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Classic & Golden Age Cinema Quiz
Classic & Golden Age Cinema · Exam Mode
20 questions · 30 min timer · Results at the end
Classic and Golden Age Cinema laid the foundation for modern filmmaking, introducing unforgettable stories, legendary actors, and timeless masterpieces. These films continue to ins...
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All 20 questions in this Classic & Golden Age Cinema quiz
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What is the plot of 'The Third Man' (1949) directed by Carol Reed?
- A. A war film
- B. An American pulp novelist arrives in postwar Vienna to visit a friend and discovers he has died under suspicious circumstances - a film whose famous zither score by Anton Karas became internationally famous
- C. A Western
- D. A romantic comedy
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What is 'Quo Vadis' (1951) significan't for in the history of the Hollywood epic?
- A. An MGM production filmed in Rome with 32,000 extras, real trained lions, and ancient Rome recreated at enormous scale - establishing the template for the 1950s Biblical epic boom
- B. A failure
- C. A film about modern Rome
- D. Being a minor comedy
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What was the 'Hays Office' and why did it matter to the film industry?
- A. A distribution company
- B. The office of MPPDA president Will Hays that administered the Production Code - determining what content could appear in Hollywood films from 1930 to 1968
- C. A studio
- D. A talent agency
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What is 'Anatomy of a Murder' (1959) famous for in Hollywood courtroom drama?
- A. Its frank sexual content in a Hollywood film of its era - discussing rape, undergarments, and sexual vocabulary that were essentially unprecedented in mainstream American cinema
- B. Being the first courtroom film
- C. A film with no courtroom scenes
- D. A comedy
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Who played Holly Golightly in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' (1961)?
- A. Audrey Hepburn
- B. Kim Novak
- C. Grace Kelly
- D. Marilyn Monroe
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What year was 'Gone with the Wind' released?
- A. 1937
- B. 1940
- C. 1938
- D. 1939
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What is 'White Heat' (1949) and what is its famous last scene?
- A. A Western
- B. A romantic drama
- C. A gangster film starring James Cagney as psychopathic criminal Cody Jarrett - who ends the film on top of a burning oil tank shouting Made it, Ma! Top of the world!
- D. A comedy
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What film starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall was their first collaboration and launched their famous on-screen chemistry?
- A. To Have and Have Not
- B. Key Largo
- C. Casablanca
- D. The African Queen
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What is the significance of William Wyler's 'Mrs. Miniver' (1942) during World War II?
- A. A training film
- B. A German propaganda film
- C. A film about a British family's wartime experience that Winston Churchill credited as being more effective for the Allied cause than a flotilla of destroyers
- D. A trivial entertainment film
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What was the significance of the '12 Angry Men' (1957) directed by Sidney Lumet?
- A. A film set almost entirely in a jury room where one holdout juror challenges eleven others to question their assumptions - exploring prejudice, reasonable doubt, and democratic responsibility
- B. A crime thriller
- C. A courtroom drama with extensive scenes outside the jury room
- D. A war film
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Who played Charles Foster Kane in 'Citizen Kane'?
- A. Gary Cooper
- B. James Stewart
- C. Orson Welles
- D. Gregory Peck
-
What is 'It Happened One Night' (1934) and why is it historically significan't?
- A. A documentary
- B. A war film
- C. The first film to win all five major Academy Awards (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay) - a comedic road movie that helped establish the screwball comedy genre
- D. A minor film
-
What is Elia Kazan's 'On the Waterfront' (1954) about and what historical controversy surrounds it?
- A. A musical
- B. A Western
- C. A love story with no controversy
- D. A dock worker who testifies against mob-controlled union corruption - Kazan made the film shortly after cooperating with HUAC, making the film about testimony an apparent justification of his own informing
-
What is 'Vertigo' (1958) - Alfred Hitchcock's most personal film - considered by many critics?
- A. A comedy
- B. A commercial success on initial release
- C. The greatest film ever made (per Sight & Sound's 2012 critics poll) - a film about a detective's obsessive attempt to recreate a dead woman through another woman
- D. A minor Hitchcock film
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Who starred in and directed 'Modern Times' (1936) - a film satirising industrialism and the Great Depression?
- A. Buster Keaton
- B. Roscoe Arbuckle
- C. Harold Lloyd
- D. Charlie Chaplin
-
What is the significance of the film 'The Jazz Singer' (1927) in cinema history?
- A. The first colour film
- B. The first film shown in a cinema
- C. The first feature-length film with synchronised dialogue sequences - ending the silent film era
- D. The first film with a musical score
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Who played Scarlett O'Hara in 'Gone with the Wind' (1939)?
- A. Bette Davis
- B. Katharine Hepburn
- C. Vivien Leigh
- D. Joan Crawford
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What is the deep focus technique that Orson Welles and cinematographer Gregg Toland pioneered in 'Citizen Kane'?
- A. A technique making images blurry
- B. A colour processing technique
- C. A lighting technique
- D. A filming technique keeping all elements from foreground to background in sharp focus simultaneously - allowing complex compositions where multiple narrative layers are visible at once
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Who played Norma Desmond in 'Sunset Boulevard' (1950)?
- A. Gloria Swanson
- B. Bette Davis
- C. Mary Pickford
- D. Joan Crawford
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What is Gary Cooper's significance in Hollywood's Golden Age?
- A. A minor figure
- B. His portrayals of quiet, morally upright American individualism in films from 'Mr. Deeds Goes to Town' through 'High Noon' and 'Sergeant York' made him the definitive screen representation of Protestant American values
- C. He made only Westerns
- D. He played villains exclusively