Q 01/05

What did the word "blockbuster" originally describe when it entered the American press in the early 1940s?

A) WWII aerial bombs

B) Broadway ticket queues

C) Blocks of radio airtime

D) Wrestling promotions

Answer · why

A) WWII aerial bombs

WWII aerial bombs: 'blockbuster' was the nickname for bombs big enough to wreck a whole city block, and film publicists borrowed it for pictures they ...

Q 02/05

Why does Indiana Jones simply shoot the Cairo swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark instead of fighting him?

A) His whip had snapped

B) The star had dysentery

C) The stuntman was hurt

D) They were losing the light

Answer · why

B) The star had dysentery

The star had dysentery, like much of the crew in Tunisia, so the long sword fight the stuntman had spent weeks rehearsing was cut down to a single gun...

Q 03/05

Which 1973 hit, shot for well under a million dollars, was George Lucas's last film before Star Wars?

A) THX 1138

B) Mean Streets

C) American Graffiti

D) The Sugarland Express

Answer · why

C) American Graffiti

American Graffiti cost under $800,000, and a private screening of it persuaded Fox executive Alan Ladd Jr. to back Lucas's next idea, a space opera.

Q 04/05

Jaws was adapted from a 1974 bestselling novel by which author?

A) Arthur Hailey

B) Robin Cook

C) Stephen King

D) Peter Benchley

Answer · why

D) Peter Benchley

Peter Benchley wrote the first drafts of the screenplay too and appears on screen as a TV reporter, though most of his script was rewritten while the ...

Q 05/05

Jaws was shot mostly on location on which island, standing in for the fictional Amity?

A) Martha's Vineyard

B) Mount Desert Island

C) Block Island

D) Long Island

Answer · why

A) Martha's Vineyard

Martha's Vineyard played Amity although the shark hunter who inspired the novel fished off Long Island; the crew arrived in May 1974 and were still th...