Welcome to the FAQ Regular visitors to the "I Need To Know" board know that there are certain questions that keep cropping up again and again. Some time ago, we started a thread asking people to identify those questions, and to provide definitive answers. Eventually, the answers were compiled into the first FAQ, located on one of the IMDb movie boards. Unfortunately, the IMDb admin deleted the FAQ, but now it lives on, bigger and better than ever, on this little chunk of webspace. So, just click on any of the headings listed below, and you'll be taken to that particular category.
Farmer attacked by mice
Alfalfa, (originally Al Falfa) first appeared in 1916 in "Farmer Al Falfa's Catastrophe" and while not the most promising character ever to appear in a cartoon, he continued his sporadic career of low budget antics until 1937, when Paul Terry finally retired the character. Although the bulk of Alfalfas cartoons were made during the silent era, he finally spoke in "Club Sandwich" released on Jan. 5, 1931 Answer by gme
Line loves dot, but dot loves squiggle
Answer by pisces64
Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: What's the difference?
The following year Warner commissioned Schlesinger to produce a sister series called Merrie Melodies. At this point Harman and Ising divided responsibilities, with Harman in charge of Looney Tunes and Ising handling the Melodies. Merrie Melodies also featured Warner songs, but where Tunes had regular characters, Melodies for the most part were one-shots, without continuing characters. Another difference was that Melodies were shot in color starting in 1934, while Tunes stayed black and white. Leon Schlesinger retired in 1944 and Warner Brothers began doing cartoon production in-house, after which time there was no reason to maintain any distinction between Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Answer by Cecil Adams at straightdope.com
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Blindfolded ghost in mirror
Answer by Hutch48-2
Blue rose needed to save a Princess
Answer by gmharris Extra info by Kitty-47: In the 1940 version, the rose isn't used to save the princess; it's used to try and make her forget her true love. In the 1960 version, the blue rose is needed by the hero to save the princess, so technically, the answer is "The Thief of Bagdad" (1960).
Boy hides in walls of house
Answer by Kitty-47
Boy sees ghostly girl with doll
Answer by Tabby-6
Couple buys old house inhabited by tiny demonic creatures
Answer by Keller!!
Hotel guest vanishes into thin air but hotel staff refuse to admit it
Answer by PeterD-5 But wait ... there's more ... If the couple are Brother and Sister, it's "So Long At The Fair" (1950), with Dirk Bogarde and Jean Simmons. Answer by freshwater If the couple are newlyweds, and the setting is an ocean liner, it's "Dangerous Crossing" (1953), with Jeanne Crain and Michael Rennie, based on the radio play "Cabin B-13" written by Locked Room mystery master John Dickson Carr. In 1992, Dangerous Crossing" was and remade as the TV Movie "Treacherous Crossing" "The Midnight Warning" (1932) shares a similar theme, as does the German movie "Verwehte Spuren" (1938) (rough translation: "Covered Tracks"), based on a play by Hans Rothe and partly written by Thea von Harbou (Mrs. Fritz Lang). Answer by Hutch48-2
Killer blends in with wallpaper
Answer by Hutch48-2
Little girl changes places with doll in a box
Answer by Prophetess
London After Midnight: Does it still exist?
Turner Classic Movies' premiered Lon Chaney's lost masterpiece on Oct. 31 2002, Halloween night, reconstructed entirely from stills. It was the first time the film has been seen in nearly 50 years in any format, as the last print known to exist was destroyed in a vault fire at MGM in the 1960s. Listed on the American Film Institute's Ten Most Wanted Lost Films, "London After Midnight" is referred to by proponents as the most famous of lost films. Though no actual film footage is known to exist, award-winning filmmaker/archivist Rick Schmidlin has been able to faithfully reconstruct the entire narrative through an extensive collection of more than 200 still photographs and a complete continuity script. In it, Lon Chaney showed off his talents as a make-up artist, creating the first real American vampire, complete with eyes bulging in their sockets, menacing pointed teeth, and a cape. Answer by brunt
Man comes back as dog to find his killer
Answer by Birdie! Another candidate is "Oh, Heavemly Dog" (1980) starring Chevy Chase. Answer by geeduc Yet another possibility is "Fluke" (1995) starring Samuel L. Jackson and Mathew Modine. Answer by The Gryphon
Man trapped inside white cube
The 1997 movie "Cube" shares a similar theme, with seven people trapped in a semingly endless series of cubes. Answer by Brunt
Neverending Story: What does Bastian yell at the end?
