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Quiz about The Films of Ronald Colman
Quiz about The Films of Ronald Colman

The Films of Ronald Colman Trivia Quiz


Please take a few moments to learn about the films of Ronald Colman, the most distinguished and suave of all 20th-century film stars.

A multiple-choice quiz by BarbaraMcI. Estimated time: 6 mins.
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Author
BarbaraMcI
Time
6 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
358,235
Updated
Jul 23 22
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
7 / 10
Plays
286
Awards
Top 35% Quiz
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. Many of Ronald Colman's early silent films are considered lost, but we can still watch his first American effort, "The White Sister", in which he plays an Italian army officer believed dead by his beloved, who then enters a convent. The big-budget 1923 affair even included the eruption of Mount Vesuvius!

What "Birth of a Nation" star, who often worked with her sister Dorothy, selected Colman as her co-star, after she saw him in a New York play?
Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. After coming to America and beginning a silent film career, Ronald Colman was paired with Vilma Bánky, a beautiful actress, for a series of films with titles like "The Night of Love" and "Two Lovers".

Another movie with Bánky, based on a popular play, concerns a love triangle about a soldier (Colman) blinded in World War I. His sweetheart thinks he is dead, so she is about to marry his friend when she learns the man she truly loves is alive, so she goes to find him. It was later remade with Fredric March as the veteran. What is this tearjerker?
Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. In the early days of the Academy Awards, actors could be nominated or win for their body of work over a year, rather than for a single performance. Ronald Colman was nominated for Best Actor of 1929 for two films: "Condemned" and for another, which was his first talking picture. What was this other picture?
Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Sixty years before the 1993 Kevin Kline movie "Dave", Ronald Colman appeared in "The Masquerader", a movie with a similar theme about a look-a-like who takes the place of a prominent person. What was the situation in this movie? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. Ronald Colman made only two films in which he did not wear his trademark moustache. One is the spectacular 1935 "A Tale of Two Cities". The other is a highly fictionalized biography of the man credited with securing an entire subcontinent for the British Crown. What is this other movie? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. It's incomprehensible that Ronald Colman wasn't nominated for Best Actor for his performance in the 1935 film version of "A Tale of Two Cities". His voice-over of the famous final words "It is a far, far better thing I do now than I have ever done..." is still considered a model of nobility.

What producer, most famous for "Gone with the Wind" and "Rebecca", each of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, was responsible for "A Tale of Two Cities"?
Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. A film adapted from Rudyard Kipling's first novel, "The Light that Failed", became the vehicle for one of Ronald Colman's best performances. The story of a painter who is going blind featured a young actress in her film debut, who played the part of the artist's malicious model. Colman wanted Vivien Leigh for the part, but he was overruled.

The actress who got the role made an big impression, leading to roles opposite Humphrey Bogart in "They Drive by Night" and "High Sierra". She later became a pioneering female director and producer. Who was she?
Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. Ronald Colman's final - and only winning - Oscar nomination came for his 1947 film "A Double Life", in which he stars as Anthony John, an unstable stage actor who murders a waitress played by Shelley Winters. In what Broadway play is Anthony John starring when he becomes unhinged?
Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. The big-budget 1937 film "Lost Horizon", adapted from a novel by James Hilton, cast Ronald Colman as Robert Conway, a British diplomat whose plane crashes in the Himalayas. The passengers are led to a lovely valley "where people never grow old and peace and goodness prevail".

What is the name of this enchanted valley?
Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. It almost goes without saying that Ronald Colman was the most debonair man on any film screen on which he appeared. But in the 1942 picture "The Talk of the Town", a co-star gave him a run for his money in the suave department, and gave their leading lady an impossible choice. Who is this fabulously sophisticated, urbane gentleman? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Many of Ronald Colman's early silent films are considered lost, but we can still watch his first American effort, "The White Sister", in which he plays an Italian army officer believed dead by his beloved, who then enters a convent. The big-budget 1923 affair even included the eruption of Mount Vesuvius! What "Birth of a Nation" star, who often worked with her sister Dorothy, selected Colman as her co-star, after she saw him in a New York play?

