Deck 4: Hollywood in Transition, 1939-1945

Question 1

Producer David O.Selznick solidified his reputation as a "hands-on" creative executive while overseeing King Kong and The Most Dangerous Game at which studio?

A) MGM
B) RKO
C) Warner Bros.
D) Paramount

Answer 1

RKO

Question 2

In order to maintain public interest in Gone with the Wind, the studio would leak news regarding casting and the lavish production to newspapers and fan magazines.Which actress eventually won the role of Scarlett O'Hara after a press frenzy?

A) Olivia de Havilland
B) Tallulah Bankhead
C) Vivian Leigh
D) Margaret Mitchell

Answer 2

Vivian Leigh

Question 3

What phrase best describes the outlook of the late 1930s Senate subcommittee meetings on Hollywood and propaganda?

A) The committee viewed Hollywood as a positive force that produced wholesome entertainment.
B) The committee viewed Hollywood as a Jewish propaganda machine that produced warmongering material.
C) The committee viewed Hollywood as a powerful propaganda tool in raising national morale.
D) The committee viewed Hollywood as a team of Nazi collaborators.

Answer 3

The committee viewed Hollywood as a Jewish propaganda machine that produced warmongering material.

Question 4

Name the provocateur, actor, writer, and director who was hired by RKO and given carte blanche to make Citizen Kane.

A) Victor Fleming
B) John Ford
C) Alfred Hitchcock
D) Orson Welles

Question 5

From 1939 to 1941, all of the following directors were able to strike a balance between their artistic signature and the Hollywood system EXCEPT

A) Frank Capra.
B) Alfred Hitchcock.
C) Orson Welles.
D) John Farrow.

Question 6

Citizen Kane boasts which one of the following narrative structures?

A) a clear three-act narrative structure
B) a nonlinear flashback structure
C) a cause-and-effect-driven narrative
D) a classical Hollywood narrative structure

Question 7

The Bureau of Motion Picture Affairs (BMPA) made all of the following suggestions for wartime filmmaking EXCEPT

A) make movies that reminded the audiences of the stakes.
B) render obvious the essential evil of the Axis powers.
C) films must be directly approved by the Office of War Information.
D) all of the above.

Question 8

Gone with the Wind deals with which of the following themes?

A) the romanticized civility of the prewar South.
B) how the Civil War affected the everyday existence of families committed to the Confederacy
C) the usurpation of traditional gender roles through its focus on the trials and tribulations of a headstrong and independent woman
D) all of the above

Question 9

Which Golden Age Hollywood film became the prototype for the modern blockbuster?

A) Stagecoach
B) Citizen Kane
C) Gone with the Wind
D) King Kong

Question 10

The staging of Kane's political rally suggests that ________.

A) Kane will be triumphant and will win the election
B) Kane is ultimately powerless, both with regard to his family and the political machine
C) Jed Leland will win the election
D) Kane will go back to his family

Question 11

Who was the chief creative voice behind the production of Gone with the Wind?

A) producer David O.Selznick
B) novelist Margaret Mitchell
C) director Victor Fleming
D) actress Vivien Leigh

Question 12

During World War II, which export market did Hollywood turn to when Japan and Germany boycotted American films?

A) Canada
B) South America
C) Africa
D) Asia

Question 13

Name the first African American to win an Oscar (for her work in Gone with the Wind).

A) Olivia de Havilland
B) Vivien Leigh
C) Hattie McDaniel
D) Margaret Mitchell

Question 14

Which Golden Age Hollywood film redefined the look of modern American cinema and changed the way audiences and historians talk about the movies?

A) The Wizard of Oz
B) Gone with the Wind
C) Citizen Kane
D) Stagecoach

Question 15

Which statement best describes the relationship between Hollywood and the government during World War II?

A) Hollywood was nationalized.
B) Hollywood collaborated with the American government.
C) Hollywood collaborated with the German government.
D) Hollywood was completely independent.

Question 16

Name the real-life subject whose life story paralleled that of Charles Foster Kane and who ultimately tried to keep the film from getting released.

A) J.Edgar Hoover
B) William Randolph Hearst
C) Adolph Hitler
D) Theodore Roosevelt

Question 17

The staging in the "young Charles Foster Kane" sequence suggests ________.

A) Charles is powerless in the decision-making process that is about to dictate his life
B) Charles is the most powerful character in the frame
C) Charles's father is the most powerful character in the frame
D) Mr.Thatcher is the most powerful character in the frame

Question 18

Which cinematic device did Orson Welles wish to utilize for his proposed adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness in order to mimic the novella's narration?

A) high-contrast lighting
B) nonlinear storytelling
C) a first-person subjective camera
D) deep-focus

Question 19

Prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Joseph Breen and the PCA embraced which ideological position with regard to political filmmaking?

A) full intervention
B) isolationism and neutrality
C) limited intervention against the Germans
D) limited intervention against the Italians and Japanese

Question 20

What cinematographic technique did Gregg Toland and Orson Welles extensively utilize in the making of Citizen Kane?

A) split screen
B) split diopter
C) three-point lighting
D) deep focus

Question 21

During World War II, which genre typically dealt with the sacrifices made by those remaining on the home front-the loneliness, the temptations, and the newfound economic and social autonomy?