Answer by Hutch48-2
Woman killed by binoculars with retractable spikes
Answer by badfish-3
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Female 00 agent
Bond is called to a special meeting. When he arrives, Moneypenny tells him to go to the conference room where "every 00 man in Europe" is waiting for him. At the meeting, there are nine high backed chairs arranged in an arc. Each chair is occupied by a man. Where agents faces are not shown, trouser legs can be seen, so it's reasonable to assume the chairs are occupied by nine male 00 agents. In a couple of shots, a table located behind the high-backed chairs is visible. A woman and a man sit at this table. For the most part, the man is obscured. The woman is constantly writing in a notepad, and from the little we see of the man, he is doing the same thing. Presumably they're secretaries taking minutes of the meeting. Their chairs have no visible backs, and their location suggests they are less important than the nine agents. So, there appears to be no female 00 agents in British Intelligence, but we have seen their Russian and Chinese equivalents.
Answer by gme
First actor to play James Bond
Changes were made for the TV production, most notably making "Jimmy" Bond an American spy, and changing Felix Leiter's first name to "Clarence" and turning him into a British agent. Answer by gme
First person to appear as James Bond in the movies
Designer Maurice Binder was famous for working at the last minute, and secretively, so scheduling with him was difficult. The day he was ready to do the gunbarrel shot, Connery wasn't available, so he used Simmons. He used the same sequence of film for Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger. When he needed to re-do the film for Thunderball, he used Connery, and since then the actors who played Bond have appeared in the gunbarrel opening. Answer by Dehlia who wishes she could put this stuff on her resume.
James Bond films that are not part of the series
However, there are two James Bond films produced by others that are not part of the series. Casino Royale (1967): Salzman and Broccoli were unable to secure the rights to "Casino Royale." In 1967 it was made into a film by Columbia Pictures, bearing little resemblance to a typical James Bond movie. Never Say Never Again (1983): Thunderball, the fourth EON produced Bond film, was the center of legal disputes that began in 1961. Former Ian Fleming collaborators Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham sued Fleming shortly after the 1961 publication of the Thunderball novel, claiming he based it upon the screenplay the trio had earlier written in a failed cinematic translation of James Bond. The lawsuit was settled out of court, and McClory retained certain screen rights to the novel's story, plot, and characters. In 1983, McClory-produced "Never Say Never Again." Basically a remake of Thunderball, it features Sean Connery as James Bond, but is not an official EON production. Answer by gme with extra info by Dehlia
Was a "Bond Girl" born a male?
If a "Bond Girl" is defined as one of the assorted bikini models and page three girls appearing in minor roles, then the answer is yes. The answer to this popular trivia question is "Tula", a model who appeared in "For Your Eyes Only." Tula is a transsexual. She appeared in the swimming pool scene at the villain's lair. She did not have a speaking role. She did, however, appear in a publicity photo in which Roger Moore posed with all the babes from the pool scene. Answer by Dehlia
Related Links
Good general sites with plenty of trivia:
The only comprehensive guide to alcohol in the Bond universe:
This one boasts the best goofs page:
The definitive James Bond FAQ is here:
Links compiled by Dehlia
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The Dirty Dozen: How they died
* Note: We don't see Posey die, but it's safe to assume he was killed with Bravos. Answer by Hutch48-2,(shot for answering too many questions) Gilles_Meloche,(AWOL) michael.will(shot by his own men) and HURU01(missing in action)
Gone In 60 Seconds: The 50 cars and their code names
Answer by katepike
The eight actors who have played James Bond
Answer by imp_85
The seven people who have won an Oscar/Emmy/Tony/Grammy (non-honorary awards)
Richard Rodgers (The first person to win all four awards.)
Helen Hayes (The first actor to win all four awards.)
Rita Moreno
Sir John Gielgud
Marvin Hamlisch
Mel Brooks
Mike Nichols Answer by gmjambear
John Wayne: The movies in which his character was killed
Note: In the case of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, John Wayne is dead when the movie begins. He does not die during the movie. A case could be made for The Sea Chase, since at the end of the movie his ship is blown up by the British, and although hope that he survived is implied, it is left for the audience to decide whether he survived or went down with his ship. However, the movie does not show or say that he is dead. Answer by gme
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Bowery Boys, Dead End Kids, etc ... What's the difference?
