I don't know what year this movie was made but I only seem to remember the ending of the movie. I remember a family staying at a house in the country, and they are all woken up one night and taken to a room downstairs. I remember a man comes in and some others follow. Then they take out some guns, and they all start shooting at the family members. I remember there was lots of blood in the scene as well especially on the wall behind them. The movie ends after but I want to know what this was from.
raywest
28th Aug 2022
General questions
Answer: That is the story of Anastasia. The last Royal family to rule Russia, when the revolution came they ran hoping to reach a friendly country to ask for asylum. They were betrayed and massacred. Years later, a young girl came forward claiming to be the long-lost daughter who survived.
Answer: This is probably the 1971 movie, "Nicholas and Alexandra" about the final days of the royal Romanov family during the Russian Revolution. As pointed out, there's been a number of other films and documentaries about Czar Nicholas II (the last Russian emperor), his wife, Czarina Alexandra, and their five children who were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918. If that's not it, this Wikipedia page might help you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_about_the_Romanovs.
Answer: This is what happened to the Russian Tsar, Nicholas II and his family in real life. There have been several films and series about him with this scene. For example, "The Romanovs: An Imperial Family" (2000) or "The Last Czars" (2019).
28th Aug 2022
General questions
I remember this moment from an '80s or '90s TV show. A woman tells another woman "Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unheard of." Then she walks away. I seem to remember that one or both women were black. Does anyone know what show it was?
Answer: This was a line of dialogue in the TV series, The Blacklist, S5, Ep. 6, titled "The Travel Agency," though that does not quite fit your timeline. The line originates from a phrase in a novel by Eric Jerome Dickey, and it may also have been used in other movies or TV shows.
8th Apr 2022
General questions
Anyone recognize this comedy Western, which had a real 1960s feel about it? All I can remember was that it was narrated by two cowboys, one black and one white, who would pop up regularly and sing and play the guitar to the viewer. I shouldn't have to say this, but it was not 'Blazing Saddles'.
Answer: It's the 1965 film "Cat Ballou" starring Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin. Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye play the two banjo-strumming "shouters" (as they're credited) who musically narrate the tale. Marvin won the Best Actor Oscar for his dual performance of Tim Strawn and Kid Shelleen.
21st Mar 2022
General questions
I remember watching a black and white short film in history class in high school. It featured a man about to be hanged (I recall a closeup of his face with tears rolling down his cheeks, and he had a thick mustache). He managed to escape and lead his captors on a chase, but his escape ended up being either a dream or fantasy, and the act of him dropping or his noose snapping is what brought him back to reality. Anyone know what this was?
Answer: I remember it well. This was the Oscar winning, 1962 short French film titled, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," directed by Robert Enrico. Set during the Civil War, there is virtually no dialogue. It was televised two times as a special edited episode of "The Twilight Zone." It is not part of the series syndication, though an edited version (dubbed over with awful music) is on YouTube. It was based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce, who served in the Civil War as a Union soldier.
Answer: There was a 1962 French short film called "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" with no dialog where a man being hung escapes when his rope breaks and when he makes it home the film cuts to him hanging from the rope because it was all a fantasy. The "Twilight Zone" then bought the rights to the film and included it as a season 5 episode.
24th Oct 2021
General questions
I saw a movie that partially involved a doctor having performed an abortion on a teenager/young woman. She had been raped by her father/stepfather. Her mother was dead or had left home. I think her hair was blonde. The story seemed to take place in the '60s or earlier. The movie could have been made in the '80s or earlier.
Answer: This sounds like the 1957 film, "Peyton Place" starring Lana Turner. Hope Lange played Selena Cross, the girl raped by her step-father, who then suffered a miscarriage. Her mother committed suicide, and Selena was secretly treated by the town doctor to protect her from scandal. It was based on the best-selling Grace Metallious novel, and later spawned the 1960s TV show.
That is the movie. Thank you.
6th May 2021
General questions
I remember seeing a "Star Wars" knockoff on TV years ago. I believe it was from the late 70's or early 80's. I don't remember much about it other than a scene that was copying the Death Star trench-run scene, where a couple spaceships were flying down this sort-of mechanical tunnel with really iffy special effects. I seem to remember the scene being overly red/orange tinted. I also think this may have been a foreign film (like Japanese), but I'm not 100% sure. Ring anyone's bell?
Answer: There is a Japanese one called Message from Space.
