reggie was supposed to be a boa constrictor, but the actual snake used was a Burmese python. Sorenson was actually a professional pilot who later flew for Southwest Airlines. His appearance in "Raiders" was his only film credit, although he was involved behind the scenes with "Jurassic Park" when he flew the crew off Kauai when a hurricane hit during filming.

The photo shows a Burmese python, similar to the one used in the film.

Answer: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

In this second film of the "Harry Potter" series, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) investigated strange happenings at the Hogwarts school, including students and Mrs. Norris, the caretaker's cat, being found petrified. Hermione herself ended up petrified, and a fragment of a book page in her hand led Harry and Ron to the answer: A basilisk was to blame. The basilisk in the film resembled that of the mythological basilisk, a snake with a deadly glance, although some basilisks in mythology resemble cockatrices - a combination chicken/snake. The victims in this film didn't die because they saw the basilisk indirectly. Hermione saw it via a mirror, and Mrs. Norris saw its reflection in a pool of water on the floor.

The photo shows a green basilisk, a variety of lizard native to Central and South America. They are known for their ability to run on water, at least for a short distance.

Answer: Death on the Nile

Hercule Poirot (Ustinov) and his friend Colonel Race (David Niven) were vacationing in Egypt, but their relaxing cruise on the Nile turned into a murder mystery when less-than-popular heiress Linnet Doyle (Lois Chiles) turned up dead. Poirot had to investigate among the list of suspects, including Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, George Kennedy, and Maggie Smith. In the scene involving the cobra, the snake had been placed in Poirot's bathroom with the hopes that it would get him out of the way. He noticed it when the snake raised up, hood flared. Moving very slowly, Poirot tapped an SOS message on the wall. Colonel Race was in the next room, and living up to his name, raced in and speared the snake with his sword. When the crewman stopped by the room, Poirot nonchalantly told him, "There is a dead cobra over there. Please do me the kindness of having it removed."

The photo shows a spitting cobra. It looks cute, but the venom it sprays can cause blindness and its bite is also deadly.

Answer: Skyfall

The 23rd "James Bond" film featured Daniel Craig as Bond and Javier Bardem as bad-guy and former MI6 agent Raoul Silva. Bond met with Sévérine (Bérénice Marlohe), Silva's representative, at a casino in Macao, and she warned him that her guards planned to kill him. A fight broke out between Bond and the three guards, resulting in Bond and one of the guards plummeting into a Komodo dragon pit. One dragon slowly approached while the two fought, and when the guard attempted to shoot Bond, the lizard grabbed the guard from behind and dragged him off. A second dragon came jogging in to get in on the action, and Bond used that lizard as a stepping stone to vault out of the pit. The Komodo dragons in the film were based on real lizards at the London Zoo, but they were completely computer-generated.

The photo shows a Komodo dragon in its native habitat in Indonesia.

Answer: Romancing the Stone

On a mission to rescue her kidnapped sister, timid romance novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) travelled from New York to Colombia where she met roguish Jack Colton (Michael Douglas) and ended up involved in a treasure hunt for a large emerald called El Corazón. Several others were also pursuing the stone, including drug lord Juan, who was a fan of Wilder's novels. Towards the end of the film, the emerald ended up in the mouth of a crocodile (along with a bad guy's hand), and Colton dove into the water to go after the croc. Later Colton showed up in New York, on a boat outside Wilder's apartment, wearing crocodile boots.

The photo is an American crocodile. It has a narrower snout and more visible teeth than the American alligator. Both the American crocodile and the critically endangered Orinoco crocodile can be found in Colombia.

Answer: Cool Hand Luke

The prison drama featured Newman as Lucas Jackson, who ended up on a prison chain gang for vandalizing parking meters one drunken night. The other prisoners came to idolize him for his daring ways, including picking up and dangling a rattlesnake. The guard (Morgan Woodward) shot the head off the snake while Jackson was holding it. Another reptile that bit it during the film was a snapping turtle. The guard shot it, and when Jackson retrieved it and took it to a truck, he used the opportunity for a final attempt at an escape.

The photo shows a western diamondback rattlesnake. As one keen-eyed viewer pointed out on the Internet Movie Database website, the snake appeared to be a western diamondback, not an eastern diamondback, and a western diamondback would be out of place in Florida where the film supposedly took place. However it was actually filmed in Stockton, California - lots of western diamondbacks around there.

Answer: Holes

Based on the book by Louis Sachar, the film took place in Texas where Stanley "Caveman" Yelnats (LaBeouf) ended up at the camp after being falsely convicted for theft. The kids at the camp were tasked with digging holes in a dried-up lake; through flashbacks we found out that they were being used to look for a buried treasure. Besides the dry habitat, the kids also had to contend with the native denizens in the desert including venomous yellow-spotted lizards, which were actually portrayed by bearded dragons that had been painted with spots. But when the lizards attacked, they were computer-generated with fangs and frills. The film had an impressive cast, including Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Henry Winkler, Patricia Arquette, Dulé Hill, and Eartha Kitt.

The photo is a picture of a frilled-neck lizard, a species native to Australia and New Guinea.

Answer: Bye Bye Birdie

Singer Conrad Birdie (Jesse Pearson) was drafted into the service, and as a farewell performance, it was decided that he would sing a song written by failed song-writer Albert Peterson (Dick Van Dyke) called "One Last Kiss" and then kiss a lucky fan. Peterson hoped to make enough money from the song to marry his girlfriend. Peterson was actually a biochemist who had developed a version of speed for chickens that increased egg production. He demonstrated it to Harry MacAfee (Paul Lynde), whose daughter (Ann-Margret) was the lucky fan, by giving a pill to the MacAfee's pet tortoise. The tortoise, Swifty, then jumped off the table, ran around the house and raced out the door. MacAfee believed that Peterson and he could successfully market the pill, thus getting Peterson out of the music business. The tortoise was actually a desert tortoise who had been painted to look like a star tortoise. Apparently, a boring desert tortoise just wasn't colorful enough for the film!

The photo is of a star tortoise, which is native to India and Sri Lanka.