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General Knowledge Quiz

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Calthrop

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341o2 said:
I can answer the last, directed by John Frankenheimer, and starring Burt Lancaster as LaBiche, a railway manager(?), the plot being as Paris falls to the Allies in 1944, one of the German generals decides to plunder the Louvre and take most of artwork back to Germany. The activities of les cheminots, or French railway workers sabotaging the railways is the basis of the film
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You're right on this one, including the director (minuscule nitpick: I don't think it was the Louvre, particularly -- the German guy was particularly into modern art [which as a Nazi, he shouldn't have been -- the movement despised such art as "degenerate"], and targeted various museums specialising in same. The Train is the only one of the films in the question, which I've seen (several times): find it compulsive viewing, though some distress caused by the copious "carnage" visited on locomotives and trains !
 
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444045

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I remember watching The Jerk in the 80's and had Steve Martin starring in the title role, I think the director was Carl Reiner,
unforunately I can't recall the storyline.
 
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Calthrop

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xotGD said:
The King sounds like it ought to be an Elvis biopic.
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That would IMO be a more sense-making and with-a-point use of the title; than it is, applied to the monarch who is actually concerned -- unfortunately, he was some centuries pre-Elvis.
 
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Calthrop

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444045 said:
I'm sure The Road was a survival film after an apocalypse and was directed by John Hillcoat.
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Indeed that's what it's about; and you've got the director right. I gather that it's "from" a much-acclaimed novel of the same name, published a few years earlier. (Haven't read / seen either, and don't intend to -- apocalypses not my scene.)

Any further ideas from anyone?
 
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Calthrop

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444045 said:
I remember watching The Jerk in the 80's and had Steve Martin starring in the title role, I think the director was Carl Reiner,
unforunately I can't recall the storyline.
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Forgot my manners -- yes, Carl Reiner was the director. I'm a film-ignoramus, and know nothing about directors -- had to Google them all !
 
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444045

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My mate tells me that the movie The King was based on a play by William Shakespeare called Henrad or something similar
and was directed by David Michod and had Robert pattinson in it.

Hope he's right!
 
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Calthrop

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@444045: in essentials anyway, you've got three out of four -- even if one, is via your mate -- well, "phone a friend" and all that. By me, this makes you the winner.

444045 said:
I remember watching The Jerk in the 80's and had Steve Martin starring in the title role, I think the director was Carl Reiner,
unforunately I can't recall the storyline.
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Per the "fount of all knowledge", it's about the ups and downs of a lovable but clueless guy from a lowly background in the Deep South, played by Steve Martin -- bumbling through extremes of good and bad fortune.

444045 said:
My mate tells me that the movie The King was based on a play by William Shakespeare called Henrad or something similar
and was directed by David Michod and had Robert pattinson in it.
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I understand that it's about the life and times of King Henry V, based on bits culled from Shakespeare's several plays which feature said ruler. Wiki informs that it stars half a dozen bods, none of whom I would know from the Queen of Latvia; but one of those is, truly, Robert Pattinson. David Michod is indeed the director.

The director's chair is yours -- but please, don't call your film "The [monosyllable]" :E !
 
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444045

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Thanks Calthrop.

What do Merle Haggard, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ingrid Bergman and others have in common please ?
 
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MotCO

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There is a rail tunnel between Chelsfield and Sevenoaks in Kent which inspired one of the plotlines in a famous book. Please name the book and author.
 
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MotCO

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xotGD said:
The Railway Children by ??? Nesbit
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Yes indeed it was.

"The railway from Orpington Sevenoaks was completed in 1868 under the directorship of the SER (South Eastern Railway). After crossing the huge embankment over the Orpington Valley, it went into cutting before the 597 yard Chelsfield Tunnel which inspired The Railway Children by E Nesbit." http://www.chelsfieldhistory.org.uk/places_chelsfield_station.htm "Another famous author who lived on the borders of the Parish was Edith Nesbit, born in 1858, who lived for a period in her teenage years close to the South Eastern Railway Company's station (then under construction known as 'Halstead for Knockholt') at Halstead Hall. Edith had witnessed the construction of the 597 yard tunnel from Chelsfield and the cuttings at Knockholt in the mid 1870's." http://www.stmartinchelsfield.org.uk/historic.html .

The floor is yours.
 
xotGD

xotGD

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Right then, two-part question:

The Battle of Austerlitz is also known by what other name. And in which current-day country was it fought?
 
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Calthrop

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The battle was fought in what is now the Czech Republic; I've come across the alternative name in the past, but can't for the life of me recall it now. Likely, the Czech version of the name of the village of Austerlitz?
 
xotGD

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MotCO said:
The Battle of Prussia and Poland?
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Not that.
GRALISTAIR said:
I think this was a battle in the Napoleonic wars so surely France had to be a participant - no idea what other name the battle is known by other than Napoleonic War
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Right war, but no right answer.
Calthrop said:
The battle was fought in what is now the Czech Republic; I've come across the alternative name in the past, but can't for the life of me recall it now. Likely, the Czech version of the name of the village of Austerlitz?
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Correct with the Czech Republic. The alternative name is related to the participants rather than the location.
 
GRALISTAIR

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And the other participant surely was the Austro-Hungarian empire? EDIT - sorry - just reread your question - you did not ask for the participants but the name of the war which has me baffled.
 
xotGD

xotGD

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GRALISTAIR said:
And the other participant surely was the Austro-Hungarian empire? EDIT - sorry - just reread your question - you did not ask for the participants but the name of the war which has me baffled.
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Two (out of three) correct answers to the wrong question!
 
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Calthrop

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Bow drawn very much at a venture -- slight possible memory-flicker -- Battle of the Three Emperors??
 
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Calthrop

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Thanks, but -- product of a good deal of help and hinting; and a pretty blind guess -- I don't feel that I merit victory here. Open floor, please.
 
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