I looked it up on YouTube. This is the closest answer at this point because there is a somewhat similar scene, but I'm still pretty sure that's not it... it doesn't really match up perfectly with what I remember.
Answer: In 1978 there was a short film parody titled, "Hardware Wars," made on a very low budget and used carpenter tools as space ships.
Answer: OP here. Another detail of the scene that I remember is that the scene looked kinda like it was done with cut-outs. Like pictures of the spaceships instead of models, if that makes any sense. Like the ships all looked "flat." And most of the camera angles seemed to be either POV's of the "hero" ship, or shots from behind. If memory serves, there were also some enemy ships. The tunnel was more of a cylinder than a trench. Like it went completely around all the ships. And like I said, the entire scene had kind of a red/orange tint.
Answer: If it was blue light instead of red/orange, you may be thinking of Starcrash. Although I would think you would have remembered Caroline Munro wearing what the Mystery Science Theater crew described as "vampire lingerie."
I don't believe it was "Star Crash." I scanned through a couple movies looking for the scene in question before posting this and couldn't find it in that movie.
Answer: This could be "Spaceballs," the 1987 Mel Brooks film that parodies "Star Wars."
Definitely not "Spaceballs." This movie was probably made before it and wasn't a parody from what I can remember.
15th Dec 2020
General questions
Only saw the trailer for this twice but never the actual movie. The trailer is about a mom and daughter who become bounty hunters. They are in a fast food place, and they tell a male employee that they've come to arrest him, but he laughs thinking they're joking.
Answer: In 1980, there was a movie titled, "The Hunter," based on real life bounty hunter, Ralph "Papa" Thorson. "The Huntress," which started as a TV-Movie sequel, was about him being killed chasing a bounty, which left his widow and daughter to run the business. FYI, "The Hunter" was Steve McQueen's last film before he died.
3rd Aug 2020
General questions
I saw this movie trailer in the late 1990s or early 2000s. A man has become, or can choose to be, invisible. At one point in the trailer, he asks a woman if she has ever made love to an invisible man before. I am certain that she had long brown or black hair.
Answer: There's another film, The Man Who Wasn't There, (1983), Steve Guttenberg (Police Academy) plays a man who becomes the target of American and enemy agents after stumbling upon an invisibility serum. After using it to escape, he hides out at a girlfriend's apartment. I don't remember the exact dialogue, but they do have a love scene. It's funny seeing her going through sex motions with no-one there.
Answer: I believe you are referring to Hollow Man, with Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Shue.
Thank you.
Answer: This could also be the 1992 film, "Memoirs Of An Invisible Man," starring Chevy Chase and Darryl Hannah.
Thank you.
14th Nov 2019
General questions
Many actors and actresses have openly admitted that they hated the movies they starred in. If they felt that way, why do they agree to be in them?
Answer: There could be a handful of reasons. Perhaps they entered the project believing it could have been a good movie, but later realised the end product wasn't good or wasn't what they were expecting. Maybe the studio interferes and it goes through reshoots or rewrites. Or maybe they didn't really have that much investment in the project to begin with and were only doing it for the money.
Answer: Another possibility is to try to diversify and/or avoid being stuck in a particular type of role. For example, Daniel Radcliff did not want to be known forever as Harry Potter, so got involved in other types of movies (more adult roles) in order to continue having a career as an actor. (I'm not claiming that he didn't like the new roles - I'm only giving an example of why actors try to move on).
Answer: Because they were contracted by the film company or studio and had to be in the movie whether they wanted to or not. A classic example is Val Kilmer, who didn't want to be in Top Gun, but was contractually obliged to. https://news.sky.com/story/val-kilmer-i-didnt-want-to-be-in-top-gun-but-begged-to-appear-in-reboot-11977483.
Answer: To expand on the other fine answers, actors will take roles in mediocre movies solely because they need the money. They have to support a lavish lifestyle or their careers have peaked and, no longer being offered plum roles, take any job they can get, often in low-budget horror or mediocre sci-fi movies.
Answer: Some actors will accept almost any role in order to work under a particular well-known/famous director or alongside a superstar, hoping to become better performers via the experiences and, in turn, get better offers in the future. (It doesn't always work out, so there may be regrets).
6th Jul 2020
General questions
Which film is it where a girl watches her boyfriend's flat from a disused warehouse and breaks in when he's not there?
Answer: This might be the 1997 movie, "Addicted to Love," starring Meg Ryan and Matthew Broderick.
