What a Way to Go: Death In the Movies Quiz

Answer: Jumps off a cliff

Gus accosts Flora while she is fetching water from a stream. Frightened, she runs off into the woods, pursued by Gus, until she is trapped at the edge of a cliff. Rather than submit to his advances, she throws herself over the precipice. Her brother, who has been looking for her, sees her jump. She dies in his arms. He and his fellow Ku Klux Klan members hunt down Gus and lynch him.

"The Birth of a Nation" was a controversial film when it was released, and is even more so today. After all, it is seldom that one sees a movie where the Ku Klux Klan are the heroes, and the villains are African-Americans played by white actors in black-face. But it is one terrific movie! The American Film Institute ranked it #44 among the 100 greatest films of all time. I would rank it higher.

Answer: Beaten to death by her father

"Broken Blossoms" is one of my favorite D. W. Griffith films. Released in 1919, it tells the story of Lucy Barrows, played by Lillian Gish, a young girl living in London who forms a friendship with a Chinese immigrant named Cheng Huan (played by Richard Barthelmess). Lucy is repeatedly abused by her father, a drunken boxer named Battling Barrows. Her father is played by Donald Crisp, who is best remembered for playing the kind father, Gwilym Morgan, in 1941's "How Green Was My Valley". In this film, however, he is one of the worst villains in the history of the cinema.

Lucy and the Chinese man form a close, but entirely platonic, friendship. In his apartment, she is able to escape from the brutality of her existence. When her father finds out that she has been spending time with Cheng Huan, he drags her back to his house and begins beating her. She tries to hide in a closet, but her father breaks down the door with a hatchet, and literally beats her to death. Cheng Huan arrives too late to rescue Lucy, and shoots her father with a pistol. He carries her lifeless body home, places her before his shrine to the Buddha, and then kills himself.

The closet scene is one of the most moving in the history of motion pictures. Many critics consider "Broken Blossoms" to be one of the finest silent films ever made. Lillian Gish's performance is extraordinary.

Answer: Shot down by his friend Jack

After the two friends are shipped overseas, Mary enlists as an ambulance diver and follows Jack to France. She encounters Jack one evening in Paris, but he is too drunk to recognize her. She takes him back to his hotel room and puts him to bed. While she is changing back into her uniform (from a borrowed evening gown), the Military Police burst into the room and arrest her. Despite her protestations of innocence, she is discharged and sent home to America.

Later, while out on patrol, David's plane is shot down over enemy lines. He survives the crash, steals a German plane, and heads back towards the Allied lines. He is spotted by Jack, who shoots him down, unaware that his friend is at the controls of the German plane. David eventually dies in Jack's arms.

"Wings" is an incredible film. The aerial combat scenes are particularly well done. It may surprise you to learn there are two scenes with nudity in movie - one where nude men are waiting in line for their military physicals, and a brief glimpse of Clara Bow's breasts as she is changing clothes.

Answer: A butterfly

Shortly after carrying his friend, Katczinsky, to the field hospital, only to find that he is dead when they arrive, Paul is back in the front line of the trenches. A butterfly lands near the trench, and Paul reaches out to touch it. As he does so, he is shot and killed by a sniper.

Because of its strong anti-war message, the film was banned at various times in many countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Australia. "All Quiet On the Western Front" was the first film to win Academy Awards for both Best Picture and Best Director.

Answer: The Irish Republican Army

Set in Dublin during the Irish War of Independence, "The Informer" is one of the best of John Ford's early films. Kicked out of the IRA for botching a mission, the slow-witted Nolan turns in one of his comrades to the British army in return for a reward of 20 pounds. When the man he informed on, Frankie McPhillip, is killed, Gypo begins to have a guilty conscience, and spends most of the money he has received on drink. His former IRA comrades begin to wonder where Gypo obtained the money he is spending so freely. Gypo accuses another man, named Mulligan, of informing on Frankie, but the IRA determine that Gypo himself was the only person who spoke to Frankie the day he was killed.

