Game #121: Have a Reel Nice Holiday
Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 9:19 am
Game #121: Have a Reel Nice Holiday
Identify the 75 actors indicated in List A and the 50 movies indicated in List B. (In each list, every other clue is a quotation, except that in List A, the first two are quotations – you need to identify each speaker as a separate answer.) Match the actors into 25 triples, then match each triple to two movies, according to a Tangredi, or principle you must discover for yourself.
The high preponderance of Christmas movie references – some of them fairly obvious – is of no significance whatsoever, except as a way of wishing everybody a happy holiday.
LIST A: ACTORS
A-1 and A-2. “Bread... that this house may never know hunger. Salt... that life may always have flavor.”
“And wine... that joy and prosperity may reign forever.”
A-3. Stage 20 on the MGM lot was devoted almost exclusively to this star, whose films were a genre unto themselves.
A-4. “Christ. Seven years of college down the drain.”
A-5. Appropriately for a native of Oklahoma, he co-starred in one of the best westerns ever made; somewhat less appropriately, he also co-starred in two late 1940s Hollywood versions of classic 19th century French novels.
A-6. “I got a question. If you guys know so much about women, how come you're here at the Gas 'n' Sip on a Saturday night completely alone, drinking beers with no women anywhere?”
A-7. Some fans of a popular family-oriented television series might have been perturbed to learn that this beloved character actor was both a self-proclaimed “lifelong radical” who survived the Hollywood blacklist, and the bisexual former boyfriend of one of the earliest American gay rights activists.
A-8. “Five thousand of my men are out there in the freezing mud. Three thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved. Two thousand will never leave this place. I will not believe they fought and died for nothing.”
A-9. He had to share the platform when he won his first Oscar for Best Actor, but got to enjoy his second win all by himself.
A-10. “Let me help you. Step down. Here we go! The drum major's widow! She's worn his coat since the day he died. The horse's head has lost an ear! That's the florist laughing. He has crinkly eyes. In the bakery window, lollipops. Smell that! They're giving out melon slices! Sugarplum, ice cream! We're passing the park butcher. Ham, 79 francs. Spareribs, 45! Now the cheese shop. Picadors are 12.90. Cabecaus 23.50. A baby's watching a dog that's watching the chickens. Now we're at the kiosk by the metro. I'll leave you here. Bye!”
A-11. Like the Energizer Bunny, this actor keeps going and going – despite head injuries, arrests for domestic disturbances, drug problems, and a stint on television’s most degrading reality show.
A-12. “Normally, both your asses would be dead as f**king fried chicken, but you happen to pull this s**t while I'm in a transitional period, so I don't wanna kill you, I wanna help you.”
A-13. A specialist in dumb hood roles, he made his earliest impact in support of Paul Muni and Ruby Keeler (but not, we hasten to add, in the same movie).
A-14. “What do you know of great love? Have you ever loved a woman until milk leaked from her as though she had just given birth to love itself, and now must feed it or burst? Have you ever tasted a woman until she believed that she could be satisfied only by consuming the tongue that had devoured her? Have you ever loved a woman so completely that the sound of your voice in her ear could cause her body to shudder and explode with such intense pleasure that only weeping could bring her full release?”
A-15. Her tearful resistance to relocation provided the cue for one of the best Christmas songs ever to emerge from a Hollywood movie.
A-16. “You know, identical twins are never really identical. There's always one whose prettier ... and the one who’s not does all the work. She used me, then she left me - just like you.”
A-17. The shortest distance from Fatty Arbuckle to Samuel Beckett is through this Hollywood immortal.
A-18. “No prisoners! No prisoners!”
A-19. On screen, she played the girlfriend of a boxer in a series of B-movies; off screen, she married one college football star and gave birth to another.
A-20. “Sixty-four thousand dollars for a question, I hope they are asking you the meaning of life.”
A-21. Next year, this actress will celebrate 35 years of marriage with the man who served as art director on her two breakout films.
A-22. “We'll make it past the cops. I just hope we don't see no Muslims.”
A-23. This British actress voiced the title character in a movie that lost the Oscar for Best Animated Feature to another movie to which she lent her voice.
A-24. “I need that wedding. I need some beauty and some music and some place cards before I die. It's like heroin.”
A-25. The shortest distance between what’s hidden behind Door Number Two and what’s hidden inside Dirk Diggler’s trousers is through this actress.
A-26. “I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.”
A-27. As far as I know, she was the only performer to appear in screen musicals in support of both Dick Powell and John Travolta.
A-28. “I'm not a Frenchie, I'm a BELGIE!”
A-29. This perky star – who had top billing in what was arguably the worst movie ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture – claimed that the only director who ever let her act was Preston Sturges.
A-30. “I've got the voice, Curtis! I've got the voice! You can't put me in back, you just can't!”
