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Quiz about The Best of Alfred Hitchcock
Quiz about The Best of Alfred Hitchcock

The Best of Alfred Hitchcock Trivia Quiz


Hitchcock was master of suspense and a respected director, though apparently not so much by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, if his Oscar wins are any indication. Let's look at some of Hitch's best and the directors that beat him out!

A multiple-choice quiz by shuehorn. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
shuehorn
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
318,478
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
7 / 10
Plays
1087
Awards
Top 20% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Guest 99 (7/10), Guest 70 (8/10), Guest 68 (4/10).
Question 1 of 10
1. Of all the movies that Hitchcock directed, only seven were even nominated for Best Picture and/or Best Director. Which of the following great Hitchcock films, a spy thriller starring Joel McCrea and Laraine Day, is among those lucky seven? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. The 1941 Oscars (which honored films released in 1940) took place the first year Hitchcock had worked in the US instead of Great Britain, showing his increasing popularity and recognition in America. Two of his movies were nominated for Best Picture, and Hitch himself was nominated for Best Director for one of those films. Which psychological drama and thriller, starring the lovely Joan Fontaine, was it? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. Hitchcock's next film after "Foreign Correspondent" and "Rebecca" was "Suspicion" (1941). He exercised greater control over the film and it was honored at the Oscars in 1942. Though it did receive more than one nomination, what award did "Suspicion" eventually get? Hint: The lovely Joan Fontaine figured in this movie as well as in its ultimate honor. Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Hitchcock made a second film in 1941, "Mr and Mrs. Smith". It was a comic turn and a change of pace for him. It garnered not even a single nomination that year, but was later remade as a movie with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, which was also ignored at the Oscars. True or False?


Question 5 of 10
5. Hitchcock's only film in 1943 was the wonderful "Shadow of a Doubt", with Joseph Cotten and Theresa Wright. This picture was nominated for an Oscar in 1944, the year the 1943 pictures were honored. Which award, if any, did it get? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. All in all, Hitchcock was nominated for the Best Director Oscar four times in the course of his career. One of them, a claustrophobic thriller starring Tallulah Bankhead in a rare film role, took place on a single set for the majority of the film. Which film was it? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. At the 1946 Academy Awards, which honored films made in 1945, Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director and his film "Spellbound" (starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman) was nominated for Best Picture.


Question 8 of 10
8. It wasn't until 1956's Oscars that another film of Hitch's was once again recognized with nominations by the Academy. Which Oscar did "To Catch a Thief" actually win that year, honoring the setting and the feel of the movie more than the director and the histrionics or plot? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. Hitchcock's cameos are now famous. One of the few films of Hitchcock's where his cameo is not a live action cameo is "Lifeboat". How was the cameo in this film achieved? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. Towards the end of his career, Hitch was honored by the American Film Institute Academy with their Life Achievement award. Which of his former leading ladies, the star of "Notorious" and "Spellbound", served as a hostess to the tribute to Hitchcock's life that formed a part of this award presentation? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Of all the movies that Hitchcock directed, only seven were even nominated for Best Picture and/or Best Director. Which of the following great Hitchcock films, a spy thriller starring Joel McCrea and Laraine Day, is among those lucky seven?

Answer: "Foreign Correspondent" (1940)

"Foreign Correspondent" (1940) is a spy caper involving an American reporter and his lovely partner. It was nominated for best picture in 1941, but it didn't win. In fact, Hitchcock was not even nominated for his direction of this movie. When compared to the other films mentioned in this question, "Foreign Correspondent" is not as well remembered as exemplary of Hitchcock's work, and it and was actually beaten out of the Best Picture award by another Hitchcock film. Amazingly, "Vertigo", "Notorious" and "The Birds", all well-known and loved Hitch films, were not even nominated for Best Picture or Best Director.

More often than not, the nominees for Best Picture are also nominated for Best Director, showing how important the director's hand is in making a great movie. It is considered a slap in the face to the director when his picture is nominated, but the director is not. In this case, at least "Foreign Correspondent" was recognized, even if Hitch was snubbed.
2. The 1941 Oscars (which honored films released in 1940) took place the first year Hitchcock had worked in the US instead of Great Britain, showing his increasing popularity and recognition in America. Two of his movies were nominated for Best Picture, and Hitch himself was nominated for Best Director for one of those films. Which psychological drama and thriller, starring the lovely Joan Fontaine, was it?

