Lunchtime consolidation. Last time I can consoldate until about 9 p.m. (EDT) tonight. So, if there's breakthrough and someone needs to do it, feel free.
Complete through Nelly's latest contributions.
Game #116 – Movie Special
Identify the 67 indicated in List A and the 59 actors indicated in List B. (In each list, every other clue is a quotation.) Then, match each actor with a movie for a total of 80 pairs, according to a Tangredi or principle you must discover for yourself. Eleven movies and nineteen actors will be used twice each. One movie and one actor will be used three times each.
(a) I think I may finally have come up with a movie game for which there are no legitimate alternate pairings.
(b) Having said that, there is one particular reason why this game is not and never could be 100% perfect. See if you can figure out what it is.
(c) There’s one particular quote and actor I wouldn’t normally have used for the purposes of this puzzle – but, hey, rules are rules.
LIST A: MOVIES
A-1. “You mean she bit you?”
”No, her dog! “
”Oh, she bit her dog, eh?“
”No!”
THE WIZARD OF OZ
A-2. Critic Bosley Crowther once wrote that “if ever there was a movie in which a musical instrument played a leading role,” it was this classic thriller. He had a point.
THE THIRD MAN? JAWS? PSYCHO?
Melly note: The zither would seem to make the case for The Third Man.
A-3. “You just can't go around killing people.”
”Why?”
”What do you mean why? 'Cause you can't.”
”Why?”
”Because you just can't, OK? Trust me on this.”
TERMINATOR 2
A-4. In addition to its own merits, this film about an irresponsible dreamer helped make a star of the actress who – as much as anyone – helped define the ‘swinging sixties’ on screen.
SUNDAY IN NEW YORK? DARLING?
Frank says: "One of these is so close to being right that it would work in place of the absolutely right answer."
A-5. “Sure you got drunk. You have the best excuse in the world for losing; no trouble losing when you got a good excuse. Winning, that can be heavy on your back, too, like a monkey. You'll drop that load too when you got an excuse. All you gotta do is learn to feel sorry for yourself. One of the best indoor sports, feeling sorry for yourself. A sport enjoyed by all, especially the born losers.”
THE HUSTLER
A-6. Arguably Hollywood’s first great epic western, it opens with a dedication to inventor George Stephenson.
THE IRON HORSE (I checked this because it nagged at me)
A-7. “I've stood on the shoulders of life and I've never gotten down into the dirt to build, to erect a foundation of my own. I've flown too high on borrowed wings. Everything came too easy.”
QUIZ SHOW
A-8. The eponymous ‘hero’ of this film can also be described mysterious, yearning, secretive, sad, lonely, troubled, confused, loving, musical, gifted, intelligent, beautiful, tender, sensitive, haunted, and passionate.
THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY
A-9. “Tuesday we go to the ball game, but he fool us: he no show up. Wednesday HE go to the ball game, but we fool HIM, WE no show up. Thursday it was a double-header nobody show up. Friday it rained all day, there was no ball game, so we stayed home, we listen to it over the radio.”
DUCK SOUP
A-10. Notorious Turkeys, Part I: This history of a major Hollywood studio began with Chaplin and Griffith and Pickford and Fairbanks … and nearly came to an end with this costly NT.
HEAVEN'S GATE?
A-11. “He kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.”
PLANET OF THE APES
A-12. In the collective course of their careers, the seven stars of this Shakespearean film amassed a total of 29 Oscar nominations and five Oscars.
A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT'S DREAM?
A-13. “Why, you speak treason!”
”Fluently.”
THE ADVENTURE OF ROBIN HOOD
A-14. The title of this 2007 film alludes to a battle described in the First Book of Samuel.
INTO THE VALLEY OF ELAH
A-15. “This whole country's just like my flock of sheep!”
”Sheep?”
”Rednecks, crackers, hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers - everybody that's got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle.”
A FACE IN THE CROWD
A-16. Showing more perspicacity than the American Film Institute, Bravo ranked this 1963 classic as the 18th scariest movie ever made.
THE HAUNTING
A-17. “You have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that. But you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means.”
APOCOLYPSE NOW
A-18. This 1928 movie probably thought it was saying something topical about flappers, but what it was really doing was creating one of the most durable stars in Hollywood history.
OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS
A-19. “I love you. You're my whole life. I want to go. But if it's a choice of only six more months here with you or living forever all by myself, well, I'll take the six more months here with you. I don't want to live forever if you're not going to be with me.”
COCOON II? LOST HORIZON?
A-20. This film marked the debut of a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, and the last Hollywood film of an actor who had starred in a play that won a Pulitzer Prize for an playwright who shared the same last name as the previously mentioned playwright. Got that?
