Movies with a Common Trait Quiz | Movies Bonds and Acrostics

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. An Italian-American boy in New York City decides to get married and settle down. But when he discovers that his fiancee was once raped, he cannot handle it.

Answer: I Call First

This was actor Harvey Keitel's first starring role in a movie.

2. A man has a fatal heart attack. His wife realizes that she won't get any of her husband's inheritance if his family knows he died before his rich relative. So she pretends that he's gone to New York City on business, goes to the family's Irish estate, and tries to insure a cut of the loot.

Answer: Dementia 13

Francis Ford Coppola was assisting Roger Corman on "The Young Racers". Corman allowed Coppola to use the same set, crew, and actors for this movie as long as he worked around Corman's schedule.

3. A New Jersey convenience store employee must deal with idiotic customers, personal problems, and a friend at a neighboring video store that is always bother his customers. All of this on what was supposed to be his day off.

Answer: Clerks

This movie - financed largely by credit cards, money borrowed from family and friends, and selling director Kevin Smith's comic book collection - cost only $26,800 to produce.

4. Six young girls from New Jersey set off to New York City to see The Beatles live on "The Ed Sullivan Show", even though they don't have tickets for the show. Despite many obstacles, the young ladies are determined to reach to their idols.

Answer: I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Although the movie is set in 1964, the titles of three later Beatles' songs are mentioned in dialogue: "Helter Skelter" (woman in elevator says, "Things are all Helter Skelter"), "Get Back" (what the police tell the teenagers as they attempt to save Janis and Peter), and "909" ("The One After 909") - 909 is the room number of the man who wants a prostitute.

5. A war veteran pilot who is afraid to fly nevertheless follows his estranged girlfriend onto an airline flight on which she is a stewardess. But a food poisoning crisis incapacitates the crew, and he is the only person that can bring the plane down safely.

Answer: Airplane!

Contrary to the serious plot description, this movie is a spoof movie, parodying the movies "Airport" (naturally), "From Here to Eternity", "Saturday Night Fever", "Zero Hour!", "Jaws", and even TV shows "60 Minutes", "The Big Valley", and "San Francisco International Airport".

To sell this movie to the studio, the co-directors pitched it as "'Animal House' on a plane" to make the execs to understand that it was meant to be a zany comedy.

This movie has several firsts and lasts. This was Ethel Merman' last movie role, as Lieutenant Hurwitz (who was suffering delusions of being Ethel Merman). It was Jill Whelan's first movie role. It was Leslie Nielsen's first comedy role, to which he took to so well that it has almost become his exclusive genre since.

Peter Graves said he was astounded when his agent sent him the script for "Airplane!". He felt that it was "the worst piece of junk" he had ever seen. He changed his mind after meeting with the movie's writers.

6. Dave, a radio station DJ, has an affair with one of his female listeners, Evelyn. But when he tries to go back to his regular girlfriend, Evelyn becomes psychotically persistant in remaining a part of his life.

Answer: Play Misty for Me

The title of the movie is from the song that Evelyn requests of Dave, "Misty".

7. In the future, the remains of human civilization is located in an underground city. To keep the populace under control, all citizens are kept drugged, and sex is outlawed. One citizen, however, stops taking the drugs and falls in love with his roommate. He is imprisoned, but escapes and tries to find his way to the surface.

Answer: THX-1138

Director George Lucas often incorporates the title of this film into other movies: In "Star Wars", Leia is held in prison cell 1138; the sound system he co-developed is called "THX"; John Milner's car in "American Graffiti" is THX-138.

8. A small-town rock band - The Wonders - rides the roller-coaster of music business success when one of their songs becomes popular nationwide.

Answer: That Thing You Do!

The Wonders have several parallels with The Beatles:
- their original name ("The Oneders" [pronounced "one ders"]) was a play on words involving musical terms.
- their first hit was a sped-up version of a ballad.
- during The Beatles first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show", a shot of John Lennon had the caption "Sorry Girls, He's Married". For The Wonders, Jimmy Mattingly was captioned "Careful Girls, He's Engaged" during their TV debut.

9. A bank employee receives mysterious messages from a British spy via her work computer. After decoding a help message from him, she gets embroiled in a deadly espionage ring in an effort to rescue him.

Answer: Jumpin' Jack Flash

The title is taken from a Rolling Stones song that contains the key to the spy's message to Terry (Whoopi Goldberg).

10. What is the common trait of these nine movies?

Answer: First feature-length fiction movie for the director

"I Call First" was Martin Scorsese's first feature-length movie. He had made 5 previous movies, but the longest of those was 15 minutes.

"Dementia 13" was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, after being Roger Corman's assistant for years.

"Clerks" was based much on director Kevin Smith's experience as a store clerk. Also, the money spent on securing soundtrack rights was more than the production of the rest of the movie.

"I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was Robert Zemekis's first movie. He achieved more notariety for his "Back To The Future" movies.

"Airplane!" was co-director David Zucker's first credited director credit. His brother and co-director, Jerry, had a previous directorship, but was uncredited for it. The third co-director, Jim Abrahams, also had his first director's credit for this movie.

"Play Misty for Me" was directed by the star, Clint Eastwood. He was allowed to after Universal executive Lew Wasserman said he could if he waived his acting fee, which he did. This and two other movies in this quiz had the directors also act in the movie: Eastwood starred in this movie, Tom Hanks played The Wonders' agent in "That Thing You Do!", and Kevin Smith appeared as Silent Bob in "Clerks".

George Lucas directed 10 movies before "THX-1138", but it was his first full-length fiction movie. (A couple of his early films were documentaries.)

Tom Hanks's "That Thing You Do!" recieved an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination (no wins) for best original song for the title song.

Penny Marshall, initially an actress best known as Laverne De Fazio on "Laverne and Shirley", has made seven theatrical movies including her first, "Jumpin' Jack Flash".

Source: Author TonyTheDad

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor skunkee before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Movies with a Common Trait Trivia Quiz

These nine movies, identified by plot, have a common trait that is to be guessed for the last question.

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