Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 199 Trivia Quiz

Answer: "The Invisible Boy" (1957)

In "Invaders from Mars", Jimmy Hunt plays David MacLean, who witnesses an alien invasion. In "The Space Children", Michel Ray plays Bud Brewster who is mentally influenced by an alien. In "The Atomic Kid", Mickey Rooney plays Barnaby 'Blix' Waterberry, a prospector exposed to radiation. Child actor Richard Eyer shares the spotlight with Robbie the Robot from "Forbidden Planet" (1956).

He plays Timmie Merrinoe, a scientist's son who gains the power of invisibility from Robbie.

Answer: The Strange Old House

The feature-length movies "The Strange Door" (1951), "The Strange World of Planet X" (1958), and "Stranger From Venus" (1954) are all actual, not-made-up, existent, and authentic motion pictures. "Stranger From Venus" is a British film renamed "The Venusian", which bears a disturbing number of similarities to "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951). "The Strange World of Planet X" is also a British movie which was also renamed "Cosmic Monsters". "The Strange Door" is an American horror motion picture which was alternatively distributed as "Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Door".

"The Old Dark House" (1932) starred Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, and Charles Laughton. It was remade in 1963 as a horror-comedy retaining the name "The Old Dark House". "The Strange Old House" (2015) is a juvenile storybook by Roderick Hunt and Paul Shipton. It is one of a series involving Biff, Chip and Kipper. "The Strange House" was a motion picture made in China in 2015. "The Strange Old House" is a juvenile book written by Charity Orr and published in 2022. Diligent research has not revealed a 1950s feature-length science fiction or horror movie named "The Strange Old House".

Answer: omega particles make it consume itself

Dr. Leslie Gaskell makes it sound simple: "We'll set up a field of force here. A concentrated shower of omega particles, matter derived from energy, could cause a change of polarity. The reversal process would trigger the conversion. Kronos' power to destroy would be turned upon himself." Dr Arnold Culver agrees: "By setting up an internal chain reaction, Kronos would become his own executioner."

As Kronos makes its way to Los Angeles, headed for an atomic bomb stockpile at Port Hueneme, the scientists persuade the US Air Force to assist in the monster's destruction. The necessary rare radioactive nuclear materials are flown out from the Boston Institute of Technology. The idea is that bombarding Kronos with nuclear ions will cause the robot's polarity to reverse, and it will feed upon itself to the point of "death".

A lone brave pilot, played by Richard Harrison, flies directly over Kronos. He releases a payload of "Omega particles" which float down on the robot. Cracks appear on Kronos' surface, his dome top melts, and it begins to glow. Dr Gaskell says to the others observing, "The chain reaction will keep on until the last stored electron of mass has been neutralised. Kronos is literally eating himself up alive. You are witnessing his death throes." Kronos then implodes/explodes and is no more.

Answer: Martin Benson

Martin Benjamin Benson (1918-2010) acted on stage, on television, and in movies produced both in the UK and in Hollywood. Probably his most memorable role on both stage and in film was as the Kralaholme in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The King and I". His horror and science fiction roles included "The Strange World of Planet X" (1958), "Gorgo" (1961), "Battle Beneath the Earth" (1967), and "The Omen" (1976).

In "The Strange World of Planet X" he played Smith, a stranger who appears in the village after flying saucer sightings. He is well spoken and scientifically educated but shows little understanding of everyday life on Earth. Smith, who turns out to be a friendly emissary from another planet, is deeply concerned by Dr. Laird's experiments. He assists Gil, Michele, Jimmy, and Cartwright in stopping the most dangerous experiment by blowing up Laird and his laboratory with a ray from his flying saucer.

Answer: Yes

Shout! Factory released a Blu-ray package which contained five movies termed "The Fly Collection". The original "The Fly" (1958) was directed by Kurt Neumann. The sequel, "Return of the Fly" (1959), was directed by Edward Bernds. "Curse of the Fly" is a 1965 British sequel to "Return of the Fly" (1959) directed by Don Sharp. David Cronenberg co-wrote and directed "The Fly" (1986) which was a remake of the original.

This remake begat a sequel "The Fly II" in 1989 which was directed by Chris Walas.

Answer: the novel "The Body Snatchers" by Jack Finney

Independent producer Walter Wanger first saw author Jack Finney's 1954 story "The Body Snatchers" serialized in "Colliers Magazine". He gave it to director Don Siegel who suggested Daniel Mainwaring do an adaptation. Siegel and Mainwaring had worked together on "The Big Steal" (1949) and "An Annapolis Story" (1955). Wanger liked Mainwaring's adaptation and the result was "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

Answer: condoms filled with water

No matter what the crew shooting the raindrop scene attempted, falling water from the leaking hot water heater did not look like tear-shaped drops. Jack Arnold, the director, remembered a time when he stole condoms from his father's drawer, filled them with water, and dropped them from the top of their building. Arnold ordered a hundred condoms and the crew experimented with filling them with water and dropping them off a running treadmill above the scene.

They looked like drops of water on film and they splashed most cinematically when they hit the floor. So he ordered 100 gross condoms and shot the final scenes using them.

At the end of shooting, the production office challenged his expenditure for 14,400 condoms. Arnold replied, "'Well, it was a very tough picture, so I gave a cast party.' And that was all I told them."

Answer: acting

Richard Allen Boone (1917-1981) spent his adult life as an actor in television and more than fifty motion pictures. On television, he starred in "Medic" (1954-1956) as Dr. Konrad Styner. He starred as Paladin in "Have Gun, Will Travel" (1957-1963). In the movies, he played Pontius Pilate in "The Robe" (1953) and General Sam Houston in "The Alamo" (1960).

He very rarely played in science fiction or horror roles. The two notable exceptions were the lead in "I Bury the Living" (1958) and in the Japanese-American tokusatsu film "The Last Dinosaur" (1977).

Answer: southern Mexico

As the film "The Beast of Hollow Mountain" (1956) begins, an unidentified, unseen narrator intones, "Deep in the back country of Mexico there rises a grim and mysterious mountain, which is said to be hollow. Its interior has never been explored because at its base lies an impassable swamp. The superstitious link the hollow mountain and the swamp and their folk legends as places of evil, great evil. They tell of the strange animal from the dawn of creation that inhabits the area, coming forth to prowl and pillage only in times of drought. They tell of men and cattle disappearing without trace." A cowboy from Texas, Jimmy Ryan, raises cattle in the vicinity of Hollow Mountain and its supposedly-haunted swamp. The area is in southern Mexico. When his cattle begin to disappear, he follows them into the accursed swamp.

This motion picture was a Mexican-American co-production. The Spanish-language version was titled "La bestia de la montaña". It was filmed at Churubusco Studios in Mexico City, on location in Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico, the purported birthplace of the Aztec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl, and in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, a city about ninety minutes south of Mexico City.

Answer: One is lithified; the others are burnt up.

Were it not for the three principal heroes in this motion picture, the girls in the La Salle Detention Home for Girls would have perished one by one as their vital energy was "sucked out" by Dr. Murdock and his homicidal company of elder scientists. Instead, one doctor turns to stone for lack of a revitalisation infusion and the others are killed when fires in the attic and the basement consume the house (and them) in flames.