The F.B.I. Story Trivia Quiz

Answer: James Stewart

Stewart portrayed an F.B.I. agent trying to balance his career with family life. His job caused so much stress on his wife, Lucy (Vera Miles), she left him at one time, but eventually came back.

Answer: a man who murdered his mother

When the movie opens, a young man (Nick Adams) is seeing his mother off on an airplane trip. He had secretly planted a time bomb on her luggage, then taken out an insurance policy on her. The bomb explodes while the plane is in flight, killing all on board.

This brings in the F.B.I. and they quickly uncover the perpetrator using forensic techniques on the wreckage, then nab him when he tries to collect on the policy.

Answer: Mike

The Hardesty children were Jennie (Diane Jergens), Anne (Joyce Taylor) and Mike (Buzz Martin). They had another, but lost it as a newborn. Chip blames the baby's death on the stress of his job on Lucy because he brings her along on all his cases where she has to live under harsh conditions.

After this event, Chip buys a house for Lucy and subsequent children so they can have a permanent residence.

Answer: He became a Marine and was killed in World War 2.

Mike enlists in the U.S. Marines over his parent's strenuous objections and is killed during the Battle of Iwo Jima. The Hardestys received a telegram about it during their eldest daughter's first wedding anniversary party.

Answer: John Dillinger

Anna Sage (a.k.a. Ana Cumpanas) agreed to help the F.B.I. so she wouldn't be deported. As a tip-off as to who Dillinger was it was decided that Anna would wear a red dress as a signal (she became famous for it as "the woman in red"). Dillinger and Anna went to see the Clark Gable movie "Manhattan Melodrama" at the Biograph theater in Chicago.

When agents closed in, Dillinger tried to flee, but was gunned down. In actuality, the F.B.I. only paid Anna half of the promised reward and could do nothing to stop her from being deported to Romania.

This aftermath was not brought out in the movie.

Answer: Baby Face Nelson

Hardesty and Crandall (Murray Hamilton) are sent to Spider Lake in Wisconsin to arrest Nelson, but he shoots the agents. Hardesty is just grazed, but Crandall is fatally wounded. The actual shooting took place at Little Bohemia Lodge and not outside Uncle Fudd's general store as depicted in the movie.

Answer: a typewriter

The banker re-wrote the Indian's wills, leaving their properties to his nephew's wife who was also a Native American, then would have them murdered by his operatives. The nephew's wife would inherit and the nephew would then transfer the properties to the banker. Hardesty finds the typewriter used to alter the documents in the banker's office, thus implicating him in the fraud.

Answer: Easter

The scene shows Lucy hiding Easter eggs for the children as her parents try to persuade her, not too subtly, to go back to Chip.

Answer: Yankee Doodle

Chip brings it home the day Lucy leaves him. Chip tosses it on the window sill where it stays for a long time as evidenced by the changing seasons seen through the window where it lays. It is also used in the last scene when the Hardestys are driving their grandchild past well-known landmarks in Washington, DC.

Answer: a half-dollar coin

A communist agent's (codename "Whitey") suit is sent to the cleaners by his landlady. While it's being pressed, the cleaner finds a hollow coin containing microfilm in a pocket. It is turned over to the F.B.I. who copy the film, then return the suit before Whitey realizes what happened.

After being tracked all day through New York City by agents, Whitey is subsequently nabbed at a cafe when he tries to pass the coin to another agent.