Kay Square Press, Inc

View Original

Movie Masters

Host (Alex Trebeck): …only remaining category is Movie Masters. It appears none of you had a cinematic calling, but it is now the only category from which to choose. You will want to give the name of the Movie Master, (lowering his voice suggestively). The movie master and that alliterative pattern will occur in each answer…

Contestant #1: Movie Masters for $800, please.

Host: “Nominated for Best Director in 1984, this director—who scored a Best Picture Oscar in 1989—came to international attention for his intense drama about the court martial of three lieutenants in the Bushveldt Carbineers during the Second Anglo-Boer War who executed prisoners to divert attention from their superior’s war crimes.”

Contestant #1: (Buzzing in) Who is Robert Redford?

Host: No.

Contestant #3: Who is Hal Hartley?

Host: No...who is Hal Hartley? (Audience laughs)

Contestant #2: Breaker Morant…Who is Bruce Beresford?

Host: Yes…Uhuru remembered just in time that it is not about the movie magic (audience applauds Alex’s second alliteration)…we want the name of the Movie Master who made that movie magic.  We have a very close game, and although in third place, Uhuru is now in control of the board.

Contestant #2: Movie Masters, $400.

Host: I see you’re apologizing to this easier question? (Audience laughs) “Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, his thrillers maintain a distanced objectivity. This ‘Mainstream New Wave’ director paired famously with his discovery, iconic French actress Isabelle Huppert, to make several popular French films including (with pronounced French accents) Gutave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.”

Contestant #3: (Stabbing at her buzzer frantically) …

Contestant #2: (Buzzing in first) Who is Jim Jarmusch (Frenchifying a second-syllable accent to mispronounce the name)

Host: No…(To #3) Mary Kate?

Contestant #3: Who is Claude Chabrol? 

Host: Parfait!

Contestant #3: Movie Masters for $1200, Alex.

Host: Movie Masters for $1200 and the lead. “This Italian movie master was a published poet who worked with film icon Orson Welles and opera icon Maria Callas. He adapted Sophocles, Chaucer, and Boccaccio to the screen and made Rome into a maternal metaphor (Stressing the alliteration) about Rome.”

Contestant #3: (Unable not to show off her knowledge) Love in the City is the maternal movie about Rome…who is Fellini, Federico Fellini… (smugly stressing the alliteration)?

Host: No, your answer is incorrect. Unfortunately, Pat and Uhuru’s opportunity to answer. Uhuru rings in first...

Contestant #2: Who is Robert Rodriguez?

Host: No, Uhuru… (looking to Contestant #1) Does Pat know?

Contestant #1: Who is Pasolini? Mamma Roma is the maternal movie magic of Movie Master, Pier Paolo Pasolini! (Stressing all his alliterations)

Host: Right…Mary Kate, Fellini’s name is alliterative, but, while Fellini directed TWO films about Rome, Rome Open City as well as Love in the City—we wanted Mamma Roma—maternal metaphor, Mamma Roma—(Contestants continue to chatter about Pasolini’s Porcile and Teorema…) Contestants, cease continuing cinematic chit chat! (Audience applauds Alex’s witty double alliteration.) The game. Pat?

Contestant #1: Movie Magic, sorry, Movie Masters, for $1600, Alex.

Host: “When explaining his opus of the ten commandments that Stanley Kubrick deemed ‘the only masterpiece made during my lifetime,’ this Polish Movie Master went all Jeopardy! saying ‘I don't have any answers, but [I] do know how to pose questions.’”

Contestant #2: Who is “Billy” Wilder?  This is a double trick question because Wilder’s given first name—William—makes it the alliterative William Wilder…and Wilder was born in Sucha Beskidzka, then partitioned as Austria-Hungary, mountain-town Sucha Beskidzka is, in fact, in Poland.

Host: I’m sorry that is incorrect—You have us on Poland…but although “Billy” was Wilder’s nickname, Wilder’s given name was Samuel.

Contestant #1: (Buzzing in) Who is Krzysztof Kieslowski?

Host: Whoa, Pat—just when we thought you were sleeping! And that means this final $2000 question will clear the board and take us to Final Jeopardy.  “This Hollywood Movie Master’s films include acknowledged masterpieces of Screwball Comedy, Musical, and Gangster genre films—but his uncredited work on a SciFi classic most magnifies his movie magic.” (Mary Kate is frantically pushing her buzzer) Mary Kate?

Contestant #3: William Wyler. Who is William Wyler?

Host: (To distinguish with Billy Wilder’s name) Again please?

Contestant #3: Who is Movie Master William Wyler—Maestro of movie musical, Funny Girl.

Host: No—unlike Billy Wilder, William Wyler’s given name was William, but there was no uncredited SciFi direction by William Wyler.

Contestant #1: Movie Master’s musical magic is Magic Mike… (triumphantly) who is Steven Soderbergh?

Host: No…. (Uhuru is defiantly shaking his head) Uhuru? …

Contestant #2: Who is Jon Jost?

Host: Are you serious? Howard Hawks…who is Howard Hawks?