A thread for today's blog post, with questions about an actress with a jaw-dropping taste in leading men and Best Picture winners that reference each other.

It just occurred to me that The Godfather references the making of another Best Picture winner (but not quite explicitly enough to count for this question).

In Annie Hall, Alvy and Annie go to see The Sorrow and the Pity, but it's not quite a Best Picture winner.

Ken, the actress who has appeared in those "jaw dropping" films is Geena Davis. In Beetlejuice (1988), Alec Baldwin loses his jaw while "dying" (doesn't make much sense since their charcaters were already dead when this scene takes place) and in The Fly (1986) Geena's character accidentally rips off Jeff Goldblum's jaw. Hope this helps.
-Chad

Geena Davis is correct...Erin Jacobson and Jimmy McMichael also emailed the correct answer.

I at first assumed that, if it was Beetlejuice, the actress must be Winona Ryder, but I couldn't make that work. I told Bob:

Wow, that's great. I've been thinking about for a couple days and I got
nothing. I'm guessing one must be some kind of macabre Tim Burton
claymation thing a la Corpse Bride?

He replied with this great hint:

In the second movie, this actress played newlywed to the actor in
question; but in real life she was newly wed to the actor from the first
movie!

And that's when I realized Davis + Goldblum = The Fly.

Ken

Hey Kenneth. You must be referring to the Maggio-esque role sought by Johnny Fontaine in The Godfather. Which leads to Annie Hall, which references The Godfather, according to IMDB:

- When waiting in front of the movie theater, Alvy Singer says, "I'm standing out here with the cast of The Godfather," to Diane Keaton, who was in the cast of The Godfather (1972). Additionally, one of the men who bothers him for the autograph is played by actor Rick Petrucelli, who had a small role in The Godfather as a thug who protects Michael en route to the hospital.

Did you know about this connection when you went to Annie Hall, or was it a random leap? If it was random, I think your subconscious was trying to tell you something! (Lariat ... ankles ... lariat ... ankles ...)

Gerald

gsong wrote:

Did you know about this connection when you went to Annie Hall, or was it a random leap? If it was random, I think your subconscious was trying to tell you something! (Lariat ... ankles ... lariat ... ankles ...)

Me and My Little Brain, by John D. Fitzgerald.

With a Utah connection to boot. Very nice.

-M

Ken:

I read your post, googled "Movie Jaw Falls Off" and the first link was for Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly." Went to IMDb.com, saw his co-star was Geena Davis; went to her filmography page and looked either side of "The Fly" and figured it had to be "Beetlejuice." Took approximately 30 seconds.

Unfortunately, when I went to post my answer here I found I'd been beat to the punch.

My point in even replying is that I think you'll find people quite adept at "googling" ungoogleable topics.

Love the blog!

Sincerely,
Jimmy

gsong wrote:

Hey Kenneth. You must be referring to the Maggio-esque role sought by Johnny Fontaine in The Godfather. Which leads to Annie Hall, which references The Godfather, according to IMDB:

- When waiting in front of the movie theater, Alvy Singer says, "I'm standing out here with the cast of The Godfather," to Diane Keaton, who was in the cast of The Godfather (1972). Additionally, one of the men who bothers him for the autograph is played by actor Rick Petrucelli, who had a small role in The Godfather as a thug who protects Michael en route to the hospital.

Did you know about this connection when you went to Annie Hall, or was it a random leap? If it was random, I think your subconscious was trying to tell you something! (Lariat ... ankles ... lariat ... ankles ...)

Gerald

Yeah, I was thinking of From Here to Eternity. I totally forgot about the Godfather reference in Annie Hall, but it certainly qualifies. That was totally subconscious, like the time I saved little Frankie Pennyworth from them rustlers. That was plumb loco.

BJGuckian: I think I did the same Google at one point to check my work. I can only vouch for the non-Google-ability of my own trivia, not Bob Glickstein's.

I actually did the reverse. I haven't seen The Fly, but I did immediately think Beetlejuice. Hit IMDB and saw that The Fly was two years previous, and it sounded likely. My husband has seen it, and he did say that body parts come off.