Frank said: "Perhaps I should have specified the 'movie acting debut' of the playwright."
A-21. “Mom's greatest fear is that your life was fun.”
”Tell her not to worry.”
NOBODY’S FOOL
A-22. The nine year-old boy who won a juvenile Oscar for this postwar film was not allowed by his government to travel to Hollywood to accept it.
THE SEARCH
A-23. “She is most unreasonable. Why could not mother die? Dozens of people are dying all the time, thousands, so why not mother? And father too.”
HEAVENLY CREATURES
A-24. This grim drama was the only western to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture between Stagecoach and Shane.
THE OX-BOW INCIDENT
A-25. “Our marriage was nothing more than a foxhole for you. And all it took for you to get out was a 10 cent razor and a tub full of water. You cheap, goddamn, f**king, godforsaken whore, I hope you rot in hell. You're worse than the dirtiest street pig anybody could ever find anywhere, and you know why? You know why? Because you lied. You lied to me and I trusted you.”
LAST TANGO IN PARIS
A-26. Screenwriters Comden and Green based two of the main characters in this classic musical on themselves.
THE BAND WAGON
A-27. “How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don't know how the can opener works!”
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
A-28. Notorious Turkeys, Part II: This NT claimed to be about “the only animal other than man who kills for revenge” – which should have put the filmmakers in fear of their lives.
ORCA?
A-29. “We thought you was a toad!”
OH, BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?
A-30. This World War II documentary shares its title with a fictionalized Hollywood movie on the same subject released 46 years later.
A-31. “We are supposed to be righteous. That's a beautiful thing. And we're losing it. If I lose that, that's everything. That's my soul.”
MUNICH (mea culpa, Nelly. I thought I put it in)
A-32. A year after receiving her first Oscar nomination for playing the real-life title character in this movie, an actress won an Oscar for playing another real-life woman with the same job as the character in the first movie. (Eight years after that, another actress also won an Oscar for playing a third real-life woman with the same job.) Got that?
A-33. “I never asked you where all this stuff came from, because I didn't want to hear you lie to me.”
AMERICAN GANGSTER
A-34. Many Asian critics objected when Chinese actresses were cast in major roles in this 2005 film.
MEMORIES OF A GEISHA
A-35. “We shot them under Rule 303.”
Frank said: "Hmmm. Maybe the guy who would absolutely, positively have recognized this quotation isn't active on this site."
Melly says: "OMG! I just recognized this. He's active on the site. Posted this a.m.!!"
A-36. The cast of this undeservedly forgotten antiwar musical includes a Lord, four Sirs, and my favorite Dame.
OH, WHAT A LOVELY WAR
A-37. “This is my home. You're my husband. And my children are upstairs in bed. I'm a happily married woman - or I was, rather, until a few weeks ago. This is my whole world, and it's enough, or rather, it was until a few weeks ago. But, oh, Fred, I've been so foolish. I've fallen in love. I'm an ordinary woman. I didn't think such violent things could happen to ordinary people.”
BRIEF ENCOUNTER
A-38. During filming, the star of this movie endured hypothermia, a separated shoulder, severe welts on his back – and two bolts of lightning.
A-39. “We soldiers dig. We dig all day. This is the hole that we will fight and die in. Am I digging my own grave?”
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
A-40. Glenn Close dubbed all the leading lady’s line in this movie – even though the leading lady spoke English.
GREYSTOKE, TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES
A-41. “There are only murderers in this room! Michael! Open your eyes! This is the life we chose, the life we lead. And there is only one guarantee: none of us will see heaven.”
ROAD TO PERDITION
A-42. Although Peter Sellers had top billing, the real stars of this comedy were two actresses making their movie debuts – one of whom never made another feature film in her life.
THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT
A-43. “Now we'll talk all day if you want to. But, come sundown, there's gonna be two things true that ain't true now. One is that the United States Department of Justice is goin' to know what in the good Christ - e'scuse me, Angie - is goin' on around here. And the other's I'm gonna have somebody's ass in my briefcase.”
ABSENCE OF MALICE
A-44. This was the first film adapted from a novel by a certain writer who most emphatically did NOT win the Pulitzer Price for both fiction and non-fiction.
OF MICE AND MEN (A Melly screw up. Knew what I was writing, then didn't write it.
)A-45. “It's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men.”
I’M NO ANGEL
A-46. This moral-boosting British film was filmed in neutral Ireland so as to be safe from air raids – and the ‘armor’ seen in the movie was knitted by cadres of Irish nuns.