In 1938, Universal asked Warners for a loan of the kids to appear in a film called LITTLE TOUGH GUY; Warners wouldn't allow Leo Gorcey to go, but the other five made the trip. Further Little Tough Guy films were made sans any of the Dead End Kids, until Warners dropped the troupe from its payroll in 1939. Dell, Halop, Hall, and Punsly went back to Universal for more Little Tough Guys programmers (now billed as "The Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys") while Leo Gorcey and Bobby Jordan went to Monogram to film EAST SIDE KIDS (to be joined by some of the other Dead End Kids later in the series). Got all that so far? In the spring of 1940, with Germany on its march through Europe, Universal Studios decided to put the Kids/Tough Guys into a topical serial. As America was still neutral in the war, the decision was made to make the "foreign agents" members of "The Order of the Flaming Torch", but those goose-stepping "Heilers" didn't fool the youthful audience for a minute. The 12-episode serial JUNIOR G-MEN was directed by Ford Beebe and John Rawlins and released in July of 1940. Billy's father, a famous scientist, has been kidnapped by the foreign agents and the kids join the FBI's teenage offshoot, the Junior G-Men, to rescue him. JUNIOR G-MEN proved popular enough that the gang was back the following year with SEA RAIDERS, also directed by Beebe and Rawlins (and don't be confused, because in the interim, Billy Halop, sans his Dead End buddies, had flown solo in the Universal serial SKY RAIDERS). In SEA RAIDERS, it's Billy's brother who is the scientific genius, and the boys are scurrying about an island filled with foreign agents intent on destroying Allied ships. This serial is notable for Reed "ZORRO'S FIGHTING LEGION" Hadley's turn as one of the criminal masterminds. The boys were back on the serial screen in 1942 for JUNIOR G-MEN OF THE AIR, directed by Ray Taylor and Lewis Collins. Not a sequel to JUNIOR G-MEN, this time Billy's father runs an airplane junkyard, and he runs afoul of Axis agents led by the villainous Baron, portrayed by horror movie great Lionel Atwill. There would be no further serials for the Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys, as Universal dropped the series in 1943 (THE ADVENTURES OF THE FLYING CADETS, a 12-chapter serial released by Universal in the summer of 1943, may well have been intended as another Dead End Kids/Little Tough Guys serial, but ended up featuring only Bobby Jordan). By this time, Punsly had left films to join the Army Medical Corps (today, Dr. Bernard Punsly is the only surviving member of the original Dead End Kids) and the rest of the Kids sauntered over to Monogram to take part in the East Side Kids series, which morphed into the Bowery Boys after the war. Taken as a whole, the serial adventures of the Kids/Guys resulted in a pretty entertaining lot, with the usual Universal drawbacks of too much scripting and too much stock footage. The Kids are usually placed in opposition to authority but end up "reformed", although they seem to have more fun than the "well behaved" kids ever do. Universal often had impressive casts in its serials, and dotted throughout the series' (and related serials) canon you'll find, in addition to Hadley and Atwill, Robert Armstrong, Edward Ciannelli, and Frankie Darro. None of the chapterplays really stands apart from the others, quality-wise, but the series is certainly worth a look for serial buffs! Answer by Laughing Gravy
First color film
The first natural color film was made by Smith in 1906. It showed his
two children playing on the lawn, his son dressed in blue and waving the
Union Jack, and his daughter in white with a pink sash.
The first commercially produced film in natural color was George Albert Smith's eight minute short "A Visit to the Seaside" (1908).
The first public presentation of Kinemacolor before a paying audience
was in London in 1909, for a program of 21 short films, apparently all
"actualities".
The first dramatic film in natural color was the Kinemacolor production "Checkmated" (Great Britain, 1910), directed by Theo Bouwmeester, who also played the lead role of Napoleon.
The first American dramatic film in natural color was Eclair's Kinemacolor production "La Tosca" (1912), with stage star Lillian Russell.
A total of 54 dramatic films were produced in Kinemacolor in Britain,
1910-1912. In the U.S. only three dramatic productions were made in
Kinemacolor besides La Tosca.
The first full-length feature film in Kinemacolor was The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1914).
The first Technicolor film was "The Gulf Between" (U.S., 1917), a
five-reeler made by Technicolor Motion Picture Corp. in Florida mainly
for trade showings in eastern cities, to create interest in color movies
among producers and exhibitors. It did not receive nationwide
distribution. It is a lost film today, and only a few frames survive.
The first Technicolor feature made in Hollywood, and the first to receive nationwide distribution, was the costume drama "The Toll Of The Sea". It premiered November 26, 1922 at the Rialto Theater in New York and was released January 22, 1923.
The first film to use the three color Technicolor process was the Walt Disney animated short Flowers And Trees (1932) which premiered at Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
The first live action film in three color Technicolor was the thirty minute musical short La Cucaracha (1934)
The first Technicolor feature was Becky Sharp (1935), a loose adaptation of
William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair." Miriam Hopkins received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
Answer by The Gryphon
More about Kinemacolor
More about Technicolor
First Computer Generated Image in a feature film
More about CGI
Answer by Mae-Bea
First Movie to include the 'F' word
Answer by The Gryphon
First PG-13 Movie
Answer by gmharris
Flashbacks in "The Limey" (1999)
Answer by Dehlia
Four Weddings And A Funeral: What was the poem?