A-31. In remakes of 1960s movies, he has played roles originated by Henry Fonda, James Stewart, and Brian Keith.
A-32. “We figure an abortion clinic is a good place to meet loose women. Why else would they be there unless they like to f**k?”
A-33. Mystery fans have seen this veteran actress in popular movies based on novels by Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, and Ross MacDonald.
A-34. “Define ‘shit.’”
A-35. In movies released this year, he has essayed the roles of a real-life general and a real-life blues singer.
A-36. “And that’s how you play ‘Get the Guests.’”
A-37. When I was nine, I thought this actress – who at the time was starring in a sitcom based on a movie that had won its leading lady an Oscar – was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. In fact, I still do.
A-38. “I'm with you because I choose to be with you. I don't want to live someone else's idea of how to live. Don't ask me to do that. I don't want to find out one day that I'm at the end of someone else's life.”
A-39. She was nineteen when she played the title role in one children’s classic (which featured many of the biggest names in Hollywood) … twenty when she starred in another (which featured Santa Claus in a supporting role) … and twenty-eight when she left movies completely.
A-40. “Oh God, I want to know why? Why? Lord, I wish I could understand! No! No! No! It's not supposed to happen this way! I'm supposed to go first. I've always been ready to go first! I don't think I can take this! I don't think I can take this! I just want to hit somebody 'til they feel as bad as I do! I just want to hit something! I want to hit it hard!”
A-41. Happy was he in 1951 when he was tapped to recreate on film his stage role in an award-winning play.
A-42. “I have become a virgin.”
A-43. Perhaps our first true multimedia star, this actress-writer played her most beloved character on radio from 1931 to 1950, on Broadway in 1947, on television from 1949 to 1954, and in the movies in 1951.
A-44. “And crawling on the planet's face, some insects called the human race. Lost in time, and lost in space ... and meaning.”
A-45. This ‘First Gentleman of the Talking Screen’ was also the first actor to win an Oscar for a role he had previously played on stage.
A-46. “Walking through life with you, ma'am, has been a very gracious thing.”
A-47. The first African American to receive star billing in a movie, he died in 1979, one day before his ninetieth birthday – and four days before the release of his final movie.
A-48. “OK, so... so... sometimes I lie. I mean, I'm weird, man. About random stuff too, I don't even know why I do it. It's like... it's like a tick, I mean sometimes I hear myself say something and think, ‘Wow, that wasn't even remotely true.’”
A-49. She has played the daughter of a real life U.S. President on the big screen and the daughter of a fictional U.S. President on the small screen.
A-50. “Dear God, thank you for all your blessings. You've given me so many things, like good health, nice parents, a nice truck, and what I'm told is a large penis, and I'm very grateful.”
A-51. As far as I know, he was the only actor ever to do a nude scene with George Burns – or at least to be naked in a scene he shared with George Burns.
A-52. “I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've rather lost my liking for them.”
A-53. The first woman to win the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, she was also one of the few performers who ever managed to steal a scene from Charlie Chaplin.
A-54. “If you imagine I'm going to drop everything and come down to London before I attend to my grandchildren who've just lost their mother, then you're mistaken..”
A-55. Reputedly the first actor to receive a pie in the face, he had a significant part of his anatomy insured by Lloyd’s of London.
A-56. “That's what all these cripples down at the VA talk about: Jesus this and Jesus that. They even had a priest come and talk to me. He said God is listening and if I found Jesus, I'd get to walk beside him in the kingdom of Heaven. Did you hear what I said? WALK beside him in the kingdom of Heaven! Well, kiss my crippled ass!”
A-57. He played Ruth Chatterton’s son in the fourth of no less than fourteen movie and television adaptations (so far) of a grand old tearjerker.
A-58. “If this factory ever produces a shell that can actually be fired, I'll be very unhappy.”
A-59. This member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acted in only three movies, but received an Oscar nomination for the first of them.
A-60. “Mrs. Rachel Troubowitz was our super's wife. She comes into my mom's shop to try on a few things, all right? And she's easily like a uh, a 44 double E. These things are massive. And I've got her convinced that she's like a 42D, all right. So we're in the dressing room, she's trying to squeeze into this side cut, silk ribbonned, triple panel girdle with the uh, shelf-lift brassiere and it's beautiful because she's just pouring outta this thing, you know? It's beautiful. And she sees me and she can tell I got a hard on the size of the statue of liberty, all right? And she says to me, ‘Richard, calm down.’ And she says, ‘Now when you're over there, if you see anything that upsets you, if you're ever scared, I want you to close your eyes and think of these. You understand?’ So I said, ‘Yes, ma'am.’”
A-61. All three of his Oscar nominations – one each for acting, directing, and writing – have been for films based on the work of the same playwright.
A-62. “This is not going to work. I mean, I don't know you well enough to truly dislike you, but you are just too weird to live with.”
