"Santa Day" Night At The Movies Quiz

Answer: 8

The character may have been eight, but Macaulay Culkin, born in 1980, was 10 when the movie was released. Worldwide, "Home Alone" went on to make an impressive $530 million which is (according to the International Movie Database in 2005) a record for a comedy movie.

Answer: Alastair Sim

Alastair Sim reprised his role in a 1971, Oscar-winning, animated version of "A Christmas Carol".
George C. Scott played Scrooge in a 1984 version filmed in Shrewsbury, England.
Albert Finney starred in the 1970 Oscar nominated musical "Scrooge" with Alec Guinness as Jacob Marley. In that version, Scrooge's descent into hell was cut from many TV showings, being regarded as too frightening for children.

Answer: Donner

Richard Donner also directed the 1978 film "Superman" starring Christopher Reeve. In that film Superman has a Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole - not far from Santa's workshop, then!

Answer: The Santa Clause

In this movie, Tim Allen played a divorced workaholic dad who accidentally put on Santa's big red suit. This meant that he magically became Santa, with a gain in weight, growth of whiskers and a number of elves to deal with. The most successful nineties role for Tim Allen (born Tim Allen Dick) was as the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the 1995 children's classic "Toy Story".
Regarding the other options, "Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence" was a Japanese POW film starring David Bowie.
The 2000 film of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" used over 150,000 pounds of crushed marble to represent snow.

Answer: Meet Me In St Louis

Judy Garland performed this song in the 1944 musical about a family during the 1903 World Fair. It may have been the money-making number of the film, but "The Trolley Song" won the awards.
"Holiday Inn" was the first film in which "White Christmas" was sung, by Bing Crosby with Marjorie Reynolds.
"High Society" featured a Christmasy rendition of "True Love". That was also sung by Bing, but this time with Grace Kelly.

Answer: Die Hard

The first time Bruce Willis ended up in a blood-stained vest was here, in a battle against some party-pooping terrorists in the Nakatomi Tower, an office building in Los Angeles. Alan Rickman co-starred as the leader of the terrorists.
Other more established action heroes, like Sylvester Stallone, had been considered for the role before it went to Bruce Willis. This was the suggestion of the director's wife.
Incidentally, "Lethal Weapon", one of the other options, was directed by the aforementioned Richard Donner.

Answer: Silent Night, Deadly Night

This schlock horror about an axe-wielding psycho dressed as jolly St Nick, also called "Slayride", was pulled from release after two weeks due to protests from parents and went straight to video.
This hasn't stopped it having at least four sequels such as "Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!". The fifth in the series starred Mickey Rooney, who was born with the seasonal sounding name Joseph Yule.

Answer: Love Actually

This movie involves ten interconnected stories about a number of British couples in the run-up to Christmas. In one such story, the song "Christmas Is All Around" became Christmas number one despite being described by its singer, played by Bill Nighy, as "crap". The song is, of course, a version of "Love Is All Around", which was sung in the film "Four Weddings and a Funeral".

Answer: He fell down the chimney while pretending to be Santa.

In this film Billy is given a cute furry creature called a mogwai as a Christmas present, and names it Gizmo. The golden rules for keeping mogwai were given to Billy's father in the shop, and were carefully passed on to Billy. They are: don't expose them to bright light (it hurts or can even kill them), don't get them wet (it makes them multiply) and, whatever happens, don't feed them after midnight (they turn into evil gremlins).

The word "mogwai" comes from the Mandarin Chinese for "evil spirit". The film was originally even darker than it already is. One scene involving a severed head had to be cut in order to prevent this black Christmas comedy having an R rating.

Answer: Baileys

This life-affirming classic stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a suicidal man who is shown what his town would be like if he had not been born. Despite not being a box office hit on its 1946 release and worse, being branded subversive and pro-Communist by the FBI, this film was nominated for five Oscars and became one of the most shown films of the season.
So I hope you enjoyed my look at the festive offerings of jolly Hollywood and beyond. ...and now, as they say in the movie industry, that's a wrap!