28th Apr 2020
General questions
I'm looking for the name of a film from my youth. Might be black and white. All I remember is that the leading lady 'popped' her leg when she kissed the 'right man'. And the uncle/grandfather hid cigars all over the drawing room as he wasn't allowed to smoke.
Answer: It's the 1964 film, "I'd Rather Be Rich," starring Sandra Dee, Robert Goulet, Andy Williams, and Maurice Chevalier (as Dee's cigar-smoking grandfather).
There was also a 1941 film titled, "It Happened With Eve," starring Deanna Durbin, Charles Laughton, and Robert Cummings that had a similar plot and on which the 1964 movie was based.
6th Aug 2019
General questions
This has been annoying the hell out of me for years. I'm thinking of an early 1960s (?) black and white American movie that features numerous cameos by A-List Hollywood actors who are so heavily made-up (with wigs and latex facial prosthetics) that they are all thoroughly unrecognizable. At the end of the film, as a complete surprise, there is a sequence of each of these otherwise unremarkable cameo characters removing their makeup for a big reveal. For example, a plain, middle-aged woman who only appeared for a few seconds onscreen grandly removes her latex face to reveal none other than Burt Lancaster. I believe Robert Mitchum and Tony Curtis were also among the reveals. What is this film?
Answer: "The List of Adrian Messenger" (1963). Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, and Tony Curtis, along with Kirk Douglas and Frank Sinatra, remove their heavy makeup during the epilogue to reveal who they are. Although Lancaster and Sinatra didn't actual portray the characters they claimed to have been.
Thank you. The name of this movie has been on the tip of my tongue for many years.
Incidentally, director John Huston (who also made a cameo appearance in the film) tried to convince Elizabeth Taylor to play a disguised part in this movie; but, when Taylor learned that her lovely face would be completely hidden under heavy latex, she turned down the role.
13th Mar 2019
General questions
What action or otherwise "exciting" movies have quite a low-key ending? It's fairly standard now for action movies to build to a massive crescendo, a final all-out action sequence with CGI destruction running rampant. Do any relatively modern movies buck that trend?
Answer: I would add, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo." Lizbeth Salander exposes Martin Vanger as the serial murderer. He is killed when Lizbeth chases him, resulting in a car explosion. That is the film's climax, but in the side plot, Lizbeth then goes on to expose Wennerström's corruption, as well as removing billions of Euros from his secret accounts.
Answer: First one that comes to mind is The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (if the ending is the same as in the book, that is-not 100% sure), but ending with a battle of words instead of an action sequence like most of the other Twilight movies.
Answer: Doctor Strange comes to mind - not *that* low key, but the actual climax is him in a time loop negotiating Earth's safety rather than a massive epic battle.
27th Jun 2016
General questions
From what I vaguely remember it's about a woman in a fancy big house. There is a party going on. This guy is being nice to her and they are flirting. She says she has to go somewhere. He begs her to stay with him - she promises to come back, then she goes off, races back, and when she comes back the house is old and some person tells her no one lived there for over 100 years. I think if she had stayed the spell would have been broken. If someone has any ideas please put me out of my misery.
Chosen answer: It sounds like you're thinking of "Brigadoon". A Scottish village is under a spell where it only appears for one day every 100 years (which was done to preserve the way of life of the villagers.) When two men find it, one falls in love with a woman villager and if she were to leave the village, the spell would be broken and the village of Brigadoon would disappear forever, along with everyone in it (if he stayed he'd have to leave the real world behind). There's been a lot of adaptations of the story, so not sure which version you saw. Two versions I know of are a 1954 film and a 1966 TV movie.
The movie described in the question is not "Brigadoon." For one, the entire village disappeared and there was no old house with someone in it that remained in the intervening 100 years. Also, in Brigadoon, it was the man who came upon the village, not the girl.
Possible, but I've noticed when people only have a vague memory of things, they confuse what they saw with another film or mix up some points. The key points of 1 day and 100 years and a broken spell pointed to "Brigadoon." But there's been adaptations of the film that the person might have seen which may have alternate minor plots that I'm not familiar with, which I mention so the person could have a reference to look for in case I was wrong in guessing what they saw. I've noticed with these general questions that the original posters sometimes reply if the suggest film is not what they were thinking of.
11th Nov 2015
General questions
Looking for a movie from the 60's about a blonde married woman with a son that has an affair with a service man. Anne Francis plays her friend. They play the game Jenga and there is something about the swallows of Capistrano. She thinks she kills him, they dump his body but he is still alive.