A-63. A famous mystery writer dedicated one of her novels to this actress, even though the writer privately disapproved of the actress’s interpretation of one of the writer’s most popular characters.
A-64. “You watch your phraseology!”
A-65. After making over 80 movies in a little over 20 years, he abandoned films completely for television, eventually becoming one of the few actors to win the Emmy for leading roles in both comedy and drama series.
A-66. “Everybody cheats. I just didn't know.”
A-67. Contrary to some persistent misinformation on the Internet, this winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar is NOT the grandson of the man who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor 55 years earlier.
A-68. “Darling, haven't you ever heard of a delightful little thing called boarding school?”
A-69. In the late 1940s, she played opposite John Wayne in two classic westerns – one directed by John Ford and one directed by Howard Hawks.
A-70. “In the Old Book it says 'He that honors me, I will honor.' Good luck.”
A-71. His screen specialty made it almost inevitable that he would be cast as one of the Seven Dwarves.
A-72. “I was reading a book the other day…. It's all about civilization or something. A nutty kind of a book. Do you know that the guy says that machinery is going to take the place of every profession?”
A-73. At age 27, she got her only Oscar nomination –for playing a 12 year-old girl.
A-74. “You know something, Fantan? This world is so full of crap, a man's gonna get into it sooner or later whether he's careful or not.”
A-75. The second film directed by this Oscar-winning actress was named after a popular Christmas song, but was actually set on Thanksgiving.
LIST B: MOVIES
B-1. “All right, you go back and tell them that the New York State Supreme Court rules there's no Santa Claus. It's all over the papers. The kids read it and they don't hang up their stockings. Now what happens to all the toys that are supposed to be in those stockings? Nobody buys them. The toy manufacturers are going to like that; so they have to lay off a lot of their employees, union employees. Now you got the CIO and the AF of L against you and they're going to adore you for it and they're going to say it with votes. Oh, and the department stores are going to love you too and the Christmas card makers and the candy companies. Ho ho. Henry, you're going to be an awful popular fella. And what about the Salvation Army? Why, they got a Santa Claus on every corner, and they're taking a fortune. But you go ahead, Henry, you do it your way. You go on back in there and tell them that you rule there is no Santy Claus. Go on. But if you do, remember this: you can count on getting just two votes, your own and that district attorney's out there.”
B-2. The real-life protagonist of this movie wore his own old naval captain’s uniform for his cameo as the commander of the USS Iwo Jima.
B-3. “He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us.”
B-4. This understated British film is by far the best of several movies about events that took place on April 14-15, 1912.
B-5. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
B-6. This was the first film of a popular comedian – which same it would not have been Gregory Hines not been forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.
B-7. “Come on, read my future for me.”
“You haven't got any.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your future is all used up”
B-8. This biopic about a painter starred an actor who had previously won an Oscar for a biopic in which he played a king.
B-9. “Dinner means death! Death means carnage! Christmas means carnage! Christmas means carnage!”
B-10. Good Bette missed her chance for an Oscar nomination for this film because Bad Bette already had one sewn up that year. (However, Bad Ellen O’Hara did get one.)
B-11. “One time, we successfully mated a bulldog with a Shih-Tzu.”
“Really? That's strange.”
“Yeah, we called it a bullshit.”
B-12. In addition to this film’s more famous Oscar first, it also marked the beginning of the screen career of the woman who would go on to win more Oscars than any other.
B-13. “Don't you guys use olives?”
“Olives? Where in the hell do you think we are, man?”
“We have had to make certain concessions for the war; we ARE three miles from the front line.”
“Yeah but without olives, a martini just doesn't quite make it.”
B-14. Though the two nude men in this film garnered most of the publicity, it was the bare-breasted woman who snared an Oscar. (Another Oscar first!)
B-15. “So you have two cousins, I have 27 first cousins. Just 27 first cousins alone! And my whole family is big and loud. And everybody is in each other's lives and business. All the time! Like, you never just have a minute alone, just to think, 'Cause we're always together, just eating, eating, eating!”
B-16. This movie’s hotel room scene between two college freshmen is pretty tame by today’s standards – but when I was fifteen, I thought it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. (PS – the movie and its lovely theme song were pretty good, too.)
B-17. “So much blood! So red! And right before my eyes the red just disappeared just turned to grey so I don't see red now! But you see I was her doctor! And I failed so I can't help you I don't think you want someone like me around right now!”
B-18. If you want to permanently traumatize your children for the holidays – and who doesn’t? – instead of renting this sticky-sweet movie, rent the bloody and demented Christmas movie with the exact same title that came out two years earlier.