HENRY V
A-47. “Give me a Tab.”
”Tab? I can't give you a tab unless you order something.”
”All right, give me a Pepsi Free.”
”You want a Pepsi, pal, you're gonna pay for it.”
BACK TO THE FUTURE
A-48. An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film of 1968, this comedy depicted a squad of incompetent public servants trying to hold a disastrous birthday party – a metaphor for the communist regime that later wised up and banned the movie.
THE FIREMEN’S BALL?
A-49. “I'll give ya somethin' to dream about, Mister. Wanna kiss me, ducky?”
WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION
A-50. Notorious Turkeys, Part III: Do not under any circumstances confuse this NT with an Oscar-nominated foreign film released two years earlier.
THE POSTMAN
A-51. “Never, never interrupt me, okay? Not if there's a fire, not even if you hear the sound of a thud from my home and one week later there's a smell coming from there that can only be a decaying human body and you have to hold a hanky to your face because the stench is so thick that you think you're going to faint. Even then, don't come knocking.”
AS GOOD AS IT GETS
A-52. Burt Lancaster did not get an Oscar nomination for his role in this adaptation of a British play, but he did get one as its co-producer.
SEPARATE TABLES
A-53. “I think I'll have a large order of prognosis negative.”
DARK VICTORY?
A-54. Characters in this classic thriller include one man with half a finger and another with an excellent memory.
Frank said: This is the one I'm most surprised hasn't been identified.
A-55. “The President will be a hero. He brought peace.”
”But there was never a war.”
”All the greater accomplishment.”
WAG THE DOG?
A-56. This musical was adapted from the same Hungarian play as one earlier movie, one later movie, and one later Broadway musical.
IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME
A-57. “Right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I'm an average nobody. Get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”
GOODFELLAS
A-58. One of the best films of the ‘Angry Young Man’ school, its climactic – or anticlimactic – moment comes when its hero – or antihero – simply stops moving.
LONLINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER
A-59. “You're walking along, not a nickel in your jeans, your free as the wind, nobody bothers ya. Hundreds of people pass you by in every line of business: shoes, hats, automobiles, radios, everything, and there all nice lovable people and they lets you alone, is that right? Then you get a hold of some dough and what happens, all those nice sweet lovable people become hee-lots, a lotta heels. They begin to creep up on ya, trying to sell ya something: they get long claws and they get a stranglehold on ya, and you squirm and you duck and you holler and you try to push them away but you haven't got the chance. They got ya!”
MEET JOHN DOE
A-60. This film featured Ronald Colman in a swashbuckling real-life role that had previously been played sans sound by John Barrymore.
IF I WERE KING??
A-61. “We're not killing anybody on our wedding day.”
NATURAL BORN KILLERS
A-62. Considered one of the best of all concert films, it was actually edited together from three separate concerts – though one assumes the big suit was the same in all of them.
STOP MAKING SENSE
A-63. “Is great idea. I send my men fifty paces and BLOOEY! I congratulate you on extreme genius of this plan. Ptooey!”
THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING
A-64. The two leading actors in this silent classic had to sign agreements not to appear in any other films that would compromise their images for a period of five years.
A-65. “Problem: attitude.”
”No, the problem is, I'm getting my ass kicked every other day, that's the problem.”
THE KARATE KID
A-66. One unusual aspect of this biopic was that its male and female stars – two of the biggest names on the Warners lot – did not have a single scene together.
A-67. “And after you shot your husband, how did you feel?”
“Hungry!”
ADAM’S RIB
LIST B: ACTORS
B-1. “There are worse things in life than death. If you've ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman, you know what I'm talking about.”
WOODY ALLEN
B-2. She was five years into her brief 12-year Hollywood career when she acquired the nickname by which she is still remembered today.
B-3. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
GREOGRY PECK
B-4. This classy lady held the record among actors for most Oscar nominations without a win from 1948 until 1960, when an equally classy lady topped her.
IRENE DUNNE
B-5. “It's that rat circus out there, I'm beginning to enjoy it. Look, any longer out on that road and I'm one of them, a terminal psychotic, except that I've got this bronze badge that says that I'm one of the good guys.”
MEL GIBSON
B-6. He appeared four times on my favorite television show and, two decades later, narrated the movie spinoff.
BURGESS MEREDITH
B-7. “I am sick of your foul language, your crude behavior and your sluttish manner. There are certain things a decent woman keeps private, and only a filthy slut would have done this and those who stood by and encouraged her are just as bad. I don't care who's responsible - you're all to blame. Now, I am going to leave this room for five minutes by which time that disgusting object had better be removed and the windows opened to clear away the stench. If you must play these filthy games, do them in your homes, and not in my classroom!”
