Breathe, You Have a Short Time to Live Quiz

Answer: Richard Burton

Richard Burton (1925-1984) was the actor who played Mark Anthony in Joseph L. Mankiewicz' master production "Cleopatra" (1963). Born in Wales as Richard Jenkins, he started his movie career in 1949 in "The Last Days of Dolwyn". His other major roles on the silver screen included Becket in the eponymous movie from 1964, Alec Leamas in "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (1965) and George in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?" (1966).
"Cleopatra" told a history devolving from 48 BC until 30 BC. In the first part of the movie, Gaius Julius Caesar (role by Rex Harrison) went to Egypt after the battle of Pharsalus (48 BC) to judge in the civil war between Ptolemy XIII (played by Richard O'Sullivan) and Cleopatra VII (brilliantly played by Elizabeth Taylor). After having restored Cleopatra to the throne and condemned Ptolemy to death on the battlefield, Caesar stayed in Alexandria long enough to be seduced by Cleopatra and to make her pregnant. According to the movie, Cleopatra and her son Caesarion visited Rome shortly before Caesar was murdered (44 BC) and in the aftermath she seduced Mark Anthony, one of the generals fighting against Caesar's assassins. When the Caesarean faction regained control, Octavian (role by Roddy McDowall) and Mark Anthony decided to rule the west and the east of the Roman Empire respectively, with the south relegated to Lepidus.
The movie then continued with the love story between Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, which led to another civil war decided at the battle of Actium (31 BC). Having lost this naval battle, Cleopatra returned to Alexandria, followed by Mark Anthony. On the invasion by Octavian's army, Mark Anthony saw that all was lost and fatally wounded himself on his sword. All this led up to the scene described in the question: the dying Mark Anthony was transported to Cleopatra, and his last words would be addressed to her: "A kiss... to take my breath away".
James Purefoy played the role of Mark Anthony in the HBO TV series "Rome". Charlton Heston played Mark Anthony in "Antony and Cleopatra" (1972). And Marlon Brando portrayed Mark Anthony in "Julius Caesar" (1953).

Answer: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

"Dawn of the Dinosaurs" (2009) was the third episode of the "Ice Age" animated movies. In this movie, Manny the Mammoth and his wife Ellie were expecting a baby. Sid the Sloth tried to enliven things by collecting eggs, unaware that these belonged to dreaded dinosaurs. The one-eyed weasel Buck gathered a rescue party consisting of the mammoths Manny and Ellie, as well as the opossums Crash and Eddie. On their way into dinosaur territory, they had to cross a volcanic valley. Buck here spoke of deadly fumes, but fortunately these were just helium fumes. As a result of inhaling these fumes, the opossums for a while spoke with odd squeaky voices.
"The Two Towers" (2002) had as protagonists Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Gandalf, Frodo and Samwise, to name but a few. It was the second instalment in an epic fantasy in which an alliance between humans and some other races (elves, dwarves, hobbits) opposed the evil wizard Sauron and his army of Orcs and marauders.
In "The Curse of the Black Pearl" (2003) the main characters were Jack Sparrow, Will Smith and Elisabeth Swann. This was the first of a series of pirate movies.
"The Far Side of the World" (2003) revolved about Captain Jack Aubrey, Doctor Stephen Maturin and the rest of the crew of the British frigate HMS Surprise. This movie was brought into the theatres, possibly as the start of a franchise set against the Napoleonic Wars. But more than fifteen years later no sequel has been made. There were three video documentaries about the making of this movie, and it has been referred to in dozens of TV series.