B-19. “This is my favorite aria. This is Maria Callas. This is ‘Andrea Chenier’, Umberto Giordano. This is Madeleine. She's saying how during the French Revolution, a mob set fire to her house, and her mother died,. saving her. ‘Look, the place that cradled me is burning.’ Can you hear the heartache in her voice? Can you feel it, Joe? In come the strings, and it changes everything. The music fills with a hope, and that'll change again. Listen... listen....’I bring sorrow to those who love me.’ Oh, that single cello! ‘It was during this sorrow that love came to me.’ A voice filled with harmony. It says, ‘Live still, I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. Is everything around you just the blood and mud? I am divine. I am oblivion. I am the god... that comes down from the heavens, and makes of the Earth a heaven. I am love!... I am love.’”
B-20. Little Caesar gave what was probably his sweetest performance in this film, as the father of one of the actresses in List A.
B-21. “Is this a game of chance?”
“Not the way I play it, no.”
B-22. This film marks the convergence point of Joan of Arc, Queen Victoria, Jim Thorpe, and the Rat Pack.
B-23. “Frankie! Frankie! Your mother forgives me!”
B-24. This wild blend of live action and animation was Disney’s second attempt to implement his own Good Neighbor Policy.
B-25. “All right, fellas, let's go and say a prayer for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could.”
B-26. A psychopathic Santa Claus, a gruesome greeting card, a wife taking a cleaver to her husband’s dead body, and a guy eaten by his own dog – all are elements of this classy horror anthology.
B-27. “Once you step on that bus, you ain’t got your mama no more. You got your brothers on the team and you got your daddy. You know who your daddy is, doncha?”
B-28. This sentimental story about a minister and his wife was the last film to get an Oscar nomination for Best Picture without getting a single other nominiation.
B-29. “You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, ‘Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness.’ You call yourself a free spirit, a ‘wild thing,’ and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”
B-30. When Big Sister backed out of playing the eponymous heroine of this movie, Little Sister stepped in … and ended up competing for the Oscar against Big Sister.
B-31. “Listen, anything you got to say about your mother in-law, you don't have to explain to me. You know what I mean? Like if she were the star of a real crummy horror movie, I'd believe it.”
B-32. This 1949 release was the first Hollywood musical to be shot on location.
B-33. “I am a teacher! I am a teacher, first, last, always! Do you imagine that for one instant I will let that be taken from me without a fight? I have dedicated, sacrificed my life to this profession. And I will not stand by like an inky little slacker and watch you rob me of it and for what? For what reason? For jealousy! Because I have the gift of claiming girls for my own.”
B-34. This serious-minded biopic was a labor of love for Darryl F. Zanuck, and its abject failure at the box office (despite multiple Oscars) broke his heart.
B-35. “If I'd been a ranch, they would have named me The Bar None.”
B-36. The fourth film of an immortal Hollywood star, it was also the third film version of a classic American novel. (It does not, however, begin with the novel’s famous opening line about Christmas.)
B-37. “Come in … and enter!”
B-38. The most creative of the many murders in this cult classic involves a teenager being killed by means of his hearing aid.
B-39. “Oh Joanna! My new dress! How could you do a thing like that? Just when I was going to give you coffee! How could you do a thing like that? I thought we were friends! Just when I was going to... how could you do a thing like that... just when I was going to give you coffee! Oh Joanna... I thought we were friends... I thought we were friends... friends... coffee... how could you do a thing like that? Like that? Like that? Like that? Friends... friends...”
B-40. Though it has the same title as a movie released 35 years earlier, this fantasy was actually a remake of a different film released 37 years earlier.
B-41. “Tonight I want to tell you the story of an empty stocking. Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child's cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts. We haven't forgotten that night down the centuries. We celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts. But especially with gifts. You give me a book, I give you a tie. Aunt Martha has always wanted an orange squeezer and Uncle Henry can do with a new pipe. For we forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. Its his birthday we're celebrating. Don't let us ever forget that. Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share, loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shinning gifts that make peace on earth.”
B-42. Surprisingly, this underrated caper comedy has only two cast members in common with IAMMMMW.
B-43. “It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.”
B-44. Inspired in part by the writings of Carlyle and Dickens, this elaborate costumer marked the last collaboration of one of the greatest director/actress teams of all time.
B-45. “I’m tall dark and handsome and you third world ugly.”
“I am not third world ugly. Women think I'm cute. Like Snoopy.”
”Snoopy is six inches taller than you.”
B-46. For the haunting final shot of this movie, the director instructed his leading lady to stand in the bow of a ship and think about absolutely nothing.
B-47. “I’m about as shapeless as the man in the moon!”
B-48. I can’t absolutely swear to it, but I believe this is the only film noir – sort of – to feature a spirited rendition of ‘The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down.’
B-49. “I guess they named a lot of that Southern trash after old Stonewall.”
“Who'd they name you after? Or do you know?”
“I'm saying that Stonewall Jackson was trash himself. Him and Lee and all the rest of them rebs. You, too.”
“You're a low-down, lyin' Yankee!”
“Prove it.”