SIDNEY POITIER
B-8. She is the most prominent Hollywood star missing from the following list: Theda Bara, Rhonda Fleming, Vivien Leigh, Virginia Mayo, and Elizabeth Taylor.
CLAUDETTE COLBERT?
B-9. “Nothing you have ever experienced will prepare you for the absolute carnage you are about to witness. Super Bowl, World Series - they don't know what pressure is. In this building, it's either kill or be killed. You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners.”
DAN ACKROYD
B-10. He was the only actor to receive Oscar nominations for playing the same role in two totally unrelated movies.
PETER O’TOOLE
B-11. “No, mom! I'm not spoiled! I'm not spoiled, mom! I'm just as fresh and virginal like the day I was born, mom!”
NATALIE WOOD
B-12. This British actor drank his way out of the role of James Bond … put the kibosh on a movie deal by vomiting on Steve McQueen … and made his final film more expensive by dropping dead shortly after consuming three bottles of rum and eight bottles of beer.
OLIVER REED
B-13. “Taste is not the same as appetite, and therefore not a question of morals.”
LAURENCE OLIVIER
B-14. In 1991, she followed in the footsteps of both actresses referenced in Clue B-4.
Frank said: "Somebody will get this with a little thought about Irene Dunne and Deborah Kerr."
B-15. “So, what's the story, Richie?”
RICHARD CASTELLANO
B-16. His feat of aging from 12 to 117 in the course of a single movie landed him in the Guinness Book of World Records
DUSTIN HOFFMAN?
B-17. “Do you believe in love at first sight? Nah, I bet you don't, you're probably too sensible for that. Or have you ever, like, seen somebody? And you knew that, if only that person really knew you, they would, well, they would of course dump the perfect model that they were with, and realize that you were the one that they wanted to, just, grow old with. Have you ever fallen in love with someone you haven't even talked to? Have you ever been so alone you spend the night confusing a man in a coma?”
SANDRA BULLOCK
B-18. Not only did this actor play the same physician nine times between 1938 and 1941, he also played medical men in five other movies and four television shows.
LEW AYERS?
B-19. “Forget it! I'm stayin' right where I am. It's gonna take you and the police department and the fire department and the National Guard to get me outta here!”
SALLY FIELD
B-20. He was his country’s most popular comedian, but his Hollywood career ground to a screeching halt after a costly and interminable NT that featured – among others – Madame Curie, the Good Witch of the North, the Joker, Houdini, the maestro of the Nairobi Trio, Little Caesar, the Singing Nun, Dennis the Menace, and old Smiler Grogan himself.
CANTIFLAS
B-21. “Dad's dead! Dad's dead! Dad's dead! Dad's dead! Dad's dead! Dad's dead!”
LEONARDO DICAPRIO
B-22. She made her last movie appearance in 1969, her last television appearance in 1993, and her last appearance anywhere in 2007.
JANE WYMAN
B-23. “You! Preacher! Murderer! I started to believe in your promises, that we had a chance. What chance? You took from me the only thing I ever loved in the whole world! My Linda!”
ERNEST BORGNINE
B-24. In her last film, at the age of 77, this marvelous Irish character actress proved – under oath – that she could steal a scene as well as she ever could.
MAUREEN O’SULLIVAN?
Frank said: "I guarantee a lot of people have seen this movie, and those who did smiled when this actress had her big scene."
B-25. “If I were not mad, I could have helped you. Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and protected you. But because I am mad, I hate you. Because I am mad, I have betrayed you. And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart!”
INGRID BERGMAN
B-26. This Canadian actor won two Tony Awards for playing larger-than-life characters with unmistakable profiles.
B-27. “Wait! Where are you going? I was going to make Espresso!”
GENE HACKMAN
B-28. She only appeared in one movie with Marlon Brando, but she played the role of his wife in three.
MORGANA KING?
B-29. “You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.”
IAN HOLM
B-30. Thirteen years after this actor won an Oscar, his former college roommate got one of his own.
TOMMY LEE JONES
B-31. “Am I a king or a breeding bull?”
CHARLES LAUGHTON
B-32. As far as I know, he is the only actor to have voiced an animated character previously played (in the flesh) by the actor in the preceding clue.
TOM HULCE
B-33. “Yeah! And what about the picks and shovels?”
EDDIE "ROCHESTER" ANDERSON (And a HUGE mea culpa to Smiler himself. I saw this and thought I had it).
B-34. In 1992, he played on film a character that had earlier been played on television by the actor in Clue B-6.
