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Friday, May 1, 2015

Re-Climbing Mount Everest.

Once upon a time, before there was such a thing as an Internet, I was the King of Trivia.
I was the Sir Edmund Hillary to Trivia's Mount Everest.
And I knew who HE was without having to look it up.
But the Internet has now completely levelled the playing field.
ANYONE can be just as good a Trivia player as me just by pushing a couple of buttons on the computer machine.
Or, even more humiliating, the IPhone machine.
I had a major talent that no longer means anything.
But here I am today, making one last effort to scale Everest, with a Trivia Question, the answer to which can not be found by pushing
any amount of buttons on the computer machine.
I tried looking it up, and could not find the answers anywhere.
But I know them to be right.
AS usual, for me, they fall under the heading of Show Business Trivia.
You might consider this a revival of "This Week's Game", which I used to offer up regularly on weekends around here.
In order to get the correct answers, you either have to wrack your brain to come up with them, or you simply have to know it
through life experience.
This one ain't gonna be easy.
Okay, here goes:

Billy Wilder made at least three movies in which he made oblique references to three OTHER Billy Wilder movies.
They are all in the nature of "inside jokes'.
One each per movie.
Name each of the three movies.
Provide the oblique reference to the other movies.
Name the movies referred to.
And provide the oblique references.
Here's a clue: You won't be able to find it by Googling "What movies did Billy Wilder make where he referenced other Billy Wilder
movies?"
I tried that.
It wont help you.
Feel free to post any responses or questions in the Comments section.

As when we used to play "This Week's Game", I will offer a prize for the winner(s), not that I expect there to be any:
The same thing Jackie Gleason, on his variety show, as Stanley R. Sogg, the commercial pitchman on the Late, Late, Late, Late, Late, Late, Late Show, used to offer to his audience:
As he put it,
"......and last but not least, a three-pound wedge of Fatchamarra's Matzaroni Cheese."
But there's no shipping.
You'll have to come to Chicago to pick it up.
And you have to say, out loud, and with expression, "I want my cheese!"

If I stump you all, I am re-claiming Everest.


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My books, "Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
They are all compilations of blog entries that have since been removed from the blog.
So this is the only way you can find them.
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not e-books.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is that you can't sign one.
But they are available for people without Kindle.
If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

*****

13 comments:

  1. This is tough. The only possibilities I can come up with are the appearance of the three commissars in "One Two Three" echoes the three trade envoys in "Ninotchka"; the ambulance scene in The Front Page resembles the chase opening of "Some Like it Hot" (that's a limp one, I admit); and in "Love in the Afternoon," Gary Cooper plays a free-wheeling millionaire, as he did in "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife."
    Okay. I give up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry. None of these are them. The movies in question were all directed by Wilder.
    Wilder did not direct "Ninotchka" or "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife".
    They were both directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

    ReplyDelete
  3. In the body of the blog entry, I added the fact that the references are all in the nature of 'inside jokes".
    Hope that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hmmm. Other than the name Sheldrake appearing in at least three movies, I got nothing. (Apartment, Kiss Me Stupid, Sunset Blvd). I'm thinking that you're still the champ.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Okay, Nick. Sheldrake is one of them. In all fairness, I have seen that one referred to.
    That's the easiest one.
    And I wasn't even aware that it was used in "Kiss Me, Stupid".
    So you're the leader in the clubhouse.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ok champ, I think I've got another. I rewatched "The Apartment" last night, and there's a reference to a "lost weekend." I don't know if have time to watch all of Wilder's movies again, but this seems like a good excuse.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I don't know the Lost Weekend reference.

    ReplyDelete
  8. It's Kirkeby to Dobisch toward the end of the movie: Dobisch says that Bud and Fran had a "toot" and Kirkeby says it wasn't a toot, it was a "lost weekend."

    ReplyDelete
  9. There are still two more that I'm sure you'll agree are better

    ReplyDelete
  10. Now I feel like I have homework to do....

    ReplyDelete
  11. Here's one that won't count either, alas: In "Witness for the Prosecution," Charles Laughton's nurse hands him pajamas and tells him to put them on "top AND bottom." In "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife," Cooper and Colbert meet in a store when each tries to buy half a pair of pajamas-- he the top, she the bottom.

    ReplyDelete
  12. And another.... In the "Apartment" Dobisch says he's with a blonde who looks like "Marilyn Monroe." An oblique a reference to Some Like it Hot and the Seven Year Itch?

    ReplyDelete

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About Me

Hi. I am, according to my Wikipedia entry,(which I did not create) a noted television writer, playwright, screenwriter, and occasional actor. You can Google me or go to the IMDB to get my credits, and you can come here to get my opinions on things, which I'll try to express eloquently. Hopefully I'll succeed. You can also e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com. Perhaps my biggest claim to fame is being responsible, for about six months in 1975, while Head Writer for the "Happy Days" TV series, for Americans saying to each other "Sit on it."