B-50. And it’s only fitting that we finish off this puzzle with the movie that gave us the only Christmas song to win an Oscar.
Identify the 75 actors indicated in List A and the 50 movies indicated in List B. (In each list, every other clue is a quotation, except that in List A, the first two are quotations – you need to identify each speaker as a separate answer.) Match the actors into 25 triples, then match each triple to two movies, according to a Tangredi, or principle you must discover for yourself.
The high preponderance of Christmas movie references – some of them fairly obvious – is of no significance whatsoever, except as a way of wishing everybody a happy holiday.
LIST A: ACTORS
A-1 and A-2. “Bread... that this house may never know hunger. Salt... that life may always have flavor.”
“And wine... that joy and prosperity may reign forever.”
A-3. Stage 20 on the MGM lot was devoted almost exclusively to this star, whose films were a genre unto themselves.
A-4. “Christ. Seven years of college down the drain.”
A-5. Appropriately for a native of Oklahoma, he co-starred in one of the best westerns ever made; somewhat less appropriately, he also co-starred in two late 1940s Hollywood versions of classic 19th century French novels.
A-6. “I got a question. If you guys know so much about women, how come you're here at the Gas 'n' Sip on a Saturday night completely alone, drinking beers with no women anywhere?”
A-7. Some fans of a popular family-oriented television series might have been perturbed to learn that this beloved character actor was both a self-proclaimed “lifelong radical” who survived the Hollywood blacklist, and the bisexual former boyfriend of one of the earliest American gay rights activists.
A-8. “Five thousand of my men are out there in the freezing mud. Three thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved. Two thousand will never leave this place. I will not believe they fought and died for nothing.”
A-9. He had to share the platform when he won his first Oscar for Best Actor, but got to enjoy his second win all by himself.
A-10. “Let me help you. Step down. Here we go! The drum major's widow! She's worn his coat since the day he died. The horse's head has lost an ear! That's the florist laughing. He has crinkly eyes. In the bakery window, lollipops. Smell that! They're giving out melon slices! Sugarplum, ice cream! We're passing the park butcher. Ham, 79 francs. Spareribs, 45! Now the cheese shop. Picadors are 12.90. Cabecaus 23.50. A baby's watching a dog that's watching the chickens. Now we're at the kiosk by the metro. I'll leave you here. Bye!”
A-11. Like the Energizer Bunny, this actor keeps going and going – despite head injuries, arrests for domestic disturbances, drug problems, and a stint on television’s most degrading reality show.
A-12. “Normally, both your asses would be dead as f**king fried chicken, but you happen to pull this s**t while I'm in a transitional period, so I don't wanna kill you, I wanna help you.”
A-13. A specialist in dumb hood roles, he made his earliest impact in support of Paul Muni and Ruby Keeler (but not, we hasten to add, in the same movie).
A-14. “What do you know of great love? Have you ever loved a woman until milk leaked from her as though she had just given birth to love itself, and now must feed it or burst? Have you ever tasted a woman until she believed that she could be satisfied only by consuming the tongue that had devoured her? Have you ever loved a woman so completely that the sound of your voice in her ear could cause her body to shudder and explode with such intense pleasure that only weeping could bring her full release?”
A-15. Her tearful resistance to relocation provided the cue for one of the best Christmas songs ever to emerge from a Hollywood movie.
A-16. “You know, identical twins are never really identical. There's always one whose prettier ... and the one who’s not does all the work. She used me, then she left me - just like you.”
A-17. The shortest distance from Fatty Arbuckle to Samuel Beckett is through this Hollywood immortal.
A-18. “No prisoners! No prisoners!”
A-19. On screen, she played the girlfriend of a boxer in a series of B-movies; off screen, she married one college football star and gave birth to another.
A-20. “Sixty-four thousand dollars for a question, I hope they are asking you the meaning of life.”
A-21. Next year, this actress will celebrate 35 years of marriage with the man who served as art director on her two breakout films.
A-22. “We'll make it past the cops. I just hope we don't see no Muslims.”
A-23. This British actress voiced the title character in a movie that lost the Oscar for Best Animated Feature to another movie to which she lent her voice.
A-24. “I need that wedding. I need some beauty and some music and some place cards before I die. It's like heroin.”
A-25. The shortest distance between what’s hidden behind Door Number Two and what’s hidden inside Dirk Diggler’s trousers is through this actress.
A-26. “I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.”
A-27. As far as I know, she was the only performer to appear in screen musicals in support of both Dick Powell and John Travolta.
A-28. “I'm not a Frenchie, I'm a BELGIE!”
A-29. This perky star – who had top billing in what was arguably the worst movie ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture – claimed that the only director who ever let her act was Preston Sturges.
A-30. “I've got the voice, Curtis! I've got the voice! You can't put me in back, you just can't!”
A-31. In remakes of 1960s movies, he has played roles originated by Henry Fonda, James Stewart, and Brian Keith.
