British Film Mix Trivia Quiz

Answer: Joseph Losey

Joseph Losey was an expatriate American director who fled the Communists hunts of the 50's to work in England. (His American films include 'The Boy With Green Hair', best known for the song 'Nature Boy'.) All the others are native-born Brits.

Answer: Gainsborough

Gainsborough studios were noted for their costume dramas, as befitting the painter who inspired their name and logo of the pretty girl in costume. (Gainsborough himself is best known for his 'Blue Boy')

Answer: Leo the Lion

Leo, of course, belongs to America's MGM (the only zodiacal sign to grace a studio!). Rank is renowned for the 'Gong-Man', and as I wrote before, Alex Korda stole Big Ben from Powell's Westminster Films before he and Pressburger created the Bull's-Eye logo of Archer Films.

Answer: Ealing

The late, great Sir Alec Guiness did almost all his finest comic work at Ealing, including 'The Lavender Hill Mob' and the classic 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' (he played eight separate characters in that one!).

Answer: The Magic Box

Robert Donat played William Friese-Greene, an early pioneer in motion photography. Co-starring with him is a Who's Who of British film stars, including Sir Laurence Olivier as a policeman Donat drags in from the street to see his first film!

Answer: Jamaica Inn

Hitch wrapped 'Jamaica Inn' before he emigrated to America in 1939 (based on the Daphne DuMaurier novel; his two other DuMaurier films are 'Rebecca' and 'The Birds'). He would make only three other films in his native land: 1950's 'Stage Fright', part of his '56 remake of 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' and his penultimate film, 1972's 'Frenzy'.

Answer: True

It was in his silent classic 'The Lodger' that Hitch began doing his famous cameos.

Answer: That Hamilton Woman!

Alex Korda's film starred Vivien Leigh as Emma Hamilton and her then-husband Laurence Olivier as her legendary lover Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson...the same guy atop that column in London's Trafalgar Square!

Answer: John Ford

Lester is best known for 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Help!', which helped put the Beatles on the map, Donen did the original cult comedy 'Bedazzled' and the late, great Kubrick lived and did all his later work in England.

Ford's sole British film was 'Gideon's Day', aka 'Gideon of Scotland Yard'.

Answer: Covent Garden

Powell (and Pressburger) began 'The Red Shoes' at the Garden, and Hitch placed his murders among the food sellers there in 'Frenzy'. (Anna Massey was in both 'Frenzy' and Powell's 'Peeping Tom') Oxo Tower, BTB, is an old advertising tower now redesigned as a food and clothing center!

Answer: Guy Fawkes' Day

Leigh was born on November 5th, the day that rebel Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the House of Parliament, a day the Brits celebrate to this day.

Answer: Charles Laughton

Olivier directed all his films in England; Laughton did only one, in America...but that was the cult classic 'The Night Of The Hunter' with Robert Mitchum as a psychotic preacher. Still a classic!

Answer: James Whale

Whale was the homosexual director of 'Frankenstein' and 'Bride of Frankenstein' starring Laughton's wife Elsa Lancaster (it also had an in-joke about Laughton). Whale died in Los Angeles in a mysterious swimming pool accident; 'Gods And Monsters' , about Whale's sad last days, supposed it a suicide. (Sir Ian McKellan was superb as Whale.)

Answer: Boulting

Among the best known works of John and Roy Boulting are 'Seven Days To Noon', 'I'm All Right, Jack', 'Private's Progress' and 'Brighton Rock'. John also directed 'The Magic Box'! The wrong answers are fictional brothers from film comedies.

Answer: Gilliat and Launder

Gilliat and Launder are best known for their 'Belles of St. Trinian's' series about a boarding school for demonic little girls, but they also made the minor mystery gem 'Green For Danger', with Alastair Sim as an unforgettable police inspector. Cooper and Schoedsack are best known for "King Kong", Panama and Frank did "Court Jester" and "L'il Abner" among others, and Hecht and MacArthur, after penning the blockbuster farce "The Front Page", moved into filmmaking with such films as "Crime Without Passion" and "The Scoundrel".