Answer: Mr. Miyagi

"The Karate Kid" (1984) was the first of a series of three movies starring Ralph Macchio as the college student Daniel Larusso and Pat Morita as his karate trainer Mr. Miyagi. Daniel was bullied by a gang of students who all learned karate at the Cobra Kai gym led by John Kreese (role by Martin Kove), who always insisted "An enemy deserves no mercy". Fortunately Mr. Miyagi was around to rescue Daniel's life a first time, and Mr. Miyagi would train Daniel for a tournament against several of Kreese's students. Miyagi's training scheme at first bewildered Daniel, but it turned out waxing the car and painting the fence were intense trainings of blocking techniques.
One of the iconic scenes is where Daniel learned the crane kick: standing on one leg, jumping up, striking with the same leg and landing once more on the same leg - a very powerful and surprising attack move requiring excellent balance.
Sato was the old antagonist of Mr. Miyagi in "The Karate Kid II" (1986). Mr. Han (role by Jackie Chan) was the kung fu teacher in the 2010 remake "The Karate Kid" starring Jaden Smith and Wenwen Han.

Answer: Female elf

"Arthur Christmas" (2011) was an animated movie for the holidays. The main character in the story was Arthur Claus, the younger son of Malcolm - one in a series of persons known as the real Santa Claus. Santa Claus was used to deliver presents with military precision to exactly the right child.

But of course something went wrong: one of the parcels got lost. Bryony, one of the thousands of elves working for the company, found the lost parcel, and Arthur took off to rectify the mistake - helped by his grandfather Grandsanta and by Bryony the elf.

There were of course several obstacles to fulfil this mission on time. The main characters were voiced by James McAvoy (Arthur), Hugh Laurie (Steve - Arthur's elder brother and presumed heir to the company), Bill Nighy (Grandsanta) and Ashley Jensen (Bryony).

Answer: Romeo & Juliet

"Romeo & Juliet" (2013) was one of the dozens of interpretations of Shakespeare's masterpiece. Director Carlo Carlei tried to stay faithful to the setting (Verona in the Fifteenth Century), whilst minimally updating the language used. Douglas Booth played Romeo, Hailee Steinfeld played Juliet, and the nurse spoken to in this quote was played by Lesley Manville. Contrary to modern language, the "nurse" in this story is the fifteenth century type of nurse - which we nowadays would call a governess.
The quote is delivered after Juliet first became aware that Romeo fell in love with her. Juliet had sent out the nurse to enquire who was the mysterious suitor and craved for anything her nurse would find. Alas, although Romeo was "handsome as the dawn! His body, figure, leg, and foot excel as the finest!" (so said the nurse), he belonged to a family that feuded with Juliet's family for ages.
In "The English Patient" (1996) Juliette Binoche played the French-Canadian nurse Hana, who cared for a mysterious "English patient" (Ralph Fiennes) who turned out to be the Hungarian Count Almasy.
"The Lady with a Lamp" (1951) is a biopic about Florence Nightingale (role by Anna Neagle).
"One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) starred Jack Nicholson as Randall McMurphy, who successfully pleaded insanity to avoid a prison sentence. Alas, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) and her colleagues made McMurphy very unsatisfied with his choice.

Answer: Alvin and the Chipmunks

"Alvin and the Chipmunks" (2007) was the first in a series of movies combining animation and live action about David Seville, an unsuccessful singer-songwriter, and three (animated) chipmunks who made their way into his home. When David found out the chipmunks really could sing, his luck turned around and he started an international career.
The title seems a bit misleading: Alvin was one of the chipmunks, together with his brothers Theodore and Simon. While Alvin was usually up to no good, Simon was the brainy one and Theodore was everyone's sweetheart.
The breath freshener incident happened quite early in the movie, when David and the chipmunks had to get to know and respect each other. But with such a prankster as Alvin around, this was a process of long and hard labour...
More movies would follow, each with more funny and unlikely plot stories.
"The Straight Story" (1999) was a road movie about a senior citizen called Alvin who left Iowa to visit his brother in Wisconsin. Because Alvin did not have a driving license, he undertook the trip on a lawnmower.
"Bait" (2000) told the story of Alvin Sanders, a petty criminal used by the police to trap some mob leaders.
"Sergeant York" (1941) was the biopic of sergeant Alvin C. York, who during the First World War single-handedly defeated over 150 Germans.

Answer: "You held your breath. If you'd been excited, you would have started breathing harder."