Answer: Rebecca

"Rebecca", a suspenseful tale of a woman's struggle to overcome the shadow of her husband's deceased first wife, did win the Best Picture Oscar, but Hitchcock did not win for Best Director, some say because the producer, David Selznick, exercised such a strong hand that he was actually the "behind-the-scenes" director instead of Hitchcock.

The other movies mentioned, "Foreign Correspondent" (1940), "The Lady Vanishes" (1939) and "Suspicion" (1941) did not win the Best Picture Oscar either. In fact, "Rebecca" is the only Hitchcock film to have garnered that prize.

The year that Hitchcock could have come away with great glory was actually a double snub for him, and started a tradition of nominations that would fail to honor his work. The winner of the Best Director prize this year was John Ford for "Grapes of Wrath".
3. Hitchcock's next film after "Foreign Correspondent" and "Rebecca" was "Suspicion" (1941). He exercised greater control over the film and it was honored at the Oscars in 1942. Though it did receive more than one nomination, what award did "Suspicion" eventually get? Hint: The lovely Joan Fontaine figured in this movie as well as in its ultimate honor.

Answer: It was nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress, and it got only the latter.

By making a second film with Joan Fontaine, the star of the prior year's "Rebecca", Hitchcock starting a tradition of working with blonde actresses in multiple films and molding their performances. In this case, it worked for Fontaine, who did indeed did win the Best Actress award for portraying a terrified wife convinced her husband wants to kill her. Cary Grant was her co-star in that movie, and his acting was not recognized by the Academy, perhaps because it was such a different type of role for him. Hitch's direction was not even nominated, and the film lost its only other nomination, Best Picture, to "How Green Was My Valley", for which John Ford also won Best Director (for the second year in a row). Ironically, Ford's film used black-and-white cinematography to depict a green valley (and even more ironically, it won the award for best b&w cinematography).

Though Hitch was again snubbed by having his film nominated for best picture and having his direction efforts ignored, this was eclipsed by a more famous snubbing of the 1942 Oscars: the shut-out of "Citizen Kane," considered by many to be one of the best films ever made. It did not get the Best Picture or Best Director awards, and won only Best Writing (Original Screenplay) (an award shared by Orson Welles and Joseph L. Mankiewicz).
4. Hitchcock made a second film in 1941, "Mr and Mrs. Smith". It was a comic turn and a change of pace for him. It garnered not even a single nomination that year, but was later remade as a movie with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, which was also ignored at the Oscars. True or False?

Answer: False

Though it is true that neither film was nominated for any Oscars, the films are not remakes of each other and are not related in any way. Hitchcock's movie is a comedy with Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery, in which a couple discovers that their marriage ceremony wasn't valid after years of being together.

The Jolie-Pitt film shared the same title, but was about two spies and killers who were married to each other, but who were each unaware of the other's true profession.
5. Hitchcock's only film in 1943 was the wonderful "Shadow of a Doubt", with Joseph Cotten and Theresa Wright. This picture was nominated for an Oscar in 1944, the year the 1943 pictures were honored. Which award, if any, did it get?

Answer: It was nominated for Best Writing, Original Story, but it did not win the Oscar.

"Shadow of a Doubt" did not win the writing honors that year, though it was a very well-written story and it is still admired today.

The following exchange between Uncle Charlie (played by Joseph Cotten) and Young Charlie (played by Theresa Wright), shows how cleverly it was written.

Uncle Charlie: How was church, Charlie? Did you count the house? Turn anybody away?
Young Charlie: No. Room enough for everyone.
Uncle Charlie: Well, I'm glad to hear that. The show's been running such a long time, I thought maybe attendance might be falling off.

"The Human Comedy", written by William Saroyan, won the award for Best Writing, Original Story. It was set during WWII and probably caught the spirit of the audiences of the day, though it is not widely known today. Mickey Rooney starred in the film.
6. All in all, Hitchcock was nominated for the Best Director Oscar four times in the course of his career. One of them, a claustrophobic thriller starring Tallulah Bankhead in a rare film role, took place on a single set for the majority of the film. Which film was it?

Answer: "Lifeboat" (1944)

The thriller "Lifeboat" is set entirely on the titular boat, out at sea. It is a psychological drama that has propagandistic elements evident today, years after WWII, but which were understandable for the time that the movie was made. It was also one of the few film performances of Bankhead's.

