Answered general questions about movies, TV and more

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I'm looking for the title of a movie about a group of actors in a stage play. Someone was murdered and they are all suspects. It is not Rehearsal For Murder.

Answer: I think you are talking about Murder Most Foul. Its an Agatha Christie - Ms Marple story.

Answer: The 1964 movie, "Murder Most Foul," Margret Rutherford as Miss Marple. The third in the series of movies made in the 1960's.

There was a cartoon where a little girl during WWII learns how to blow up a bridge by watching her grandfather knock down a house of cards and so is able to stop a Nazi train. Then she ends up living in the woods for the rest of her life. What is this movie?

Answer: "Sarah" AKA "Sarah and the Squirrel" AKA "The Seventh Match".

My dad remembers a movie from when he was younger about an old man living in someone's house while they were gone (squatting, not housesitting). He also thinks the plot somehow involved salt and pepper shakers. The movie would be older, probably 1940s or 50s; he's pretty sure it was in black and white. The title or more plot information would be much appreciated.

Answer: How about "It Happend on 5th Ave" 1943 with Don Defor and Charles Ruggles?

I'm looking for a movie that I watched in the 1980s as a kid. I remember a girl that had to save these children in bubbles. I thought at first that it was part of the "Rainbow Brite" episodes or movie, but this was real actors and I've searched all of them. I want to say that it might have turned into animation, but it's very faint. The only other thing I can think of is that it did have to do with rainbows somehow. Thanks.

Answer: It is indeed Rainbow Brite. Go on Youtube and type in Rainbow Brite-the beginning of Rainbowland. In part 2 they show the kids in the bubbles.

I want to find out the name of a sci-fi movie I saw when I was kid in 1974. Aliens from a planet soon to be doomed due to an expanding sun appeared on Earth through some transporter-like device and sought our help. The movie sticks in my mind because, in spite of our efforts, we could not help and the planet was destroyed.

Adam Feller

Chosen answer: Sounds like "This Island Earth (1955)".

This was an episode of an animated show. I thought it might be Spiderman or Batman, but I'm not sure. A red-haired young woman was captured by another woman, who I think had red hair also. The woman who captured the other had a large, machine-like chair. She wanted to take the other woman's body (I don't remember exactly how), so she could have her "youth and beauty".

Answer: It was from an episode of Spider-Man. A disfigured actress was trying to steal Mary Jane's beauty.

I am looking for the name of a movie, I think from the 80s, where a man wants a child, but is not married. He has a woman agree to have the child, she moves in with him. They don't get along, cause his is very picky and watches everything she does, eats, etc. There was a housekeeper who was nice to the woman. They end up falling in love. Man has dark hair, woman blonde and I think set in NYC. Can you tell me the name of the movie?

Answer: The movie is called "Paternity" starring Burt Reynolds and Beverly D'Angelo.

Do movies and TV shows really have to pay to show popular soda/beer/candy whatever brands being used by their characters? For example, in Employee Of The Month, a few guys are drinking out of cans with plain paper lapels that just say "BEER" on them, so that the can's real label is covered. Also, if this is true, why do the companies dislike their label being shown without permission? Isn't it free advertising for them if their name is shown in a movie?

Answer: Actually, the opposite is true: Companies pay to have their labels shown in movies and TV. It's called "Product Placement." Typically, covering up the labels is done when the company HASN'T paid for Product Placement to avoid giving them advertising that the filmmakers aren't getting paid for.

Captain Defenestrator

I'm not sure if there is an answer to this, but does anyone know why the ages of high school/middle school kids in some books and movies are a year behind what they are in real life? For example, a lot of high school seniors are portrayed as being seventeen around prom or graduation time (the end of the year), but in real life, most students start out the school year as seventeen-year-olds and their next birthday is their eighteenth one.

Answer: The simplest answer I can think of is that their 18th birthday falls after the date of prom/graduation. Sometimes for the sake of the narrative having them be under 18 makes sense.

Cubs Fan

This is an episode of a TV show that I saw a while ago. A man was really some kind of monster that liked to eat people's brains, but I think he felt bad about it. At one point in the show, he visited a therapist (without telling her that he kills people), who had blonde hair. While she was talking and flipping through some cards, there was a close-up shot of her head, which he was staring at. At another part of the episode, he goes to a meeting for people with addictions, and talked about his taste for brains, but I think he made it sound like he was addicted to meat.