Answer: Lillian Gish

Lillian Gish was known as "The First Lady of the Silent Screen" and her distinguished career lasted 75 years, from 1912 to 1987. Because of Colman's dark good looks, many who saw him in "The White Sister" believed he really was Italian, and he was referred to as "an exciting new Valentino type!" He got great reviews for the movie, which was very profitable.
2. After coming to America and beginning a silent film career, Ronald Colman was paired with Vilma Bánky, a beautiful actress, for a series of films with titles like "The Night of Love" and "Two Lovers". Another movie with Bánky, based on a popular play, concerns a love triangle about a soldier (Colman) blinded in World War I. His sweetheart thinks he is dead, so she is about to marry his friend when she learns the man she truly loves is alive, so she goes to find him. It was later remade with Fredric March as the veteran. What is this tearjerker?

Answer: The Dark Angel

In the film's famous final scene, the woman plans to abandon her fiance in favor of her original love (Colman), but he is too noble and proud to let her know that he is blind, so he arranges his furnishings in such a way that he will appear sighted. He rejects her and she goes away, but comes back and realizes the truth, and they embrace.
3. In the early days of the Academy Awards, actors could be nominated or win for their body of work over a year, rather than for a single performance. Ronald Colman was nominated for Best Actor of 1929 for two films: "Condemned" and for another, which was his first talking picture. What was this other picture?

Answer: Bulldog Drummond

"Bulldog Drummond", based on a series of novels by Herman C. McNeile, wasn't a particularly exciting movie, but drew audiences to Colman's portrayal of a World War I veteran who publishes an advertisement looking for adventure -- "legitimate, if possible; but crime, if of a comparatively humorous description, no objection. Excitement essential."

"Condemned", released the same year, also was known as "Condemned to Devil's Island"; "Raffles" was released in 1930, and "Arrowsmith", based on the Sinclair Lewis Nobel Prize-winning novel, in 1931.
4. Sixty years before the 1993 Kevin Kline movie "Dave", Ronald Colman appeared in "The Masquerader", a movie with a similar theme about a look-a-like who takes the place of a prominent person. What was the situation in this movie?

Answer: A journalist takes the place of his drug-addicted cousin, a Member of Parliament.

In a plot similar to "The Prisoner of Zenda", Colman plays two roles, a journalist who takes the place of his distinguished cousin, a drug-addicted Member of Parliament. During a national crisis, the masquerader saves the country while the real M.P. recovers, but he eventually dies of his addiction. It is left ambiguous at the end of the film whether the journalist will continue his imposture.

To publicize the 1933 film "The Masquerader", "a Goldwyn press agent released a story that Colman prepared for his scenes by taking a few belts of whisky, and that he performed his love scenes better when he was loosened up by liquor." Colman sued Goldwyn for libel and never worked with Goldwyn again.
5. Ronald Colman made only two films in which he did not wear his trademark moustache. One is the spectacular 1935 "A Tale of Two Cities". The other is a highly fictionalized biography of the man credited with securing an entire subcontinent for the British Crown. What is this other movie?

Answer: Clive of India

"Clive of India", made the same year as "A Tale of Two Cities", saw Colman in the biographical role of Baron Robert Clive, who established the British East India Company for the purpose of trading commodities like tea, cotton, and silk.

I don't know if Colman shaved for the sake of historical accuracy or because he was making "A Tale of Two Cities" at the same time - but ironically, movie posters show him with the mustache!