A) the woman's picture
B) film noir
C) western
D) war film

Question 22

The two biggest movie stars in the early 1940s were ________.

A) Bob Hope and Bing Crosby
B) Shirley Temple and Judy Garland
C) Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney
D) Lou Costello and Bud Abbott

Question 23

Name the screenwriter and director who signed a contract at Paramount that resulted in a stellar run of screwball comedies.

A) Frank Capra
B) Orson Welles
C) Preston Sturges
D) Ernst Lubitsch

Question 24

Which comedy follows a millionaire Hollywood director who poses as a hobo so that he can research a serious film entitled O Brother, Where Art Thou?

A) The Odyssey
B) The Awful Truth
C) The Lady Eve
D) Sullivan's Travels

Question 25

Name the auteur who often directed "wrong man" films and whose thrillers Saboteur and Foreign Correspondent capitalized on the paranoia of the World War II climate.

A) John Ford
B) Orson Welles
C) Alfred Hitchcock
D) Frank Capra

Question 26

Name the Alfred Hitchcock film that inverts the "wrong man" formula and follows Uncle Charlie and his niece across the quiet California suburb of Santa Rosa.

A) Psycho
B) The Wrong Man
C) Saboteur
D) Shadow of a Doubt

Question 27

Which 21st-century film best exemplifies the genre tropes of the film noir?

A) Sin City
B) Moonlight
C) Rango
D) Inception

Question 28

This film noir features extensive lighting and mise-en-scene cues that depict an insurance salesman who is trapped by a murderous femme fatale.

A) Mildred Pierce
B) Touch of Evil
C) Double Indemnity
D) The Palm Beach Story

Question 29

Which comedy follows a hobo who is recruited by a political boss to swing a corrupt election, but who ends up winning and reforming city politics?

A) Imitation of Life
B) Now, Voyager
C) Casablanca
D) The Great McGinty

Question 30

This Abbott and Costello comedy was censored by the U.S.military for depicting basic training as inadequate and potentially unsuccessful.

A) Buck Privates
B) In the Navy
C) Keep on Flying
D) Flight Command

Question 31

Which American auteur was commissioned by the U.S.Army Signal Corps to direct an educational film on venereal disease titled Sex Hygiene?

A) Orson Welles
B) Alfred Hitchcock
C) Frank Capra
D) John Ford

Question 32

Name the documentary series produced by Frank Capra for the U.S.Army that featured contributions from A-list talent such as John Ford, Gregg Toland, William Wyler, John Huston, and George Stevens.

A) The Triumph of the Will
B) Make America Great Again
C) Axis and Allies
D) Why We Fight

Question 33

Name the melodrama that focuses on a woman who is psychologically abused by her mother and transforms from an "ugly duckling" into a "swan."

A) Mildred Pierce
B) Now, Voyager
C) Talk of the Town
D) Mrs.Miniver

Question 34

Which 21st-century film would be best described as a "woman's picture"?

A) Fifty Shades of Grey
B) Carol
C) Bridesmaids
D) Blockers

Question 35

While Hollywood made documentary and newsreel films about the war effort, it also made fiction films.Name the 1942 Best Picture Academy Award winner that follows two British families while they deal with bombing raids, food rationing, and the everyday life of a world at war.

A) The Best Years of Our Lives
B) Citizen Kane
C) Shadow of a Doubt
D) Mrs.Miniver

Question 36

This genre often features morally ambiguous characters, skewed camera angles, and labyrinthine plots.

A) film noir
B) sci-fi
C) woman's film
D) screwball comedy

Question 37

Which 21st-century film could best be described as a continuation of Preston Sturges's style?

A) Superbad
B) Jackass
C) O Brother, Where Art Thou?
D) Sex in the City

Question 38

Name the two stars of the "road series" films (e.g., Road to Morocco, Road to Rio).

A) Keaton and Chaplin
B) Abbott and Costello
C) Garland and Rooney
D) Hope and Crosby

Question 39

Name the melodrama that focuses on a young woman who drowns her husband's physically disabled brother and throws herself down the stairs when she becomes pregnant.

A) Mildred Pierce
B) Now, Voyager
C) Leave Her to Heaven
D) My Foolish Heart

Question 40

The ending of Preston Sturges's The Palm Beach Story can best be described as which of the following?

A) a self-reflexive satire of genre conventions
B) typical of classical Hollywood narrative structure
C) typical of the comedy genre
D) in line with the ambiguity of art cinema conventions

Question 41

Describe Orson Welles's use of deep focus and staging in the childhood scene in Citizen Kane and what it communicates.

Question 42

You've won the lottery and want to make a film in the film noir mode.Describe your thematic and stylistic approach and how it best matches the genre.

Question 43

Describe the relationship between the Hollywood studios and the federal government during WWII.

Question 44

If you had to describe why Citizen Kane is an important film to a friend who had never seen it, what would be your argument?

Question 45

Describe Hollywood's initial approach to political filmmaking prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Question 46

Name the film that focuses on the experiences of American veterans returning from World War II and adjusting to postwar life.

A) Casablanca
B) The Best Years of Our Lives
C) Meet Me in St.Louis
D) Citizen Kane