The Sum of Us Trivia Quiz

Kurosawa (1910-1998) was a Japanese movie director. He started his career as main director in 1943 with "Sugata Sanshiro", about a young judo student (whose name happens to be the movie title). All in all, he directed over 30 movies. Kurosawa is best known for his movies "Rashomon" (1950, a murder trial); "Ran" (1985, an adaptation of "King Lear"); and "Seven Samurai" - the 1954 movie which I used for this quiz.
In "Seven Samurai" a small village called for the aid of a wandering samurai (role by Takashi Shimura) to protect them from a gang of robbers. The samurai engaged six of his colleagues, and they taught the villagers to stand up for their rights. In the final, the seven samurai had to fight off a gang of over forty robbers.
The most remarkable role was for Toshiro Mifune (1920-1997) as Kikuchiyo - according to the title scrolls a 13 year old girl.

DeMille (1881-1959) was an American movie producer and director. He directed more than 70 movies. DeMille started his career in 1914 with "The Squaw Man". His most famous movies are "Sunset Boulevard" (1950), "The Greatest Show on Earth" (1952) - for which he won an Oscar - and his final movie "The Ten Commandments" (1956). DeMille already made a silent movie in black and white entitled "The Ten Commandments" in 1923, and remade the movie in Technicolor and spoken version in 1956. "The Ten Commandments" retold the story of the Bible book Exodus: Moses, born into a Jewish family, was adopted by the Egyptian royal family.

The adult Moses (played by Charlton Heston) and Rameses (role by Yul Brynner) vied to succeed pharaoh Sethi. Rameses identified Moses as a Jew and son of slaves, and Moses had to flee.

But G_d appeared to Moses and sent him back to Egypt to set the Jews free.

Gilliam (born 1940) was the American member of the British comedy group "Monty Python". But he also developed a movie career for himself, outside the "Monty Python" collective.
Gilliam started directing with a short movie "Storytime". His first successes as director were "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) and the animated parts of "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life" (1983). Furthermore he directed "Brazil" (1985) and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998).
His first movie with a number in the title was the 1995 sci-fi movie "12 Monkeys", starring Bruce Willis. Willis played James Cole, a 2035 convict sent back in time to prevent a disastrous epidemic. Upon returning to 1996, Cole interfered with the animal liberation front called "Army of the 12 Monkeys".

Herzfeld (born 1947) was an American actor, writer, producer and director. He took up directing in 1980-1981, with two episodes of the television series "ABC Afterschool Specials".
In 2001 Herzfeld directed "15 Minutes", in which Robert de Niro portrayed a police detective investigating a murder by two Czech immigrant robbers. One of the robbers had the (in his own words) "brilliant" plan to film every one of their exploits, with the intention of selling the footage for an impressive sum to a news corporation.
The title refers to Warhol's quote "In the future everybody will be world-famous for 15 minutes".
Herzfeld directed several movies with numbers in the title: "Two of a Kind" (1983), "Two Days in the Valley" (1996) and "Escape Plan 3: Extractors" (2019). But I chose to use "15 Minutes" to get the sum right.

Hitchcock (1899-1980) was a British movie director, famed for his thrillers. Indeed he was nicknamed "Master of Suspense". All in all Hitchcock directed over 40 full-length movies. He started his career with "The Pleasure Garden" in 1925, a silent movie in black and white. But he successfully managed the transition to talkies ("Blackmail", 1929) and to technicolour movies ("Rope", 1948). His best known movies are too many to list here, but I'll just mention my personal favourites: "North by Northwest" (1959) and "Spellbound" (1945).
In "The 39 Steps" (1935), Hitchcock told the story of a Canadian visitor to London (Richard Hannay, played by Robert Donat) who met a spy (Pamela, played by Madeleine Carroll) and was wrongfully accused of having murdered her. The only way to prove his innocence was to expose a plot threatening Great-Britain, a plot known as "the 39 steps".
Hitchcock also directed "Number Seventeen" (1932) and started on "Number 13" in 1922, which he did not finish.

Walter Hill was born in 1940. This American movie director, writer and producer started his career as main director in 1975 with "Hard Times". Hill was best known for movies such as "The Warriors" (1979), "Brewster's Millions" (1985) and the movie I've selected for this quiz.
In 1982 Hill directed the movie "48 Hrs", starring Nick Nolte as the police detective Jack Cates and Eddie Murphy as the stylish burglar Reggie Hammond. To investigate a particularly nasty case of cop killing, Cates took Hammond out of prison for 48 hours - the time Cates' superior (role by Frank McRae) gave him to crack the case and bust the killers.
Hill also directed the sequel "Another 48 Hrs." (1990), with Nolte and Murphy resuming their roles.

