Tricky Movie Trivia and Movie Reviews

It’s hard to summon enough superlatives to describe To Kill a Mockingbird, which I consider one of Hollywood’s greatest classic movies. I suppose it would have been difficult to go wrong, considering the book it came from continues to be a huge success. In my opinion, though, the movie transcended the book. The timeless story of a good man standing up for what is right is dynamic on the page, but it becomes even larger on film.

Artfully directed by Robert Mulligan, the movie was filmed on the Universal Studios backlot. Due to set decorator Henry Bumstead’s efforts, the set didn’t look like yet another Hollywood creation. It was made to look like Macomb County, Alabama, with the help of houses scheduled to be destroyed to make way for the Pasadena Freeway. Bumstead found the Craftsman-style houses just in time and moved them to the Universal lot to recreate the specific world that was the South in the 1930s.

The perfect set is in keeping with the exemplary cast. Gregory Peck, who embodied the part of dignified Southern lawyer and father Atticus Finch as if he were born to play him, was joined by unknowns Mary Badham and Phillip Althorp as his children Scout and Jem. Also in the mix was Macomb visitor Dill, an odd-looking little boy based on author Harper Lee’s childhood friend, Truman Capote. John Megna’s Dill visits Macomb County during the summer and it’s through his, Scout and Jem’s perspectives that the story unfolds. It’s also through their eyes that we’re introduced to the town boogeyman, played by Robert Duvall in his first film role. But Duvall’s Boo Radley isn’t the only supposed monster in town. Robert E. Lee “Bob” Ewell and his daughter Mayella Ewell (played by James Anderson and Collin Wilcox), who wrongly accuse black man Tom Robinson (played by Brock Peters) of rape, are frightening in a much more substantial way.

I know most people wouldn’t consider this a Halloween movie, but for me, the final moments of the film invoke that spirit. I won’t ruin the ending; I’ll just say that it’s scary in the way that only old-fashioned story-telling can be. There are no special effects; the characters have just been so well developed by the end, you feel like you’re right there with them in Macomb County. You can’t help but sit on the edge of your seat as they move through harrowing circumstances. In the end, however, you find safe haven along with them on their faded but cozy Alabama front porch.

Movie trivia and goofs from To Kill a Mockingbird

• Alice Ghostley also made her movie debut in Mockingbird.

• Rock Hudson was Universal’s first choice for the role of Atticus Finch. Jimmy Stewart also was offered the part, but believed the script was “too liberal” and feared the film would be controversial.

• Mockingbird writer Harper Lee picked the name Finch because it was her mother’s maiden name.
• Mary Badham ruined almost every take when the family was eating at the table. Phillip Alford didn’t like eating the same meal repeatedly, and thought Mary was a brat in general, so when he rolled her in the tire down the street, he intentionally aimed it at an equipment truck to try to hurt her.
• The American Film Institute voted Atticus Finch the top screen hero of the last 100 years. They also ranked Mockingbird as #2 on their list of the 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time and as the #25 Greatest Movie of All Time.

• The pennies in the cigar box in the film’s opening are dated 1962, but the story is set in 1932.

• When the marble rolls during the opening credits, several members of the camera crew can be seen reflected in it.

• When Old Man Radley startles the children when he comes to put cement in the tree, Jem and Scout suddenly appear a few feet farther back than they were just a second before.

• The defense table is set next to the jury box during the trial. In real life, the jury always sits on the prosecution’s side of the courtroom.

DVD extras from the collector’s edition of To Kill a Mockingbird (on two discs)

• Scene access
• Interactive menus
• Cast and crew interview
• Movie trivia
• Featurette: Movie by Gregory Peck’s daughter Cecilia that chronicles both her father’s speaking engagements and his later years
• Featurette: Fearful Symmetry: The Making of To Kill a Mockingbird
• Audio commentary by director Robert Mulligan and producer Alan Pakula
• Original trailer
• Subtitles

To be updated whenever there’s a new movie review or movie trivia quiz, please subscribe using the free subscription options in the sidebar.

If you enjoyed this movie review, check out our movie trivia quiz about the star of To Kill a Mockingbird, Gregory Peck.

More Tricky Movie Trivia classic movie reviews:

• The Enchanted Cottage
• My Man Godfrey
• Now, Voyager
• All About Eve
• Born Yesterday

Which type of movie trivia quiz do you find more entertaining, one about celebrity gossip or classic movies?

