Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 153 Trivia Quiz

Answer: "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

A 2020 article in the "Wall Street Journal" said "In the movie 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers,' aliens are able to replace humans with exact replicas by growing them in giant pods. That eerie vision introduced the phrase 'pod people' into the lexicon to label those who display soulless conformity." The term was used in this sense in the TV programme "Seinfeld" (Season 2, episode 5, 4 Apr 1991). A December 2004 story on CBS-TV News about the popularity of the Apple I-Pod was titled "Invasion of the Pod People."

"Pod people" entered the English language in 1956, directly from the film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers. "Pod people are emotionless, creatively dead, ultra-conformist, and mindless. "Invasion of the Pod People" is a 2007 horror film in which the alien pods turn women into lesbians. "The Day the Earth Stopped" is a 2008 movie about a robotic invasion of the Earth. "Strange Invaders" is a 1983 motion picture set in 1958 in which aliens turn humans into crystallised glowing blue orbs and then assume their form.

Answer: The Final Battle on Mars

"Battle Beyond the Sun" (1959) is a re-editing of the Soviet motion picture "Nebo Zovyot" done by then-film-school-student Francis Ford Coppola. "Battle in Outer Space" (1959) is a Japanese motion picture, dubbed into English, in which Tokyo, New York City, and San Francisco do not fare so well but the Earth is saved in the end. "Conquest of Space" (1955) is a scientifically-based Earth-to-Mars picture from George Pal.

There was a costume horror television mini-series titled "V: The Final Battle" in 1984. There was a Brazilian feature-length motion picture titled "The Final Battle" (2007) which was about the end of the world from an evangelistic Christian perspective. Daniel Krygsveld wrote the novel "The Final Battle: The Awakening of Humanity" (2014). No one appears to have produced a 1950s movie called "The Final Battle on Mars."

Answer: Masterson blows up the laboratory

Doctor Aranya injects Professor Masterson with an antidote to his drug-induced imbecility. His hope is to recruit the professor to assist in his experiments. When Masterston refuses, Aranya tells Tarantella to kill him. Doreen interferes. Masterson prepares some chemicals which will explode.

He tells Grant and Doreen how to get out of a secret tunnel. Then he commits suicide by detonating the bomb, killing Aranya, the giant spider, Tarantella, the other spider women, the dwarves and probably all of the desert critters who had taken up residence in the cave.

Answer: Richard Carlson

American actor, director and screenwriter Richard Carlson (1912-1977) played Dr. David Reed, the male lead "Creature From the Black Lagoon." He portrayed a scientist intent on finding evidence of a half-man/half-fish missing link. He was also engaged to the only female member of the expedition, Kay Lawrence, played by Julie Adams.

The Gill Man was not the only marine animal with which Carlson was concerned in his acting career. In an episode of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1964-1968), "The Village of Guilt" (Season 1, episode 8, 2 November 1964), Carlson plays against type as Lars Mattson. Mattson is a mad Norwegian scientist who, seeking to feed the world, creates a giant killer octopus.

Answer: A $1000 life insurance policy

Producer William Castle bought real $1000 life insurance policies from Lloyds of London insuring moviegoers against "death by fright". In addition, he sometimes rented a hearse to park in front of the theatre. In other locations, he placed a nurse (or an actress dressed as a nurse) in the lobby. In Minneapolis, Castle had himself sealed inside a casket from which he planned to emerge dramatically; instead the latch on the coffin stuck and he had to be prised out of the box.

These are only a few of the promotional gimmicks employed by Castle for which he became famous. These are described in detail in William Castle's "Step Right Up! I'm Gonna Scare the Pants Off America: Memoirs of a B-Movie Mogul" (Putnam, 1976)

Answer: True

The black-and-white "The She-Creature" was remade in colour as "Creature of Destruction." Les Tremayne played the suave hypnotist Dr. John Basso; this role recreates Chester Morris' portrayal of Dr. Carlo Lombardi. American International hired Larry Buchanan to produce and direct. Tony Huston rewrote Lou Rusoff's screenplay.

The monster in the remake was laughable compared to the monster created by Paul Blaisdell for "The She-Creature." It used a rubber wetsuit modified by special effects "artist" Jack Bennett onto which he glued fins and for which he contrived google-eyes apparently made with ping-pong balls.

Answer: All of these

Nancy Fowler Archer, a dipsomaniac, is drunk when she should have been sober, leading people to disbelieve her, even when she tells the truth. Her husband, Harry Archer, a philanderer, has marital relations with women to whom he is not married. Honey Parker, the town floozy, is up to no good with Harry Archer and is complicit, maybe even the instigator of, Harry's plan to murder his wife by injecting her with an overdose of her prescribed sedative. As Korean-American author Min Jin Lee says "People are rotten everywhere you go. They're no good".

Answer: Acting

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (1882-1956) was a Hungarian-born actor known professionally as Bela Lugosi. Perhaps the high point of his long career was his definitive portrayal of Count Dracula in "Dracula" (1931). A small part of his filmography includes "Dracula" (1931), "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1932), "White Zombie" (1932), "Chandu the Magician" (1932), "Island of Lost Souls" (1932), "Mark of the Vampire" (1935), "The Invisible Ray" (1936), "Son of Frankenstein" (1939), "The Gorilla" (1939), "The Devil Bat" (1940), "Invisible Ghost" (1941), "The Wolf Man" (1941), "The Ghost of Frankenstein" (1942), "The Corpse Vanishes" (1942), "Night Monster" (1942), "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" (1943), "The Ape Man" (1943), "The Return of the Vampire" (1943), "Voodoo Man" (1944), "The Body Snatcher" (1945), "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948), "Mother Riley Meets the Vampire" (1952), "Bride of the Monster" (1955), "The Black Sleep" (1956), and "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (1957). Despite his popularity and the length of his career, Lugosi died a penniless alcoholic/drug addict.

Answer: San Fernando, north of Los Angeles

The premise of "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is that the good people living in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles, are under attack by aliens in flying saucers. The City of San Fernando is a suburb of Los Angeles. The cemetery which figures centrally in the film is the Pioneer Memorial Cemetery in Sylmar, California. Shots of Bela Lugosi were filmed in front of the home of co-star Tor Johnson, also in Sylmar. Some interior filming was done at Quality Studios at Santa Monica Boulevard and Western Avenue in Los Angeles.

Answer: Humans turned into water creatures by radiation

The creatures (there are more than one) in "The H-Man" are made mostly of jelly: liquid, gooey, gelatinous, oozing, slimy, greenish in colour, glowing, radioactive, and alive. They were turned into such creatures by their exposure to radiation produced by atom bomb testing. They kill and dissolve human victims by touching them, surrounding them, liquifying them, and apparently eating them.