Dominic Sena (born 1949 in Ohio) started his career directing music clips. After a large number of music videos for various artists, Sena directed his first full-length movie in 1993 ("Kalifornia").
The movie I've selected is "Gone in Sixty Seconds" (2000), in which Sena directed a top cast including Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Timothy Olyphant, Robert Duvall and others. Sena's movie has the same title and a similar premise as a 1974 movie made by H. B. Halicki: a gang tries to steal a large number of exclusive cars (mostly sport cars) in a few days.
In Sena's movie, Nicolas Cage played the retired car thief Memphis Raines who had to come back and steal 50 cars in three days, because otherwise a mob leader would kill Raines' younger brother (Ribisi). Raines hired the help of his old accomplice Otto (Duvall) and ex-girlfriend Sara Wayland (Jolie) to do the job, notwithstanding the interference of the police detective Drycoff (Olyphant).
The movie title was inspired by a police warning sign "If you leave your car unlocked, it will be gone in 60 seconds".
Sena later also directed a TV movie "13 Graves" (2006), so I had to add a hint that the title refers to a number of seconds.

Stephen Herek (born in 1958) was an American movie director, writer and producer. He started his career with "Critters" (1986) and is also known for "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" (1989) and "Mr. Holland's Opus" (1995).
As for his movies with a number in the title, I chose "101 Dalmatians" (1996) over "The Three Musketeers" (1993) to get the sum correct.
"101 Dalmatians" was the live-action remake of the Disney animated movie in which the dogs Pongo and Perdita and their offspring were threatened by the fashion designer Cruella DeVil (role by Glenn Close), who had set her mind to making a fur coat with the nice spotted Dalmatian skins. She had already rounded up 84 stray Dalmatians, and adding Pongo, Perdita and their 15 pups, DeVil thought she could just make her fur coat. Hence the movie title: it would take 101 dogs for one single fur coat.

Zack Snyder (born 1966 as Zachary Edward Snyder) was an American movie director, producer and screenwriter. He started his directing career with some music videos and short documentaries. In 2004 he directed his first full-length movie: "Dawn of the Dead".
Snyder is best known for such movies as "Watchmen" (2009), "Zack Snyder's Justice League" (2021) and the movie from 2006 I've chosen for this question. He also directed the TV short documentary "Superman 75" (2013).
The movie I've included in this quiz is "300" (2006) - an epic movie about the 300 skilled Spartan warriors who defended the mountain pass Thermopylae against a much larger Persian army. According to the movie, King Leonidas (role by Gerard Butler) and his 300 elite troops defended the narrow mountain pass against an army of over 100 000 Persians. In real history the odds were not as lopsided, but still according to modern history the Greeks were outnumbered 20 to 1.
The script for "300" was based upon the eponymous graphic novel by Frank Miller, co-producer of the movie. Miller in turn was influenced by the 1962 movie "The 300 Spartans" by Rudolph Maté.

Bertolucci (1941-2018) was an Italian movie director and screenwriter. He left us at least 16 full-length movies, including "Last Tango in Paris" (1972) and "The Last Emperor" (1987).
In 1976 Bertolucci directed the movie "Novecento", a chronicle about two young Italians between 1900 and 1945. The title is the Italian standard indication for the Twentieth Century: when Italians refer to a century from the second millennium, they tend to leave out the "mille" ("thousand") part. So Novecento is the traditional Italian for the century starting with 1900, as the Trecento indicates the 14th Century (and the early Renaissance).
In the movie "Novecento" Robert de Niro played the boy Alfredo Berlinghieri, son of a rich land owner, and Gerard Depardieu had the role of Olmo Dalco, an illegitimate son of a peasant. Both were born in early 1901 and witnessed Italian history through tumultuous times: the First World War, the rise of the fascist party led by Mussolini, up till the final defeat of the German-Italian Axis in the Second World War.
The original version of "Novecento" lasted for five hours and 17 minutes. Bertolucci shortened it to a "mere" three and a half hours, but preferred the uncut version.
The international movie title was "1900", at the bequest of the American distributors of the movie. Bertolucci did not like this alteration, and continued to use the Italian title "Novecento".
I also prefer the Italian title, and have to add that otherwise the sum is not correct. Indeed: if you review the numbers and add them up, you'll see: 7 (Samurai) + 10 (Commandments) + 12 (Monkeys) + 15 (Minutes) + 39 (Steps) + 48 (Hours) + 60 (Seconds) + 101 (Dalmatians) + 300 (Spartans) + 900 = 1492 - the year in Ridley Scott's 1992 movie "1492: Conquest of Paradise", a movie to remember Columbus' first voyage to the west across the Atlantic Ocean.