Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 126 Trivia Quiz

Answer: True

While others such as Batman had previous theatrical serials, "Superman and the Mole Men" was the first feature-length film in which a DC Comics character starred. Superman appeared previously in a variety of shorts: an animated colour series from Paramount Pictures' Fleischer Studios, and two live-action serials from Columbia Pictures.

Answer: A Dead Man Walks

"The Man Who Turned to Stone" (1957) starred Victor Jory as a mad scientist who lived off the vital fluids of inmates in a young women's detention home. "The Man Without a Body" (1957) concerns a scheme to transplant the brain of Michel de Notre Dame (Nostradamus) into the head of a rich businessman with a terminal brain tumor. "The Neanderthal Man" (1953) involved a serum which could regress animals (cats and people) to their prehistoric genetic forebears.

Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn starred in a movie about capital punishment called "Dead Man Walking" (1995). Larry McMurtry's novel "Dead Man's Walk" was published in 1995. Lacuna Coil released their song "When a Dead Man Walks" on their album "Unleashed Memories" (2001). There does not appear to have been a 1950s motion picture titled "A Dead Man Walks".

Answer: radioactive steam

The Baron and his monster are in the sub-basement laboratory. The creature turns on his creator and begins to tear the place apart. The atomic reactor begins to emit radioactive steam which engulfs the Baron and the monster. They both die from its effects.

Answer: True

Charles Bronson (1921-2003) was born Charles Dennis Buchinsky into a Lithuanian-American coal-mining family in rural Pennsylvania. He played Igor, a deaf-mute chief sculptor in "House of Wax" (1953). Given the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee, his agent urged him to change his surname to Bronson, to make it sound less East European.

Answer: hand-held bombs

Creatures apparently made entirely of stone (but somewhat flexible like wet clay) attacked the party in "Missile to the Moon". They shuffled about like they were hobbled. They looked a bit like Gumby, the clay-animation stop-motion humanoid created by Art Clokey in 1953.

These slow-moving bipedal beasts try to crush the crew. Gunfire is ineffective but one of the Moon maidens, Zena, gives the Earth people small bombs, like hand grenades, with which to blow the rock creatures to bits.

Answer: a play called "The Man in Half Moon Street"

British author Barr Lyndon wrote a play called "The Man in Half Moon Street" in 1939 which ran for 172 performances in the West End. It was twice adapted for the screen. The first was a Paramount Pictures production called "The Man in Half Moon Street" (1945). Jimmy Sangster adapted the play into a screenplay for "The Man Who Could Cheat Death".

There was also a British ABC-TV version of "The Man in Half Moon Street" (1957), in which actor Anton Diffring played the lead. (This is not the same TV producer as the American Broadcasting Company, also known as ABC.)

Answer: in a mental institution / asylum

Jenni Whitlock apparently viewed the accidental drowning death of both of her parents. This left her with a great deal of money and with a mental disorder which required hospitalization. While she was released, she remains sensitive to discussions of trauma and death, especially by drowning. Eric's first wife, Marion, was apparently fleeing from the greenhouse to the mansion in a sudden rainstorm, slipped and hit her head, then fell into the pond and drowned.

This is disturbing to Jenni.

Answer: acting

James Arness (1923-2011) was Peter Graves' older brother; acting apparently ran in the family. His best-known role was as Marshal Matt Dillon on television's "Gunsmoke" for 21 seasons and four feature films. His other horror and science fiction credits include "Two Lost Worlds" (1951), "The Thing from Another World" (1951), and "Them!" (1954) -- that's the one with the giant ants.

Answer: somewhere in California

The ranch owned and operated by "Aunt" Flavia McIntyre, played by Peggy Converse, is located somewhere in California. The story reveals that Gideon Drew was a member of the crew of Sir Francis Drake. Drake's voyage took harbour in a bay unsurprisingly named Drake's Bay in Northern California.

The bay is part of the modern Point Reyes National Seashore, about 30 miles (50 km) from San Francisco.

Answer: in a dungeon in a castle tower

Quintus hypnotises Diana and talks her back through previous lives until she reaches the Middle Ages. Diana begins tugging at her bracelet as if trying to remove it. This is because Helene, the young woman with whom Diana makes psychic contact, is chained in a castle cell with a manacle on her wrist.

She is imprisoned on the charge of witchcraft and expects to be beheaded or burnt at the stake at dawn. Diana speaks to Helene inside her brain and urges her to escape. Helene then uses her chains to clobber Gobbo, her jailer, steals his keys and escapes.