Answer: I'm sure this is the 1966 movie, "Moment to Moment." It starred Arthur Hill, Jean Seberg, and Honor Blackman.
4th Jan 2019
General questions
Do most movie and TV studios have a team of mechanics constantly repairing vehicles? It seems that whenever minor/medium car crashes are filmed the cars are far from written off, but they also must need a lot of work done to make them driveable again, or even just look good enough to be reused on film.
Answer: They would have mechanics and/or film crew with mechanical expertise on hand to perform repairs as needed, but they also use multiples of the same makes and models of vehicles used in a movie, particularly cars that are being used in crashes or stunts. This is something that occasionally shows up as a movie mistake where viewers notice a slight variation on what is supposed to be the same car in a scene.
26th Apr 2018
General questions
Has there ever been an incident in any Star Trek episode or movie where the Enterprise (or other vessel) encounters another ship that is oriented upside down relative to Enterprise's perspective? Given that starships use artificial gravity, a ship's orientation in space is meaningless (in fact there are times Enterprise will bank sharply to turn, but inside everyone and everything stays oriented upright and nothing falls over or slides off things). It just seems improbable that everyone is flying through space the same way, but I haven't seen or don't recall this. Is there something mentioned (show or novelization) about rules of orientation in space (e.g. a galactic law).
Chosen answer: There has not been any scene in any Star Trek film or TV episode of another ship being oriented differently from other vessels. Although it's possible in real life, for show production purposes, showing ships in various positions like that would make the story line unnecessarily confusing and disorienting.
Answer: In the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (...All Good Things pt. 2) the future Enterprise is shown attacking Klingon vessels from below them at a perpendicular angle, firing phasers from the Enterprise's perspective straight forward and from the Klingon's perspective "up" through the ships. Also, although not technically fitting the question, a major plot point in the climax of Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan shows Kirk moving the Enterprise "down" on the Z axis to allow Reliant to pass and get behind her. The idea being that Khan is intelligent yet inexperienced in space combat and has difficulty understanding combat on a three dimensional plane.
Answer: There was an episode of Star Trek: TNG, Seasons 7 Episode 19, where Captain Picard and Data, in a shuttle craft, find the Enterprise spinning out of control.
15th Jan 2018
General questions
When sitcom TV shows have restaurant scenes, are these typically filmed in a real restaurant or is a set created?
Answer: Due to the logistics involved in filming, in most cases, a set would be created. In some cases, a real restaurant might be used, but it would involve compensating a business for lost revenue during the filming, obtaining special city permits, hiring police to monitor crowd control, etc. It is simpler and more economic to build a confined set.
The above is certainly true but a rare third option is filming in an old, closed business. The place is refurbished by the crew, it looks realistic and it is simple to move the action in and out of the venue. An example is the bar at the beginning of The Wolverine, set in the USA but filmed in an old, closed pub in rural Australia.
6th Oct 2017
General questions
Does anyone know what TV show this episode is from? It was a scary anthology/short story type of show. I saw it on TV a couple of years ago, but it was made in the '90s or possibly '80s. A woman visits her pregnant sister. The sister is either trapped or basically stuck in a room. The woman sleeps with the sister's husband/serious boyfriend. It turns out that he is a monster. I think he had insect-like qualities, but I am not certain.
11th May 2017
General questions
Why don't the new Star Wars and Marvel films feature a Disney logo at the beginning? Not saying it has to be the traditional Cinderella castle one. Just something mentioning that it is Disney owned.
Answer: Even though Disney is the parent company, Marvel is a separate studio. It may also be partly for public relations purposes that they choose not to include the Disney logo. If their logo is attached to a Star Wars or Marvel project, people might be confused about its content, expecting a certain type of movie that is different from what it actually is. This is similar to Disney's "Touchstone" films, which have more mature themes and content. Similarly Columbia Studios is owned by Sony, but there's no Sony logo before their movies. Several of the Disney-owned Marvel superhero films have Disney branding included in the scripts. In the Iron Man and Avenger sequels, the Ant-Man film, and in Dr. Strange, for examples, you will notice allusions to Disney standard songs inserted into the storylines: "There Are No Strings On Me," "When You Wish Upon a Star," and "It's a Small World, After All," as well as other Disney easter eggs, have popped up in Marvel films.
Answer: It was from Nicholas and Alexandra I looked it up and was able to watch the scene on YouTube. I remember the father carrying the boy because he had something wrong with one of his legs.