What Number Is It? Trivia Quiz

Answer: 42nd Street

Set in the depths of the depression in 1932, the film sees Julian Marsh putting on what may be his last show. Having lost all his money in the 1929 stock market crash, he needs the show to be a success. The night before the show's opening, his leading lady breaks her ankle. His only option is to replace her with an unknown chorus girl, Peggy Sawyer. He rehearses her relentlessly until an hour before the premiere: "I'll either have a live leading lady or a dead chorus girl". The show is a hit.
"42nd Street" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1934.

Answer: The Five Pennies

"Red" Nichols was a cornet player who went to New York in the 1920s. He got a job with a band, but quit to pursue his dream of playing Dixieland jazz. He formed The Five Pennies with his wife, Bobbie, as vocalist. At the peak of his fame, their daughter, Dorothy, developed polio. Red quit the music business to move to Los Angeles where the climate was better for Dorothy. Later, Dorothy learned of her father's musical past, and he was persuaded to open a small nightclub. The nightclub was unsuccessful until some big names from his past came to assist.

"The Five Pennies" is a play on Nichols' name, since a nickel equals five pennies.

Answer: 1929

"The Hollywood Revue of 1929" brought together some of MGM's most popular performers of the day. It featured the first filmed performance of "Singin' in the Rain". During "Singin' in the Rain" Buster Keaton can be seen, but did not sing because he was a silent star.

It was also the first film appearance of comedian Jack Benny. All the stars are credited as playing themselves. It was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in 1930.

Answer: One

"A Chorus Line" examines one day in the lives of the dancers vying for a spot in the chorus line of a Broadway musical. After the first round of cuts, each dancer is asked to speak about themselves, and the audience begins to see each dancer's individuality.
"One" begins with an individual bow for each of the characters, their rehearsal clothes replaced by identical spangled gold costumes. As each dancer joins the group, it is suddenly difficult to distinguish one from the other: ironically, each character who had become an individual now seems to revert back to anonymity.

Answer: The Young Ones

Nicky and his friends need to find a way to save their youth club from demolition. They need to raise £1500 to pay the new owner, the ruthless property tycoon Hamilton Black. A mystery singer (Nicky) records a song which is broadcast via pirate radio in order to create interest in the show they plan to stage to raise the money.

But Nicky has an even bigger secret... Hamilton Black is his father.

Answer: Nine

Guido Contini is an Italian movie director who reaches creative and personal mid-life crises. His ninth movie is due to start shooting in ten days. He has no script and is trying to juggle the demands of all the women in his life, past and present. Eventually, he realises that he's lost everything, does not make the movie, and has the set destroyed before leaving.
Two years later, Guido is looking at an advertisement for a play starring his wife, Luisa. He says that a movie about a man trying to win back his wife is the only movie he could ever make.
Once again, Guido becomes passionate about a story, and as he speaks with his actors, his nine-year-old self gathers the cast of his life together. Luisa arrives without being seen and watches in the background, happy to see Guido back to his old self.

Answer: Seven Brides For Seven Brothers

Set in 1850s Oregon, the film starts with Adam Pontipee, a grizzled woodsman, coming to town looking for a wife. He meets Milly, and she agrees to marry him even though the courtship is only a few hours old. The two return to Adam's farm, and Milly is shocked to learn he lives with his six ill-mannered brothers, all in the same cabin.

The brothers each decide they want a bride; but after the brothers kidnap six local girls during a town barn-raising, the girls' families and villagers try to track them down.

A happy ending is ultimately had by all in this delightful, if politically incorrect, musical.

Answer: Tea For Two

Set in the Roaring Twenties, the story centres on Nanette Carter, a socialite with show business aspirations. She is willing to invest in a show in which she is given the starring role, and imposes on her wealthy uncle to lend her $25,000.
He will do so, on one condition - for the next 24 hours, she must answer "no" to every question she's asked. Of course, comic complications ensue, when she literally answers no to all questions: Nanette wins, but then discovers that her uncle has lost all his money in the stock market crash.

Answer: 76

A marching band with 76 trombones is used to help the townsfolk of River City to visualise how grand their boys' marching band would be. Professor Harold Hill, a travelling con-man, plans to dupe the citizens of River City into paying him to create a boys' marching band. Once he has collected the money, he will skip town, leaving them without their money or a band. Hill is exposed for what he is but realizes that he can't leave River City because he has fallen in love. Hill is saved by the town's boys who have learned to play Beethoven's Minuet in G on their instruments.

The somewhat ragged boys band marches out of the town hall, but are transformed on the screen and the viewer sees the band not as it really is, but instead sees what the boys' parents and the townspeople see: a spectacular, precise and magnificent marching band dressed in resplendent uniforms, and playing and marching with perfection.

Answer: Half a Sixpence

As British musical star Tommy Steele had starred in "Half a Sixpence" in London and on Broadway, he was first choice for the film role. "Half a Sixpence" is based on the H.G. Wells story "Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul". It tells the story of Arthur Kipps, a drapery clerk, who inherits a fortune.

He briefly forgets his old mates and girlfriend, but soon discovers that he is not suited to high society life. He marries his girlfriend, loses his fortune, but lives happily ever after.