A-32. “We figure an abortion clinic is a good place to meet loose women. Why else would they be there unless they like to f**k?”
A-33. Mystery fans have seen this veteran actress in popular movies based on novels by Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, and Ross MacDonald.
A-34. “Define ‘shit.’”
A-35. In movies released this year, he has essayed the roles of a real-life general and a real-life blues singer.
A-36. “And that’s how you play ‘Get the Guests.’”
A-37. When I was nine, I thought this actress – who at the time was starring in a sitcom based on a movie that had won its leading lady an Oscar – was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. In fact, I still do.
A-38. “I'm with you because I choose to be with you. I don't want to live someone else's idea of how to live. Don't ask me to do that. I don't want to find out one day that I'm at the end of someone else's life.”
A-39. She was nineteen when she played the title role in one children’s classic (which featured many of the biggest names in Hollywood) … twenty when she starred in another (which featured Santa Claus in a supporting role) … and twenty-eight when she left movies completely.
A-40. “Oh God, I want to know why? Why? Lord, I wish I could understand! No! No! No! It's not supposed to happen this way! I'm supposed to go first. I've always been ready to go first! I don't think I can take this! I don't think I can take this! I just want to hit somebody 'til they feel as bad as I do! I just want to hit something! I want to hit it hard!”
A-41. Happy was he in 1951 when he was tapped to recreate on film his stage role in an award-winning play.
A-42. “I have become a virgin.”
A-43. Perhaps our first true multimedia star, this actress-writer played her most beloved character on radio from 1931 to 1950, on Broadway in 1947, on television from 1949 to 1954, and in the movies in 1951.
A-44. “And crawling on the planet's face, some insects called the human race. Lost in time, and lost in space ... and meaning.”
A-45. This ‘First Gentleman of the Talking Screen’ was also the first actor to win an Oscar for a role he had previously played on stage.
A-46. “Walking through life with you, ma'am, has been a very gracious thing.”
A-47. The first African American to receive star billing in a movie, he died in 1979, one day before his ninetieth birthday – and four days before the release of his final movie.
A-48. “OK, so... so... sometimes I lie. I mean, I'm weird, man. About random stuff too, I don't even know why I do it. It's like... it's like a tick, I mean sometimes I hear myself say something and think, ‘Wow, that wasn't even remotely true.’”
A-49. She has played the daughter of a real life U.S. President on the big screen and the daughter of a fictional U.S. President on the small screen.
A-50. “Dear God, thank you for all your blessings. You've given me so many things, like good health, nice parents, a nice truck, and what I'm told is a large penis, and I'm very grateful.”
A-51. As far as I know, he was the only actor ever to do a nude scene with George Burns – or at least to be naked in a scene he shared with George Burns.
A-52. “I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've rather lost my liking for them.”
A-53. The first woman to win the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, she was also one of the few performers who ever managed to steal a scene from Charlie Chaplin.
A-54. “If you imagine I'm going to drop everything and come down to London before I attend to my grandchildren who've just lost their mother, then you're mistaken..”
A-55. Reputedly the first actor to receive a pie in the face, he had a significant part of his anatomy insured by Lloyd’s of London.
A-56. “That's what all these cripples down at the VA talk about: Jesus this and Jesus that. They even had a priest come and talk to me. He said God is listening and if I found Jesus, I'd get to walk beside him in the kingdom of Heaven. Did you hear what I said? WALK beside him in the kingdom of Heaven! Well, kiss my crippled ass!”
A-57. He played Ruth Chatterton’s son in the fourth of no less than fourteen movie and television adaptations (so far) of a grand old tearjerker.
A-58. “If this factory ever produces a shell that can actually be fired, I'll be very unhappy.”
A-59. This member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acted in only three movies, but received an Oscar nomination for the first of them.
A-60. “Mrs. Rachel Troubowitz was our super's wife. She comes into my mom's shop to try on a few things, all right? And she's easily like a uh, a 44 double E. These things are massive. And I've got her convinced that she's like a 42D, all right. So we're in the dressing room, she's trying to squeeze into this side cut, silk ribbonned, triple panel girdle with the uh, shelf-lift brassiere and it's beautiful because she's just pouring outta this thing, you know? It's beautiful. And she sees me and she can tell I got a hard on the size of the statue of liberty, all right? And she says to me, ‘Richard, calm down.’ And she says, ‘Now when you're over there, if you see anything that upsets you, if you're ever scared, I want you to close your eyes and think of these. You understand?’ So I said, ‘Yes, ma'am.’”
A-61. All three of his Oscar nominations – one each for acting, directing, and writing – have been for films based on the work of the same playwright.
A-62. “This is not going to work. I mean, I don't know you well enough to truly dislike you, but you are just too weird to live with.”
A-63. A famous mystery writer dedicated one of her novels to this actress, even though the writer privately disapproved of the actress’s interpretation of one of the writer’s most popular characters.
