That’s Noah Cross threatening “Mr. Gitts” in Chinatown, but he could just as easily have been talking about the final question in last week’s Tuesday Trivia.

I asked, “What unusual distinction is shared by these eight movies, listed in chronological order? Be specific; I won’t prompt on partial answers. The movies: Five Graves to Cairo, Brighton Rock, The Third Man, Stalag 17, Chinatown, Quiz Show, Othello, A Civil Action.”

Of our 300+ respondents, almost one in six realized that the each of those movies has a distinguished director in a key role. The directors–none of whom also directed the movie they were acting in, by the way–are Erich Von Stroheim, Richard Attenborough, Orson Welles, Otto Preminger, John Huston, Martin Scorsese, Kenneth Branagh, and Sydney Pollack. As directors go, these are pretty big guns. All have notable careers and an Oscar or at least a nomination on their résumés.

It seems like a pretty good answer, but I want some of these Patented Un-Google-able Seventh Questions to really strain the brains of even our sharpest players, so I warned them to “be specific.” And only eight players went the extra mile and realized that it’s the villain in each movie who’s played by a well-known director. So that was the answer. Famous directors as heavies. Congratulations to Eric Berman, Sandeep Bhatt, Joshua Davey, Raj Dhuwalia, Robert K S, Rosemarie Keenan, Brian Rostron, and Steve Rutta, the only players to figure this out. Raj now leads, once again, the overall standings, since Ney Rios was one of the close-but-no-cigar #7 answerers. Note that Robert K S now has five correct Question Sevens to his name, more than anyone but Raj.

I love that some of the screen’s creepiest villains (Harry Lime, Noah Cross, Rommel, Pinkie Brown, etc.) were played by directors, but I’m not quite happy with the question as I wrote it. For one thing, Branagh and Attenborough had longer careers as actors than directors. I might as well have listed Blue Velvet on the strength of Easy Rider, or Apocalypse Now because of One-Eyed Jacks. (Actually, Brando played the “heavy” in everything he did after about 1968! Thank you, tip your waitress.) Anybody have better suggestions for directors-as-villains movies?

An update to yesterday’s post: some forum posters reminded me of William Hurt in A History in Violence, and someone even floated the suggestion that Robert Mitchum’s Oscar nom for Story of G. I. Joe should count as the first ever comic-book movie to get an acting nod.

And an update to the book tour schedule: notice the new Portland event, the new Chicago lunch event (open to the public, if they clean up a little), and the L.A. schedule rearranged a little to add a library signing in Cerritos. It’s official: I won’t see my eight-months-pregnant wife for six weeks! What a husband.