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one: Answer by Dehlia
Girl alone in Amazon after plane crash
Answer by Pippin
The High And The Mighty: Why was it so hard to see?
Answer by Prophetess
Man forced to slide down giant blade
Answer by gme
Monster in lake turns out to be old steam shovel
Answer by Keller!!
Movie with the most "F" words
Answer by Savoy
Mrs. Doubtfire: A couple of questions
Answer by *caramel*
They were watching an episode of the original Outer Limits titled "The Hundred Days Of The Dragon," in which a scientist demonstrates a drug that enables skin to be softened and easilly rearranged. His plan is to replace the U.S. President with an imposter. Answer by gme
Pulp Fiction: What's In The Briefcase?
Answer by Harry Chrishner
Raiders Of The Lost Ark: Was the "Flying Wing" a real plane?
Here's a schematic of Northrop's Flying Wing.
More about Flying Wings.
Answer by roarshock
Short Film: Man stuck in a telephone booth
Answer by Phlicker
Teacher and students held hostage by men in masks
Answer by Kitty-47
Woman gets revenge after plastic surgery
Answer by Kitty-47
If the woman was disfigured by a crocodile, has her appearance restored,
and gets revenge on her husband (who tried to kill her) the answer is
the Australian Mini-Series "Return To Eden" (1985).
Answer by gme
Vikings search for giant golden bell
Answer by gme
Young man travels to buy sports car before his wedding
Answer by gmharris
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American Beauty
Strangely, the song is not on the soundtrack album, but can be found on Annie Lennox's "Medusa" CD. Answer by Muvie
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Answer by Winter-11
Music Video: Film shown in Metallica's "One"
Answer by vlad1917
Schindler's List
Answer by Nicqui
The Shawshank Redemption
Answer by Savoy
WKRP in Cincinnati: Song and lyrics in closing credits
Answer by AJGibson with extra info by Broph
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Astronaut lands on mirror image duplicate of Earth
After a disastrous
crash-landing Ross awakes to learn that Kane lies near death and that
they apparently have returned to Earth, as evidenced by the presence of
the Council director and his staff. Released to the custody of his wife,
he soon learns things are not as they seem.
Answer by Prophetess
Fake Moon/Mars landing
Answer by Prophetess
Last man on Earth
It's actually the New Zealand film "The Quiet Earth" (1985), starring the late, great Bruno Lawrence.
Answer by gme Other movies with the last man on earth theme include "Ultimo uomo della Terra, L'" (1964), a.k.a."The Last Man on Earth", starring Vincent Price, and "The Omega Man" (1971) both loosly based on Richard Matheson's story "I Am Legend."
Last Man On Earth
The Omega Man
Extra info by wah tze tuya
Man gets super powers but loses them when he sees red
Answer by Poolmwv
Man made into cyborg on tank treads
Answer by luluthebeast
Man on motorcycle travels through time to Old West
Answer by Prophetess
People living in Ocean Liner at bottom of the sea
This made for TV mini-series is "Goliath Awaits" (1981) starring Christopher Lee.
Answer by Prophetess
Scientists experiment with monkeys in Arctic laboratory
Answer by JB-83
Sun only comes out once a year
Based on a Ray Bradbury short story, it tells the tale of a little girl on a planet where the sun only comes out once a year.
Answer by Poolmwv
Teenagers flying spaceship to far away planet
Answer by AJGibson
Another possibility is "Explorers" (1985) starring Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix.
Answer by beatjunkie
Town threatened by giant growing rocks
Answer by caseychat
U.S. Warship travels through time
Answer by Mr. Bean-5
"The Philadelphia Experiment" (1984) shares the time travel theme. In
this movie, an experiment performed on board a Battleship in 1943 sends
two of its crew members (but not the ship) forty years into the future.
Answer by gme
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Columbo: What was his first name?
Answer by Harry Crishner
Get Smart: What was Agent 99's real name?
Answer by gme
Longest Movie
Answer by The Gryphon
Lost In Space: The Robot
In the first episode of the show, the Robot was described as a B-9 Environmental Control Robot, but for the rest of the series, with the exception of Dr. Smiths insults, he was simply referred to as "Robot." Another common misconception is that the LIS Robot and Robby The Robot are one and the same. They are two different creations, although the confusion probably stems from the fact that Robby The Robot appeared in two episodes of Lost In Space.
Answer by gme
Thunderbirds: What does FAB mean?
Answer by *caramel*
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