I don’t think it’s fair to say that people who are looking for movie information and movie trivia are divided into two camps: those who like celebrity gossip and those who like classic black and white movies. I’m sure there are fans of Gregory Peck movies who also like Lindsay Lohan pics. Yet, you have to admit, there is a bit of a generation gap when it comes to movie fans.

If you’re 20, you’re probably much more likely to watch one of the many Lindsay Lohan movies than one of the old romantic stories starring Dorothy McGuire. On the other hand, if you’re 50, watching My Man Godfrey, To Kill a Mockingbird, Now Voyager and The Enchanted Cottage might be much more up your alley. If that’s the case, you probably wouldn’t even care about all the Tinseltown gossip about celebrities in rehab. Conversely, it probably would be hard for a Lindsay Lohan fan to have enough movie facts under his belt to take our movie trivia quiz about Gregory Peck.

If you’re firmly in either camp, it’s easy to think the other is wrong. But both categories have something to offer. For example, new movies, while not always up to the moral standards that many older people would prefer, have a lot of special effects that make for fun movie viewing and great movie trivia questions. On the other hand, while black and white movies sometimes lack production value, they often provide a heartwarming look at another era. Trivia questions about these classic movies are also sometimes easier to answer, because information about them has been around longer.

So, take your pick, the changing world of celebrity gossip or the ever-constant universe that exists in classic movies. Either way, I’m sure you’ll be entertained.

Image via Wikipedia*
Of all the stars of classic movies, Gregory Peck is among the classiest. See how many of these movie trivia quiz questions about his films you can get right. And make sure to read our movie review of one of his best films, To Kill a Mockingbird.

1. What was his first movie?

2. In which 1944 film was Gregory Peck nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role but didn’t win?

3. There were two movies in which Peck played a sea captain that were released in the 1950s. Can you name them?

4. Which actress made her movie debut in Roman Holiday, starring opposite Gregory Peck?

5. Of all Peck’s film roles, which did he publicly say was his favorite?

6. which Gregory Peck movie thriller released in 1962 was also re-released in 1991 and featured Peck in a cameo role?

7. Which two movies did Peck produce in the 1970s?

8. Other than producing, Gregory Peck’s film career was on the wane in the 1970s. What film was considered his comeback picture as an actor?

9. Which former co-star’s housekeeper and dog did Peck take into his after the co-star’s death in 1990?

10. What was Gregory Peck’s final movie in which he was not the subject? (He starred in several projects that either focused on him or for which he was narrator.)

Scroll down to see the answers.

__________

__________

______

______

__________

__________

Answers

1. Gregory Peck’s first movie was Days of Glory, which was set during the 1941 Nazi invasion of Russia and released in 1944 by RKO Radio Pictures.

2. He was nominated for the Best Actor category for The Keys of the Kingdom, in which he played a young priest sent to China to build a Catholic parish.

3. The two classic movies in which Gregory Peck played sea captains were Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951) and Moby Dick (1956).

4. Audrey Hepburn made her movie debut in the classic movie Roman Holiday.

5. Gregory Peck’s favorite movie role was To Kill a Mockingbird. He lit up Tinseltown with his performance in this movie, for which he won an Academy Award.

6. Cape Fear was the thriller that was released both in 1962 and 1991. In the second version, Nick Nolte played Sam Bowden, the character Gregory Peck played in the 1962 release. Gregory Peck played the attorney of villain Max Cady (Robert De Niro).

7. He produced The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1972) and The Dove (1974).

8. His comeback picture in the 1970s was The Omen (1976).

9. Gregory Peck took in Ava Gardner’s housekeeper and dog after Ava died in 1990.

10. Gregory Peck’s final movie in which he was not the subject was a remake of Moby Dick.

How did you do on this movie trivia quiz about classic Gregory Peck movies? If you didn’t get the answers to most of the questions, don’t worry; you’re not alone. Some of them were hard!

If you enjoyed this quiz, why not subscribe via RSS or e-mail to get free updates? See the sidebar for easy subscription options. We’ll be doing many more movie trivia quizzes about classic movies, as well as modern films!

Related post: To Kill a Mockingbird movie review

Posted January 9, 2008 Comments(2)

When I came up with the idea of a movie trivia quiz site, I wondered what people were really interested in so I could write about it. I know Lindsay Lohan pics (along with those of other celebrities) is a popular subject, but not necessarily because people think she’s a good actress. (Even though I believe she is.) But I didn’t know if anyone would ever find Lindsay trivia with all the other celebrity gossip sites and blogs competing to talk about her ongoing misspent youth. It made me wonder whether quizzes about Tinseltown classic movies might be better.