In "The Talk of the Town" (1942), Colman's character Michael Lightcap begins the film with a beard, but later shaves it and retains his mustache. In "Kismet", Colman, playing a Baghdad magician, wears a small beard.
6. It's incomprehensible that Ronald Colman wasn't nominated for Best Actor for his performance in the 1935 film version of "A Tale of Two Cities". His voice-over of the famous final words "It is a far, far better thing I do now than I have ever done..." is still considered a model of nobility. What producer, most famous for "Gone with the Wind" and "Rebecca", each of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, was responsible for "A Tale of Two Cities"?

Answer: David O. Selznick

"A Tale of Two Cities" was the last film Selznick produced for MGM before leaving to start Selznick International Pictures. It was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Picture, which was won by "The Great Ziegfeld".
7. A film adapted from Rudyard Kipling's first novel, "The Light that Failed", became the vehicle for one of Ronald Colman's best performances. The story of a painter who is going blind featured a young actress in her film debut, who played the part of the artist's malicious model. Colman wanted Vivien Leigh for the part, but he was overruled. The actress who got the role made an big impression, leading to roles opposite Humphrey Bogart in "They Drive by Night" and "High Sierra". She later became a pioneering female director and producer. Who was she?

Answer: Ida Lupino

In the film, Colman paints a picture of Lupino, but she destroys it. He returns to his studio later to show the picture to a friend, but his sight has deteriorated to the point that he doesn't realize that the painting has been ruined. Lupino's vibrant performance complements Colman's eloquence and pathos.

Ida Lupino is considered the first woman to direct a film noir, with 1953's "The Hitch-Hiker", and was one of the principals of Four Star Productions, which turned out television drama and anthology programs, including "The Big Valley", from 1952 to 1989. Lupino acted and directed in television through the 1970s, and is the only woman to have directed an episode of "The Twilight Zone".
8. Ronald Colman's final - and only winning - Oscar nomination came for his 1947 film "A Double Life", in which he stars as Anthony John, an unstable stage actor who murders a waitress played by Shelley Winters. In what Broadway play is Anthony John starring when he becomes unhinged?

Answer: Othello

As Othello, Anthony John plays the ultimate jealous husband - and his co-star, as Desdemona, is played by his ex-wife, who in the play is strangled by Othello at the instigation of the villain Iago.

After Anthony John goes into a rage and strangles his lover, the waitress, he loses control on stage during a performance and, in the scene when he should pretend to strangle his wife, things get frighteningly real! The role was a departure for Colman, and it paid off.
9. The big-budget 1937 film "Lost Horizon", adapted from a novel by James Hilton, cast Ronald Colman as Robert Conway, a British diplomat whose plane crashes in the Himalayas. The passengers are led to a lovely valley "where people never grow old and peace and goodness prevail". What is the name of this enchanted valley?

Answer: Shangri-La

James Hilton said that he used the reports of two French explorers as a basis for his description of the valley of Shangri-La. The film was so expensive to make that Columbia Pictures boss Harry Cohn had trouble justifying it, but it made a big profit, and mad even more money when it was reissued during World War II, after Franklin Roosevelt named the presidential retreat Shangri-La; it was later renamed Camp David.
10. It almost goes without saying that Ronald Colman was the most debonair man on any film screen on which he appeared. But in the 1942 picture "The Talk of the Town", a co-star gave him a run for his money in the suave department, and gave their leading lady an impossible choice. Who is this fabulously sophisticated, urbane gentleman?

Answer: Cary Grant

It was unusual at the time for a movie to have two leading men of equal stature. Colman didn't really care whether he got top billing, and as the film had a good deal of comedy and Cary Grant and Jean Arthur were both top comedy draws at the box office, he was happy for them to be billed over him. His character, a law professor who is nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, begins the movie as stuffy and academic, but lightens up and becomes more appealing.

Cary Grant was second only to Humphrey Bogart on the American Film Institute's 1999 list of greatest male stars. Known for his wit and good looks, he was nominated for two Academy Awards but never won. Like Ronald Colman, he eased gracefully into middle age and became one of Alfred Hitchcock's favorite leading men.
Source: Author BarbaraMcI

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor skunkee before going online.
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