DANNY DEVITO
B-35. “The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her.”
WILLIAM HOLDEN
B-36. Eight years after playing the First Lady on film, she began playing the President of the United States on television.
GEENA DAVIS?
B-37. “What draws my admiration? What is that which gives me joy? Baseball! A man stands alone at the plate. This is the time for what? For individual achievement. There he stands alone. But in the field, what? Part of a team. Teamwork. Looks, throws, catches, hustles. Part of one big team. Bats himself the live-long day, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and so on. If his team don't field... what is he? You follow me? No one. Sunny day, the stands are full of fans. What does he have to say? I'm goin' out there for myself. But I get nowhere unless the team wins.”
ROBERT DENIRO
B-38. A very funny moment in a very funny film occurs when all four members of a very funny comedy team try to imitate this romantic leading man.
MAURICE CHEVALIER
B-39. “Oh, I love you, Adam, Alex, Peter, Brian, whatever your name is, I love you! I hope we have a lot of boys and we can name them all after you!”
AUDREY HEPBURN
B-40. He is both the oldest living male winner of an acting Oscar, and the earliest male winner of an acting Oscar still living. (Unless he falls victim to the Curse of the Tangredi and dies right after I post this game.)
KARL MALDEN
B-41. “Every day I come by your house and I pick you up. And we go out. We have a few drinks, and a few laughs, and it's great. But you know what the best part of my day is? For about ten seconds, from when I pull up to the curb and when I get to your door, cause I think, maybe I'll get up there and I'll knock on the door and you won't be there. No goodbye. No see you later. No nothing. You just left. I don't know much, but I know that.”
BEN AFFLECK
B-42. His most memorable roles have included one of the undead and a man who returned from the dead.
B-43. “You young men - doctors and scientists of the future - do not let yourselves be tainted by apparent skepticism; nor discouraged by the sadness of certain hours that creep over nations. Do not become angry at your opponents, for no scientific theory has ever been accepted without opposition. Live in the serene peace of libraries and laboratories. Say to yourselves, first, ‘What have I done for my instruction?’ And as you gradually advance, ‘What am I accomplishing?’ Until the time comes when you may have the immense happiness of thinking that you have contributed in some way to the welfare and progress of mankind.”
PAUL MUNI
B-44. This long-forgotten star worked under the direction of D.W. Griffith while in her teens and under the direction of Warren Beatty while in her eighties.
BESSIE LOVE
B-45. “I had an experience. I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real! I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever. A vision of the universe, that tells us, undeniably, how tiny, and insignificant and how rare and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater then ourselves, that we are not, that none of us are alone!”
JODIE FOSTER
B-46. When this Oscar-winning actor hosted Saturday Night Live – at the age of 66 – he spent most of the episode sitting on the sidelines in an armchair, although he did get up to participate in a spoof of his old television series..
B-47. “When you love someone, from Roosevelt to me, you go deaf, dumb and blind.”
ROBERT REDFORD
B-48. The first singer to receive a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, he was also the first actor to be ranked #1 Box Office Draw for five consecutive years.
BING CROSBY
B-49. “Dignity. Always dignity.”
GENE KELLY
B-50. She and her most frequent screen partner made fourteen films together, and played husband and wife in almost all of them – and the same husband and wife in six of them.
MYRNA LOY
B-51. “Very pretty, General. Very pretty. But can they fight?”
B-52. He and his most frequent screen partner made eight films together, and played husband and wife in all but one of them – but they only played the same husband and wife in two of them.
WALTER PIDGEON
B-53. “My God, Khoda. I make nazr only for my son. Please, I want only for my son. I beg you. I will do whatever is your will. I will purchase ten kilos of the finest seed and I will find an American mosque and I will feed them to all the birds outside. I will let the birds cover me and peck out my eyes! Please, God, my nazr is in your hands!
BEN KINGSLEY
B-54. Unlikely as it may seem, this actress was Fred Astaire’s first dance partner on film.
JOAN CRAWFORD
B-55. “How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?”
FRED MAC MURRAY
B-56. She defeated the actress in Clue B-14 for the Oscar – twice.
B-57. “I gave everything for this family. Everything! And what did you do? You threw it all away like it was nothing. For what? To a f**king kid! You didn't think I'd know? I wouldn't feel it? I knew it from the very first day! Because I know you, Connie. I know you, and I f**king hate you! I didn't want to kill him, I wanted to kill you!”
B-58. This superstar commented that the appropriate historical period for his rugged face was “apparently, somewhere before the birth of Christ.”
B-59. “With all my heart, I still love the man I killed.”
BETTE DAVIS