But I know people like modern celebrities, so I thought maybe it would be best to start with current movie trivia questions. I began with a 2007 movie trivia quiz — and I made it good and hard. Everyone who took it said they had to struggle to getting even one question correct. So, that made me realize I needed to give people a fighting chance, even though I saw in my Web statistics that someone had been looking for a “hard superbad quiz.” Hard is a relative term I guess, because I had a question in the 2007 trivia quiz about Superbad and I don’t think that’s the question that people got right. That person who was searching might have been looking for a hard trivia question, but was probably unprepared for the gauntlet he would have to run on the Tricky Movie Trivia blog! Or, maybe he was really just searching for a super-bad, hard quiz and I just misinterpreted.

When I checked my Web statistics, I also found that people also were interested in fake names movies are shipped under. Now, I consider this category of questions especially hard to get right. How would you know the names, unless you were a movie insider (or a reader of Tricky Movie Trivia who cheated by looking at the quiz answers)? But, as I said before, people like to challenge themselves. When they’re not looking for celebrity gossip or movie facts, they sometimes want to prove to themselves that they really do have a lot of insider movie information at their fingertips.

In my search to write about topics people want, I posted one movie trivia quiz each about a variety of movies. I touched quite a bit on the teenage genre by writing about these Lindsay Lohan pics: Freaky Friday, Mean Girls, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Herbie Fully Loaded and Just My Luck. But let’s not forget the teenage boys, who can generate their own share of Hollywood gossip. The 2007 Movies Trivia Quiz contained a question about Superbad, as of course did the Superbad and Seth Rogen Trivia Quiz post. That post also contained some questions about two other funny movies, Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Stars of classic movies vs. trendy celebrities

All of this was well and good, but I wondered if people are interested in more than just movie trivia and Hollywood gossip about celebrities. For example, I wonder if people still care about black and white movies. I’ve written several reviews of To Kill a Mockingbird, which I consider brilliant. (The movie, not the reviews.) Writing about Gregory Peck is a pleasure, because he was every bit as as good a man as the sterling Atticus Finch, the character he played in To Kill a Mockingbird. But do people care about Gregory Peck any more? I hope so. I know the book from which the classic movie was made is still very popular because it was labeled as the Book of the Century by a national association of librarians. But have we become more obsessed with celebrity gossip about who people are sleeping with instead of the content of people’s hearts and minds? Are great ideas dead? Let’s hope not, for all our sakes.

Besides To Kill a Mockingbird, other black and white movies also exemplify the past focus on substance over flash. One of my favorites is The Enchanted Cottage. This romantic movie stars Dorothy McGuire and Robert Young, and teaches the true meaning of love without being preachy. The production value is a little spotty in some places, but the timeless story shines through both the limitations of the medium of black and white film and the haze of each characters’ perceptions. Another example in the romantic movies genre is The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which takes the concept of a love story beyond the grave. It’s truly one of the most romantic movies I’ve ever seen. The storytelling was strong, which made it transcend its being told in black and white.

Classic movies without color are particularly effective for dark, moody romantic stories with ultimate happy endings, but they also work well for comedies. A great example of this is My Man Godfrey. Screwball comedy was never more zany than in this farce that had Carol Lombard and William Powell first at odds, and then, in good old-time Hollywood fashion, in accord. I can’t imagine this movie in color. A certain elegance and Tinseltown glamor was imparted through the colorless medium. When you can shine through black and white, you know you’re a star. It was easy to imagine Carol Lombard and William Powell together at the Copa Cabana or the Brown Derby (before their divorce, of course), because they seemed born to radiate old fashioned Hollywood glamor.

Does it really matter what Lindsay Lohan is doing?

So, why am I going on and on about this? There are several reasons. The first is that I want to know whether people would be more interested in a movie trivia quiz about modern celebrities or if they would prefer movie trivia questions about classic movies. Maybe I should do both. Time will tell.

Over time, I hope to find out whether people really care more about Lindsay Lohan pics and celebrity gossip than how characters in classic movies have modeled good behavior. In the meantime, I plan on having fun writing about what I love: movie trivia. I hope to see you around as I explore the medium I love and meet people who feel the same way.