Gypo is tried by the IRA for informing on Frankie, and sentenced to death, but escapes before he can be executed. He hides at the home of his sometime girlfriend, Katie, but the IRA track him down and shoot him. Gypo staggers out of the house into a church, where Frankie's mother is praying, and dies there.

"The Informer" was based on a novel by the famous Irish writer, Liam O'Flaherty. It was both a popular and critical success, winning four Oscars, including Best Actor for McLaglen, and Best Director for Ford.

Answer: From pneumonia, following an attack of measles

Soon after their marriage, Scarlett receives a letter telling her that her husband died of "pneumonia, following an attack of measles". This is not far-fetched. We tend to think of measles as a fairly harmless disease of children, but if it contracted by adults who were not exposed to it at a young age, it can be fatal. Measles killed thousands of soldiers during the Civil War, both North and South. I was unable to find statistics for the Confederacy, but measles was listed as the official cause of death of 5,177 Union soldiers.

Scarlett's second husband, Frank Kennedy, is killed fighting outlaws in a shanty town outside Atlanta. Scarlett did not grieve excessively following the deaths of either Charles or Frank.

Answer: Kind Hearts and Coronets

"Kind Hearts and Coronets" is the story of Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini, the son of a duke's daughter and an Italian opera singer. His mother's family disowns her for marrying beneath her, and refuses to offer any help when her husband dies. After his mother also dies, Louis is forced to accept employment as a lowly draper's assistant. When his childhood sweetheart rejects his marriage proposal, Louis decides to kill off all the relatives standing between him and the Dukedom of Chalfont. There are a lot of D'Ascoynes, however, and Louis has his work cut out for him. Guinness plays all of his victims. Eventually, Louis becomes the 10th Duke of Chalfont.

After he attains his title, Louis is charged with murdering the husband of the woman who had earlier rejected him - a crime of which he is completely innocent, but he is nevertheless found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. He has been writing his memoirs while in prison awaiting execution. Just as he is about to be hanged, a suicide note from his supposed victim is discovered. He is celebrating his release, when he suddenly recalls the incriminating memoirs he has left in his jail cell.

The title of the movie is taken from a line by Tennyson, "Kind hearts are more than coronets."

Answer: Shot by Norma Desmond

The movie opens with a shot of Gillis' body floating in Norma Desmond's swimming pool, and then Gillis narrates how he happened to arrive at that state. The movie originally had a different opening, with Gillis lying in a morgue, talking to the other corpses there, telling them that he had drowned, but had "a couple of extra holes" in him when it happened. Audiences found the scene to be ridiculous, so it was changed to one of Gillis floating in the swimming pool. In the revised opening it would appear that Gillis is already dead when he falls into the pool, having been shot three times by Norma.

"Sunset Boulevard" lost to "All About Eve" for Best Picture, but it was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and won three, including Best Screenplay. It is a wonderful movie, with many stars of Hollywood's Golden Age making cameo appearances.

Answer: Burned to death

"The Wicker Man" is just a ripping good movie. Edward Woodward stars as a policeman, Sergeant Howie, who journeys by plane to a remote island to investigate allegations that a young girl has disappeared. Howie, a devout Christian, is shocked to discover that the islanders are pagans who worship the old Celtic gods, and keep their traditions alive.

He is eventually locked inside a gigantic wickerwork statue, which is set on fire. According to the Romans, the ancient druids would often sacrifice prisoners of war in this fashion.

Answer: Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine plays Louisa May Foster, a woman whose husbands keep dying and leaving her large sums of money. The first, played by Dick Van Dyke, works himself to death building a business empire. The second is an artist who is killed by a machine he invents that turns sound into paintings. Her third husband is kicked to death by a bull, and the fourth, who becomes a movie star, is trampled to death by his fans. In the end, she tries to give her immense fortune to the Internal Revenue Service. But she finally finds happiness with her fifth husband (played by Dean Martin).

This movie was the final film appearance for Margaret Dumont, who starred with the Marx Brothers in many motion pictures in the 1930s and 1940s.