"Maverick" (1994) was a western comedy based upon the eponymous TV series from the fifties. Mel Gibson played Brett Maverick, a card shark and con artist, and Jodie Foster played his partner in crime, Annabelle Bransford. The quote is from one of the first poker games in which Maverick and Annabelle compete, but gradually the stakes get higher - up to a final prize worth 500,000 USD. The smoke quote comes from the 1998 comedy "Half Baked", about a team trying to bail out their friend who has been arrested for killing a horse.

The blinking lights were mentioned in "Airplane II: the Sequel" (1982), a goofy comedy about a shuttle to the moon. The heart beat quote was taken from "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" (2007), a comedy about a business owner who finally decided to pass on his toy story and to retire - at the age of 243.

Answer: Spaceballs

"Spaceballs" (1987) was Mel Brooks' answer to the tremendous success of space epics such as "Star Wars" (the original trilogy), "Star Trek" (both the TV series and the first movies), "Alien" and "Planet of the Apes" (both the TV series and the original movie series). As is Mel Brooks' habit, all these similar themed inspiration sources were mixed up to one gigantic spoof, and the gags (many of them unfit for the younger children) were fired at extremely high speed.
In as much as "Spaceballs" had a plot (instead of a pretext to launch puns on the aforesaid space epics), here it is. The planet Spaceballs had almost exhausted its atmosphere, and so the planetary rulers were intent to come up with a solution. Emigration to other planets? Intense trading? No, they chose for plain robbery - stealing all of the atmosphere of their neighbour Druidia. But of course there were valiant Druidians to oppose this scheme...
"Blazing Saddles" (1974) was Mel Brooks' spoof on the westerns. In "Young Frankenstein" (1974) he gave us a quite different outlook on the horror genre. And "High Anxiety" (1977) was Mel's parody on all of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers.

Answer: Hold Back the Dawn

"Hold Back the Dawn" was the movie we're looking for. This romantic movie starred Charles Boyer as George Iscovescu, a Romanian hoping to get a permit to live in the USA by marrying an American woman. He intended to leave his new wife rapidly after the wedding ceremony and reunite with his former companion Anita Dixon (role by Paulette Godard), but was so charmed by Emmy Brown (played by Olivia de Havilland) that he abandoned his first plan.
The quote came after a quite dramatic moment. After Anita informed Emmy about the initial plan, Emmy took off in her car driving home. But on the road, she had a nasty accident. George visited Emmy in hospital and uttered the aforesaid quote, after which Emmy's condition stabilised.
The red herrings are three other great movies that premiered in 1941. "Citizen Kane" is the biopic of the fictional newspaper mogul Charles Foster Kane (role by Orson Welles), as remembered by his family: his first wife Emily, his second wife Susan, and his mother Mary.
"The Maltese Falcon" was a grand film noir starring Humphrey Bogart as detective Sam Spade and Mary Astor as his client Brigid O'Shaughnessy, who asked him to trace a valuable statuette.
"How Green Was My Valley", winner of the Academy Award for best movie, told the love story between the coal miner's daughter Angharad (played by Maureen O'Hara) and the preacher Mr. Grufydd (role by Walter Pigeon).

Answer: Maytime in Mayfair

"Maytime in Mayfair" (1949) told the story of a broke gentleman named Michael Gore-Brown (played by Michael Winding) who inherited a fashion salon led by Eileen Grahame (role by Anna Neagle). Together they transformed the fashion salon into the major meeting place in London for fashionable ladies.
Eileen Grahame uttered the aforesaid quote to Michael Gore-Brown as a recommendation. She meant "We need to concentrate on these new colours for our autumn dresses".
Don't ask me what hue is "Elephant's Breath": this shade exceeds my imagination. Toad Brown and Frog Green are evident, Drink of Wine is probably a tint of red, and I suppose Moth's Slime would be some kind of ecru / dirty white.
The red herrings are famous other musicals. "Singin' in the Rain" (1952) deals with the early talking movies; "West Side Story" (1961) is a modern version of Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet"; and "The Sound of Music" (1965) told the story of a nun helping the family von Trapp to escape Nazi Austria.