A-64. “You watch your phraseology!”
A-65. After making over 80 movies in a little over 20 years, he abandoned films completely for television, eventually becoming one of the few actors to win the Emmy for leading roles in both comedy and drama series.
A-66. “Everybody cheats. I just didn't know.”
A-67. Contrary to some persistent misinformation on the Internet, this winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar is NOT the grandson of the man who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor 55 years earlier.
A-68. “Darling, haven't you ever heard of a delightful little thing called boarding school?”
A-69. In the late 1940s, she played opposite John Wayne in two classic westerns – one directed by John Ford and one directed by Howard Hawks.
A-70. “In the Old Book it says 'He that honors me, I will honor.' Good luck.”
A-71. His screen specialty made it almost inevitable that he would be cast as one of the Seven Dwarves.
A-72. “I was reading a book the other day…. It's all about civilization or something. A nutty kind of a book. Do you know that the guy says that machinery is going to take the place of every profession?”
A-73. At age 27, she got her only Oscar nomination –for playing a 12 year-old girl.
A-74. “You know something, Fantan? This world is so full of crap, a man's gonna get into it sooner or later whether he's careful or not.”
A-75. The second film directed by this Oscar-winning actress was named after a popular Christmas song, but was actually set on Thanksgiving.
LIST B: MOVIES
B-1. “All right, you go back and tell them that the New York State Supreme Court rules there's no Santa Claus. It's all over the papers. The kids read it and they don't hang up their stockings. Now what happens to all the toys that are supposed to be in those stockings? Nobody buys them. The toy manufacturers are going to like that; so they have to lay off a lot of their employees, union employees. Now you got the CIO and the AF of L against you and they're going to adore you for it and they're going to say it with votes. Oh, and the department stores are going to love you too and the Christmas card makers and the candy companies. Ho ho. Henry, you're going to be an awful popular fella. And what about the Salvation Army? Why, they got a Santa Claus on every corner, and they're taking a fortune. But you go ahead, Henry, you do it your way. You go on back in there and tell them that you rule there is no Santy Claus. Go on. But if you do, remember this: you can count on getting just two votes, your own and that district attorney's out there.”
B-2. The real-life protagonist of this movie wore his own old naval captain’s uniform for his cameo as the commander of the USS Iwo Jima.
B-3. “He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us.”
B-4. This understated British film is by far the best of several movies about events that took place on April 14-15, 1912.
B-5. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
B-6. This was the first film of a popular comedian – which same it would not have been Gregory Hines not been forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.
B-7. “Come on, read my future for me.”
“You haven't got any.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your future is all used up”
B-8. This biopic about a painter starred an actor who had previously won an Oscar for a biopic in which he played a king.
B-9. “Dinner means death! Death means carnage! Christmas means carnage! Christmas means carnage!”
B-10. Good Bette missed her chance for an Oscar nomination for this film because Bad Bette already had one sewn up that year. (However, Bad Ellen O’Hara did get one.)
B-11. “One time, we successfully mated a bulldog with a Shih-Tzu.”
“Really? That's strange.”
“Yeah, we called it a bullshit.”
B-12. In addition to this film’s more famous Oscar first, it also marked the beginning of the screen career of the woman who would go on to win more Oscars than any other.
B-13. “Don't you guys use olives?”
“Olives? Where in the hell do you think we are, man?”
“We have had to make certain concessions for the war; we ARE three miles from the front line.”
“Yeah but without olives, a martini just doesn't quite make it.”
B-14. Though the two nude men in this film garnered most of the publicity, it was the bare-breasted woman who snared an Oscar. (Another Oscar first!)
B-15. “So you have two cousins, I have 27 first cousins. Just 27 first cousins alone! And my whole family is big and loud. And everybody is in each other's lives and business. All the time! Like, you never just have a minute alone, just to think, 'Cause we're always together, just eating, eating, eating!”
B-16. This movie’s hotel room scene between two college freshmen is pretty tame by today’s standards – but when I was fifteen, I thought it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. (PS – the movie and its lovely theme song were pretty good, too.)
B-17. “So much blood! So red! And right before my eyes the red just disappeared just turned to grey so I don't see red now! But you see I was her doctor! And I failed so I can't help you I don't think you want someone like me around right now!”
B-18. If you want to permanently traumatize your children for the holidays – and who doesn’t? – instead of renting this sticky-sweet movie, rent the bloody and demented Christmas movie with the exact same title that came out two years earlier.