But then I spent the rest of the day thinking I had it wrong, because there's no way I would have figured out one of Ken's movie questions. He should be able to tell I that I haven't been Googling my Tuesday Trivia, because my answers are shockingly bad. (Well, except for that identical twin thing. If you can't be right, you should at least be funny.)

Geena Davis is of course right. I was astonished to read BJGuckian's post about how easily the answer was googled "from scratch" (as opposed to once part of the answer was known). Well, it wasn't so easy when I wrote the question several years ago, at least.

I've administered this and other similar quiz questions to willing audiences a few times now, and I have a canned followup after revealing each answer. Here's the one for this question:

Quote:

What a weird connection, eh? Too bad the trend didn't continue. It could've become her trademark, like "Ah'll be back."

Several months after I originally created this question, I saw another film in which a character's jaw falls off. But it was a minor character and I could find no other interesting connection to Geena Davis or these two movies. The movie was "The Frighteners" with Michael J. Fox (and the underappreciated Trini Alvarado).

My apologies to Ken: I sent him that wrap-up without mentioning that it was canned, he must have thought I had written it for him. It doesn't diminish the excellence of his response, which I trust he won't mind my repeating here:

Quote:

Quote:

Too bad the trend didn't continue. It could've become her trademark, like "Ah'll be back."

It definitely would have improved Stuart Little.

Ken has seen a few of my other questions from this series, I'll leave it to him to decide whether to post them here. I don't want to make this my own personal quiz forum.

Cheers,
- Bob

bobg wrote:

Ken has seen a few of my other questions from this series, I'll leave it to him to decide whether to post them here. I don't want to make this my own personal quiz forum.

I for one would be more than happy to have Bob start a movie-connections quiz thread here in the forums. I really like the last one you sent me, Bob...but maybe that's just because it was the only one where I saw the answer right away.

Quote:

I really like the last one you sent me, Bob...but maybe that's just because it was the only one where I saw the answer right away.

That was nominally my hardest question, too, and your quick answer was frankly astonishing -- until I remembered, "Oh yeah, Ken Jennings."

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'll post a few of my other questions in the next couple of days.

Cheers,
- Bob

Quote:

Several months after I originally created this question, I saw another film in which a character's jaw falls off. But it was a minor character and I could find no other interesting connection to Geena Davis or these two movies. The movie was "The Frighteners" with Michael J. Fox (and the underappreciated Trini Alvarado).

Trini Alvarado is only 1 degree of separation from Beetlejuice, since she was in Little Women with Winona Ryder.

Ken has encouraged me to post some more of these questions here, so here is one (and it's not one of the handful he's already seen). This one is pretty easy, I think. Enjoy!

Quote:

A working-class family man is visited by something supernatural. The experience costs him his job. At some point, he sees something meaningful in a vegetable.

These events befall the main character in two major Hollywood releases in the same year. And in both movies, the same actress played the not-very-understanding wife of the protagonist. Who is she and what are the movies?

Cheers,
- Bob

Is it Teri Garr (in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Oh, God!)?

What's the vegetable in Oh, God?

[quote]A working-class family man is visited by something supernatural. The experience costs him his job. At some point, he sees something meaningful in a vegetable.

These events befall the main character in two major Hollywood releases in the same year. And in both movies, the same actress played the not-very-understanding wife of the protagonist. Who is she and what are the movies?[/quote]

Cheers,
- Bob[/quote]

"Close Encounters" and "Oh, God!". The actress is Teri Garr.

I couldn't come up with the second one until last night when it came to me right as I was falling asleep. I don't remember the vegetable part in Oh, God! either, but I think John Denver works in a supermarket in that movie, so it makes sense.

Ken Jennings wrote:

I don't remember the vegetable part in Oh, God! either, but I think John Denver works in a supermarket in that movie, so it makes sense.

John Denver's character asks God if there is anything he would do differently, and God says that he made the avocado pit too big.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Oh, God! are the movies; Teri Garr is the actress.

