Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 174 Trivia Quiz

Answer: He had a theological epiphany of acceptance.

Growing progressively smaller at first angered and frustrated Scott. He became tyrannical, lashing out at his faithful wife Louise. With no prospect of a cure, his situation appears to him as hopeless. He climbs through a window screen into the yard. Looking up at the starry sky, he experiences a sort of transcendent breakthrough in which his fear dissolves. Until that moment, he had judged everything in the physical world in terms of its relationship to human beings. "I had thought in terms of Man's own limited dimension. I had presumed upon Nature. That existence begins and ends is Man's conception, not Nature's." His body is changing from being microscopic to being subatomic.

He expresses his realisation in a soliloquy: "Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God there is no zero. I still exist!"

Answer: The Giant Eyeball

The feature-length movies "The Giant Behemoth" (1959), "The Giant Claw" (1957), and "Giant from the Unknown" (1958) are all actual, not-made-up, existent, and authentic motion pictures. "The Giant Behemoth" is about a sea monster advertised as "The Biggest Thing Since Creation". "The Giant Claw" is about a really big buzzard advertised as a "Flying Beast Out Of Prehistoric Skies". "Giant from the Unknown" is about a resurrected Conquistador, advertised as "The creeping terror that rose from the depths of the unknown.".

"Giant Eyeball Head" (2015) is a character within a short subject which describes a monster imagined by a ten-year-old boy. There is an outdoor public sculpture in Dallas, Texas, called "Eye" (2010) which is a 30-foot diameter eyeball. It was preceded by a smaller (6-foot diameter) version in St. Louis, Missouri, done in 2007. There was an episode of "SpongeBob SquarePants" titled "SpongeBob & Patrick Giant Eyeball Jelly Cake Decoration!" (2021). No record of a motion picture called "The Giant Eyeball" has been found.

Answer: "The Marble Forest", a novel by Theo Durrant

It is not absolutely correct to identify Theo Durrant as the author of "The Marble Forest". This was one of those books written by a phalanx of fictionists, as was the case in "The Floating Admiral" (1994) by 13 authors, "Naked Came the Manatee" (1996) by 13 authors, "No Rest for the Dead" (2011) by 26 authors, and "Inherit the Dead" (2013) by 20 authors. "Durant's" novel was published in 1951 by Knopf.

Its true authors were a dozen members of the Mystery Writers of America on a lark. The author's name was borrowed from a serial killer (and Sunday School teacher) who was convicted of the mutilation murders of two young women and was hanged at San Quentin in 1898. Producer William Castle bought the rights to the novel and hired Robb White to adapt it to the screen.

The title "The Marble Forest" was a rather poetic reference to a graveyard with its statuary, tombstones and memorials appearing to grow out of the ground like a copse of trees. Castle changed the film's name to "Macabre" to give it a more Gallic feeling, perhaps recalling the 1922 silent film "Danse Macabre" to which a recording of Camille Saint-Saëns' symphonic poem was to be played synchronously with the action on the screen.

Answer: Pat Boone

As information about the casting of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" trickled out, the first confirmed star was singer Pat Boone as graduate student Alec McEwan. He had some reluctance to appear in a science-fiction film. He was perhaps induced by Fox Pictures' offer to include a number of songs in the movie.

In the event, he sang three songs in "Journey". Although his part was romantic (his character was in love with Professor Lidenbrock's goddaughter Gräuben), there was not much physical interaction between them due to Boone's conservative beliefs about sex in motion pictures. Gräuben and Axel did wed in the end.

Answer: Countess Báthory

Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (1560-1614) was an Hungarian noblewoman responsible for the deaths of hundreds of young women. Vain in the extreme, she sought to prolong her youthful beauty by bathing in the fresh blood of murdered young women. Four of her servants were convicted of murder for their involvement in these serial killings (1590-1610). Elizabeth Báthory was imprisoned for life in the Castle of Csejte where she presumably grew old naturally. Film director Freda acknowledged that "I Vampiri" was based, in part, upon the story of Countess Elizabeth Báthory.

Answer: "The Munsters" (1964-1966)

In Season 1, episode 31, of the American television programme "The Munsters", broadcast 22 April 1965, Uncle Gilbert comes to visit the family. He sent them a fortune in gold and Spanish doubloons, asking them to hold it until he arrives. A bank officer, Alan, plans to elope with Marilyn and steal the treasure.

He is thwarted, runs away in fright, and Uncle Gilbert (played by Richard Hale) arrives from Transylvania. He is the Creature from the Black Lagoon and explains that he collects all of this wealth from the seafloor.

The episode, titled "Love Comes to Mockingbird Heights", was directed by Joseph Pevney (1911-2008), a singer, actor, and director of television and motion pictures.

Answer: Lon Chaney Jr.

Lon Chaney Jr. was neither the monster nor the lead in "The Cyclops". He was cast against type as stock speculator and mining expert Martin "Marty" Melville, intent on getting rich by claiming uranium deposits in Mexico. Susan Winter, played by Gloria Talbott, persuades Melville to finance a large part of the cost of her mission to find her missing beau.

In interviews after filming, Talbott reported that shooting the movie was made difficult by Lon Chaney Jr.'s advanced alcoholism. The same observation has been made about his work in other contemporaneous films.

Answer: acting

English actor Arthur Lucan (1885-1954) appeared in drag as Old Mother Riley in motion pictures, on stage and on the radio. His wife Kitty McShane played Mother Riley's daughter Kitty in all but the last of 17 films. The couple played a Royal Command Performance at the Palladium in London in 1934.

The couple separated over her infidelities and he died just off stage in a Paris theatre in 1954.

Answer: near Los Angeles, California

In one of the scenes of "Kronos", the front page of the (fictitious) "Post Dispatch" newspaper blares "GIANT ON RAMPAGE! HEADED FOR H-BOMB STOCKPILE." The machine marches steadily from Mexico toward Southern California, consuming every source of power it encounters. Kronos appears to be headed for Port Hueneme, a coastal town which hosts Naval Base Ventura County and the West Coast base of the SeaBees.

The "H-bomb stockpile" is fictitious. There are orders to evacuate the cities of Los Angeles and the film contains scenes of L.A. freeways clogged by traffic at night.

Answer: False

Charles Eric Maine (1921-1981), whose true name was David McIlwain, wrote a radio play titled "Spaceways" which was broadcast on BBC's "Light Programme" on 4 February 1952. Hammer Films bought the rights. The screenplay was written by Paul Tabori and Richard Landau; Terence Fisher was assigned to direct.

This was Hammer Films' first science fiction movie. The success of both the radio broadcast and the motion picture prompted Maine (McIlwain) to turn it into a novel, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1953.