Answer: It's a season 7 episode of The X-Files entitled "Hungry".

Grumpy Scot

I can remember what this movie is about but I can't remember the name or any of the actors in the movie. I pretty sure that the movie came out in the 1990's. It's about a family who is going on a vacation in a motor home. At one point in the movie the Dad was showering in the motor home while his wife was driving. He came out of the shower to grab a towel but opened the wrong door, he opened the door leading outside, and landed in the street naked. Another scene in the movie is when the Mom gets bitten by a snake and a friend sucks the vemon out of her leg, the son walks in seeing this happen and goes to tell his Dad. If anyone has any answers it would be really helpful. Thanks.

Answer: This movie is called the 'Tourist Trap'.

I am looking for a title of a b/w film that was made in the early 50's. A housewife writes a letter to her husband that accidentally gets mailed. She then proceeds to try to retrieve the letter or stop the postman. I know this is a very general description. I watched this movie on TCM and the actress looks like Linda Darnell. I've Googled her name and none of the movie descriptions match. I hope someone can help me. It's driving me crazy.

Answer: The starring actress is Loretta Young. The movie title is Cause For Alarm! Hope this helps!

There was a movie in the 80s or 90s and it was about murders in college. I remember this student was murdering teachers and students and nobody knew who it was. He killed the librarian or some teacher by squashing her head in the photocopier. The only hint that people found was the guy's ring, which was on the photocopied sheet. And this girl student blamed her boyfriend because apparently she had given him the ring, but it had been stolen by the murderer student a long time ago. I remember that it ended with the murderer student having trapped the girl in a some sort of cellar or boiler room and forcing her to kiss him. So she told him she would and when he shut his eyes, she bashed his head with a hammer from the table.

Answer: Sounds like the movie Cutting Class with Brad Pitt.

I'm trying to remember a movie that I saw back in the 60s or early 70s about two children who fall in love with each other. One is Jewish and the other is Christian, I think. The scene I recall is the Christian child screaming, "You killed Christ! You killed Christ!" when she found out he was Jewish.

Answer: Hand in Hand (1960).

What is the name of a 1940's era movie about a man and women who turn into a horse and dog?

Answer: You Never Can Tell (1951).

I recall a rather cultish movie which had something to do with the main character, a young boy, being blind. At times, however, it seems like the whole town is blind, and he is the only one who can see. Might have been English subtitles, I can't recall. Sound familar to anyone?

Answer: "Tommy" the Roger Daultry "The Who" rock film. Deaf dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball. 1975.

The film I am looking for is about a Asian man who is in the Asian mafia and gets banned to America in order to save his life. He proceeds to start running an underground killing spree. I believe the name of the movie was his name but i am not sure. This film has plenty of good killing scenes and I would love to see it again. Does anyone have a suggested title?

Answer: This sounds like 'Brother' (2000): a Yakuza man must leave Japan and goes to live with his younger brother in the US, then initiates several gang wars. He is referred to repeatedly as 'brother'.

Which movie (70's or 80's?) has a final scene with a man in a white suit putting his hands over his face and then the camera pans out and shows all these people going into cubicles? The music's classical, maybe Mozart.

Answer: After Hours (1985).

There was a film I used to see in school in the early 80's with a "Back to the Future" element. It was about a teen aged girl who had differences with her mother. One day she woke up (on the subway?), and she had travelled back in time to where she meets her teen mother. Slowly, she comes to realize that her mom is not all that different from her. There was a desk with a secret compartment her mom hid things in, which the girl uses to confirm her experience wasn't just a dream. And I recall the time travel episode ended with an air raid siren going off. Anyone know the title?

JC Fernandez

Chosen answer: "ABC Afterschool Specials" My Mother Was Never a Kid (1981).

Does anyone remember a movie from the 60's that had a couple haunted by a ghost who owned a boat. It was sort of a black comedy. I kept thinking it was The Ghost and Mrs Muir, but it is not. I really only remember the last scene where the new husband and wife are in the bed, on the boat, and the ghost comes in and haunts them. Thanks for any help.

Answer: The Spirit is Willing.

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