A Bouquet of Roses on the Silver Screen Quiz

Answer: The Rose

Loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin, "The Rose" was Bette Midler's movie debut and earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She plays Mary Rose Foster, a talented but insecure singer exploited by her manager who falls in love with another singer before self destructing.

Midler also sang the title track to the song which reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, appears on the AFI list of top 100 movie songs, and earned her a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The song was not eligible for an Academy Award because it was not written for the movie but did win a Golden Globe for best song because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has different eligibility rules.

Answer: The Name of the Rose

When an illuminated dies, apparently by suicide, in a 14th Century Benedictine monastery, William of Baskerville (Sean Connery) and his novice Adso (Christian Slater) arrive to investigate. Over the course of the next few days, several other brothers die mysteriously and the deaths come to the attention of the Inquisition which sends Bernardo Gui (F. Murray Abraham).

Answer: Rose Marie

"Rose Marie" is the second of the eight movies in which Jeannette McDonald and Nelson Eddy starred together and it introduced their signature song, "Indian Love Call". McDonald plays Marie, an opera singer who learns that her brother Jack (James Stewart) has been wounded during a prison escape in which he killed a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Eddy plays Sergeant Bruce who is sent by the RCMP to find Jack.

Bruce encounters Marie who introduces herself as Rose to try to protect her brother. Marie reluctantly allows Bruce to help her find Jack. She gives Jack money to escape but Bruce captures him. Marie returns to her life as an opera singer but collapses during a performance of "Tosca" and retires to a remote cabin for six months, where Bruce finds her and they sing "Indian Love Call".

Answer: La Vie en Rose

Edith Piaf (1915-1963) was a French singer and the 2007 biopic takes its title from her signature song. Piaf began singing as a teenager and became popular in her early 20s. She specialized in ballads and in the 1940s was France's most popular performer.

Marion Cotillard (born 1975) began her career as a child actress. Her breakthrough role was as the lead in the French telemovie "Chloe" (1996) and made her Hollywood debut in "Big Fish" (2002). Since then, she has appeared films in both English and French. She was the seventh person to win Best Actress for a role not primarily in English (this includes American Sign Language and movies in which the character speaks multiple languages) and the first to have won for a French speaking role.

Answer: The War of the Roses

Based on a 1981 novel and reuniting the stars of "Romancing the Stone", "The War of the Roses" is a black comedy about the dissolution of a marriage. In a framing section, director Danny DeVito plays an attorney counseling his client to think hard before filing for divorce. He tells them how Oliver (Michael Douglas) and Barbara (Kathleen Turner) Rose met, built a life together, and fell into hatred. During the divorce, they both valued their house more than anything, leading to their destruction.

The movie was remade as "The Roses" (2025) starring Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Answer: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Kathleen Quinlan plays Deborah Blake, a teenager committed to a mental hospital who spends most of her time inside her fantasies. Bibi Anderson plays Dr. Fried, her therapist who eventually leads her to recognize reality. The movie is based on a semi-autobiographical 1964 novel by Joanne Greenberg (writing under the name Hannah Green). Ms. Greenberg was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but under modern diagnoses would more likely be diagnosed with severe depression.

Answer: Broadway Danny Rose

In "Broadway Danny Rose", Woody Allen plays a talent agent whose few successful clients leave him once they hit it big. When he takes on singer Lou Canova (Nick Apollo Forte) who seems poised for a comeback, he might have a chance at success... except Danny ends up acting as cover for the singer's mob connected girlfriend (Mia Farrow).

The movie was screened out of competition at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.

Answer: Rambling Rose

Told in flashback by Buddy Hillyer (Lukas Haas as a teen, John Heard as an adult), "Rambling Rose" tells of an orphan (Laura Dern) who becomes a servant in the Hillyer family home after years as a teenage prostitute. She makes initially accepted advances towards both Buddy and his father (Robert Duvall) as well as a doctor called in to treat her for pneumonia. Soon after, Rose is diagnosed with an ovarian cyst and the doctor recommends a total hysterectomy which would also lower her sex drive. Mrs. Hillyer (Diane Ladd) argues successfully for more the conservative treatment of just removing the cyst. "Rambling Rose" is the first movie for which a mother and daughter were both nominated for Academy Awards.

Laura Dern is the daughter of Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern. Her first two appearances - as an unbilled extra in "White Lightning" (1973) and "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (1974) as a girl eating ice cream were in movies featuring her mother. Dern began taking larger roles in her teens and took her first lead role in "Smooth Talk" (1985) at age 18. She also appeared in "Blue Velvet" (1986), "Mask" (1985), "Jurassic Park" (1993), "I Am Sam" (2001), "The Master (2014), and "Little Women" (2019). She has been nominated for several Oscars, as Best Actress for "Rambling Rose" and for Best Supporting Actress for "Wild" (2014) and "Marriage Story" (2019), winning for the latter.

Diane Ladd began her career on TV in the late 1950s and appeared in "Chinatown" (1974), "Ghosts of Mississippi" (1991), "Primary Colors" (1998), and "Joy" (2016). She has also appeared in several TV series, including "Alice", a sitcom based on the dramatic "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore". She played a waitress named Belle who replaced Flo, the character played by Ladd in the movie and by Polly Holiday in the TV series. She has been nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar several times, for "Rambling Rose", "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore", and "Wild at Heart" (1990).

Answer: The Ballad of Jack and Rose

Jack (Daniel Day Lewis) is a widowed farmer living on an abandoned island commune with his daughter, Rose. They've been isolated for years when he decides to ask his girlfriend Kathleen and her two teenage sons to move to the island. The movie was directed by Rebecca Miller who is married to Daniel Day Lewis and whose father was playwright Arthur Miller.

Answer: The Purple Rose of Cairo

Also directed by Woody Allen, "The Purple Rose of Cairo" stars Mia Farrow as Cecilia, a Depression era woman who falls in love with Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) the main character of the movie she repeatedly watches as she tries to escape her life as a waitress with an abusive husband. Breaking the third wall, Tom first notices Cecilia staring at him, then steps out of the movie.

As Cecilia and Tom spend time together, the actors in the film refuse to continue without their star and the movie's producer travels to New Jersey to resolve the situation.