Two of the other films listed did garner Hitch nominations for best picture, "Rear Window" and "Psycho". Though they were set in confined areas, neither was limited to a single set. "Rear Window" takes place mostly in the apartment of a bed-ridden photographer played by Jimmy Stewart who passes time looking out over a courtyard into the apartments of his neighbors, out of boredom. Those other sets show slices of life and are independent sets themselves. "Psycho" takes place for most of the movie in the Bates Hotel, but there are scenes in the city at the beginning of the movie as well as at the end, and the hotel itself includes different sets, among them the infamous shower.

The other film listed here, "Rope", was also shot mostly on a single set. It was an interesting experiment by Hitch, in that he shot it in just ten takes, which lasted from four-and-a-half to a little more than ten minutes (which was the longest length of film that a reel could hold at that time). It is not the correct answer here, though, because "Rope" was a controversial film when it came out, and Hitch was not nominated for Best Director. The film starred Jimmy Stewart.
7. At the 1946 Academy Awards, which honored films made in 1945, Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director and his film "Spellbound" (starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman) was nominated for Best Picture.

Answer: True

Once again, though he was nominated at least, Hitch was eventually shut out of awards, this time by Billy Wilder's "Lost Weekend", which got both Best Picture and Best Director Oscars that year. Some feel that this was due more to "Spellbound's" weak storyline, which today seems almost ludicrous (pop psychology and psychiatry at its worst), and the strange dream sequence by Salvador Dali probably didn't help either. Nevertheless, Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck are attractive stars and this film is still worth a look.
8. It wasn't until 1956's Oscars that another film of Hitch's was once again recognized with nominations by the Academy. Which Oscar did "To Catch a Thief" actually win that year, honoring the setting and the feel of the movie more than the director and the histrionics or plot?

Answer: Best Cinematography

"To Catch a Thief" was actually nominated for Best Art Direction/Set Direction, Best Costume Design, and Best Cinematography, and it won only the last award listed. It was not nominated for Best Original Screenplay or Best Supporting Actor. Delbert Mann's "Marty" was the picture that took home Best Picture and Best Director honors that year.

Hitch's film was an enjoyable romp with Grace Kelly and Cary Grant, shot in what would later become Princess Grace's home, Monaco. The famous chase scene in the film was shot at what was later the scene of Kelly's death in a car accident in 1982.
9. Hitchcock's cameos are now famous. One of the few films of Hitchcock's where his cameo is not a live action cameo is "Lifeboat". How was the cameo in this film achieved?

Answer: Hitchcock's picture appeared in a newspaper ad that one of the passengers had.

Hitchcock's cameo in "Lifeboat" is in the form of a before and after weight-loss ad in a paper. This was an ingenious way of accomplishing a cameo in a film that was set out at sea with a fixed cast. A walk-on was obviously impossible in these circumstances.

Hitch didn't start doing cameos in his films until his third film, "The Lodger" (1926), and in "The Wrong Man", his cameo is the presence of his voice as narrator at the beginning of his film. Hitch soon realized that people were looking for his cameos and not paying as much attention to his films as they should until they "found" him, and he began appearing earlier in his movies because of that.

"Lifeboat" received three Oscar nominations, Best Cinematography, Best Writing and Best Director. It didn't win any of them.
10. Towards the end of his career, Hitch was honored by the American Film Institute Academy with their Life Achievement award. Which of his former leading ladies, the star of "Notorious" and "Spellbound", served as a hostess to the tribute to Hitchcock's life that formed a part of this award presentation?

Answer: Ingrid Bergman

Bergman appeared visibly moved to be able to present this much-deserved honor to Hitch. Other stars who had worked with Hitch and who were there to honor him that night were Anthony Perkins, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. When he had finally won some type of overdue recognition from the Academy in the form of the Irving G. Thalberg award in 1968, Hitch's speech was limited to a stark, "Thank you." This time, even Hitch was moved and he spoke longer while seated at the AFI banquet.

He dedicated his award to his wife, Alma Revielle, who was his longtime collaborator, professionally and in life. Hitch died in April of 1980, just months after the AFI ceremony. Bergman herself did not live much longer, dying of cancer in August 1982.
Source: Author shuehorn

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