Ken Jennings wrote:

I couldn't come up with the second one until last night when it came to me right as I was falling asleep. I don't remember the vegetable part in Oh, God! either, but I think John Denver works in a supermarket in that movie, so it makes sense.

At the beginning of the movie, Jerry (John Denver) gets a note about "God has granted you an audience." He puzzles over it for a few moments and throws it away. The next day, at his supermarket job, the note reappears inside a head of lettuce.

In Close Encounters, the vegetable moment is of course the iconic mashed-potato-sculpting scene.

I had some hesitation about using the adjective "supernatural" to describe Roy Neary's encounter with the aliens (which, after all, were depicted as merely technologically advanced), but I couldn't think of a better word. Fortunately the question was easy enough that it was able to withstand a little bit of lexical laxity.

I will post a new question shortly.

Here's the question that I thought was my hardest... until Ken demolished it in no time flat.

Quote:

In the early 1980s, an unknown actor played the lead role in a major Hollywood release about a legendary fictional character. That actor had never been in any movie before, and hasn't had a movie role since.

That same year, in another major release with another actor, the lead role was a totally different, non-fictional character with (a variant spelling of) the same name. This actor has worked much more than the one-hit wonder above -- in fact, he had three other jobs on this production alone!

Who are the actors? What are the films?

bobg wrote:

Here's the question that I thought was my hardest... until Ken demolished it in no time flat.

Quote:

In the early 1980s, an unknown actor played the lead role in a major Hollywood release about a legendary fictional character. That actor had never been in any movie before, and hasn't had a movie role since.

That same year, in another major release with another actor, the lead role was a totally different, non-fictional character with (a variant spelling of) the same name. This actor has worked much more than the one-hit wonder above -- in fact, he had three other jobs on this production alone!

Who are the actors? What are the films?

Maybe it does deserve to be called the hardest. No one answered it, though I did privately receive one half-answer.

The unknown actor was Klinton Spilsbury, who played the lead role in The Legend of the Lone Ranger. Not only was it his only movie role -- it wasn't even a complete role! That's Spilsbury's image on the screen, but it's not his voice on the soundtrack. His dialogue was redubbed in post (reportedly by Stacy Keach).

I vaguely recall that at the time "The Lone Ranger" came out, its promoters touted the fact that they'd cast an unknown, because that had worked so well for the Superman movies. O, the humanity. An IMDb friend of mine googled up this wonderful quote about the whole affair:

Quote:

"Klinton Spilsbury comes to the role with no acting experience whatsoever," the press kit trumpeted. "And he leaves in the same pristine fashion," my father responded.

Part of what made this a hard puzzle is that few people know The Lone Ranger's real name: John Reid. When spelled Reed, it's also the name of the real-life journalist portrayed by Warren Beatty in Reds, which Beatty also produced, wrote, and directed. (I remember host Johnny Carson's quip to audience member Beatty about this showy feat at the next Academy Awards ceremony: "Good going, Warren. That's a great way to meet girls.")

Look for my next puzzle soon.

Cheers,
- Bob

After the last one, it's time for an easier puzzle -- possibly my easiest one.

Quote:

One actress has been in two very different films in which she's trapped aboard a spaceship that's set to self-destruct. When she asks the computer to abort the destruct sequence, it refuses. Who is she and what are the films?

Cheers,
- Bob

Quote:

One actress has been in two very different films in which she's trapped aboard a spaceship that's set to self-destruct. When she asks the computer to abort the destruct sequence, it refuses. Who is she and what are the films?

My answer in white:Sigourney Weaver. Alien. Galaxy Quest.

Good grief, this was only posted seven minutes ago and I'm too late with the right answer?

In his defense, he admitted it was easy.

No reason we can't have two puzzles pending at once, one easy and one (very) hard.

Quote:

There are three movies from the 1980s with very little in common except that each one features a scene in which two of its stars play a piano duet of "Heart and Soul." All six actors have either won or been nominated for an Academy Award (though not necessarily for these roles). What are the films and who are the actors?

Cheers,
- Bob