B-19. “This is my favorite aria. This is Maria Callas. This is ‘Andrea Chenier’, Umberto Giordano. This is Madeleine. She's saying how during the French Revolution, a mob set fire to her house, and her mother died,. saving her. ‘Look, the place that cradled me is burning.’ Can you hear the heartache in her voice? Can you feel it, Joe? In come the strings, and it changes everything. The music fills with a hope, and that'll change again. Listen... listen....’I bring sorrow to those who love me.’ Oh, that single cello! ‘It was during this sorrow that love came to me.’ A voice filled with harmony. It says, ‘Live still, I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. Is everything around you just the blood and mud? I am divine. I am oblivion. I am the god... that comes down from the heavens, and makes of the Earth a heaven. I am love!... I am love.’”
B-20. Little Caesar gave what was probably his sweetest performance in this film, as the father of one of the actresses in List A.
B-21. “Is this a game of chance?”
“Not the way I play it, no.”
B-22. This film marks the convergence point of Joan of Arc, Queen Victoria, Jim Thorpe, and the Rat Pack.
B-23. “Frankie! Frankie! Your mother forgives me!”
B-24. This wild blend of live action and animation was Disney’s second attempt to implement his own Good Neighbor Policy.
B-25. “All right, fellas, let's go and say a prayer for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could.”
B-26. A psychopathic Santa Claus, a gruesome greeting card, a wife taking a cleaver to her husband’s dead body, and a guy eaten by his own dog – all are elements of this classy horror anthology.
B-27. “Once you step on that bus, you ain’t got your mama no more. You got your brothers on the team and you got your daddy. You know who your daddy is, doncha?”
B-28. This sentimental story about a minister and his wife was the last film to get an Oscar nomination for Best Picture without getting a single other nominiation.
B-29. “You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, ‘Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness.’ You call yourself a free spirit, a ‘wild thing,’ and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”
B-30. When Big Sister backed out of playing the eponymous heroine of this movie, Little Sister stepped in … and ended up competing for the Oscar against Big Sister.
B-31. “Listen, anything you got to say about your mother in-law, you don't have to explain to me. You know what I mean? Like if she were the star of a real crummy horror movie, I'd believe it.”
B-32. This 1949 release was the first Hollywood musical to be shot on location.
B-33. “I am a teacher! I am a teacher, first, last, always! Do you imagine that for one instant I will let that be taken from me without a fight? I have dedicated, sacrificed my life to this profession. And I will not stand by like an inky little slacker and watch you rob me of it and for what? For what reason? For jealousy! Because I have the gift of claiming girls for my own.”
B-34. This serious-minded biopic was a labor of love for Darryl F. Zanuck, and its abject failure at the box office (despite multiple Oscars) broke his heart.
B-35. “If I'd been a ranch, they would have named me The Bar None.”
B-36. The fourth film of an immortal Hollywood star, it was also the third film version of a classic American novel. (It does not, however, begin with the novel’s famous opening line about Christmas.)
B-37. “Come in … and enter!”
B-38. The most creative of the many murders in this cult classic involves a teenager being killed by means of his hearing aid.
B-39. “Oh Joanna! My new dress! How could you do a thing like that? Just when I was going to give you coffee! How could you do a thing like that? I thought we were friends! Just when I was going to... how could you do a thing like that... just when I was going to give you coffee! Oh Joanna... I thought we were friends... I thought we were friends... friends... coffee... how could you do a thing like that? Like that? Like that? Like that? Friends... friends...”
B-40. Though it has the same title as a movie released 35 years earlier, this fantasy was actually a remake of a different film released 37 years earlier.
B-41. “Tonight I want to tell you the story of an empty stocking. Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child's cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts. We haven't forgotten that night down the centuries. We celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts. But especially with gifts. You give me a book, I give you a tie. Aunt Martha has always wanted an orange squeezer and Uncle Henry can do with a new pipe. For we forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. Its his birthday we're celebrating. Don't let us ever forget that. Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share, loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shinning gifts that make peace on earth.”
B-42. Surprisingly, this underrated caper comedy has only two cast members in common with IAMMMMW.
B-43. “It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.”
B-44. Inspired in part by the writings of Carlyle and Dickens, this elaborate costumer marked the last collaboration of one of the greatest director/actress teams of all time.
B-45. “I’m tall dark and handsome and you third world ugly.”
“I am not third world ugly. Women think I'm cute. Like Snoopy.”
”Snoopy is six inches taller than you.”
B-46. For the haunting final shot of this movie, the director instructed his leading lady to stand in the bow of a ship and think about absolutely nothing.
B-47. “I’m about as shapeless as the man in the moon!”
B-48. I can’t absolutely swear to it, but I believe this is the only film noir – sort of – to feature a spirited rendition of ‘The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down.’
B-49. “I guess they named a lot of that Southern trash after old Stonewall.”
“Who'd they name you after? Or do you know?”
“I'm saying that Stonewall Jackson was trash himself. Him and Lee and all the rest of them rebs. You, too.”
“You're a low-down, lyin' Yankee!”
“Prove it.”
B-50. And it’s only fitting that we finish off this puzzle with the movie that gave us the only Christmas song to win an Oscar.
