Answers: October 14th, 2003
Here are the answers I've emailed out to some of the questions you have asked. As you'll see, I don't always know the correct answer but hope to at least provide a hint to steer the person asking in the right direction. If you can clarify, or want to dispute, any of the answers- be sure to contact me and I'll follow up. Every so often I'll add a new page of answers so check back often!
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  Other Answer pages:  
What type of car did Xander Cage request to be stolen for himself in the movie XXX?
-Lonnie
CMT Answer:
In the 2002 'disappointing' action flick, when Vin heads to Russia to make contact with the mob he approaches them as himself, with a list of cars he'd like stolen. Among the Ferraris and other exotic models, he had added a vintage Pontiac GTO as the model he wanted stolen for himself.
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Who said and in what movie--"There is a fine line between clever and stupid, and were getting close."
-Ted Polster

CMT Answer:
The closest I could come up with was a line from the docu-comedy classic "This is Spinal Tap". In it, Spinal Tap lead singer David St. Hubbins (played by Michael McKean) says "It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever."

Here are some other great Spinal Tap quotes, just for fun:
"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful. "
"Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It's just not really widely reported."
"We've got Armadillos in our trousers. It's really quite frightening."

If any other CMT readers know of a movie that fits the bill better, let me know!
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I've heard the movie "Almost Famous" is based on a real life band. Could you please tell me what that band is. If you could help me I'd appreciate it.
-Dawn
CMT Answer:
The band in the 2000 Cameron Crowe drama was called "Stillwater", and is in fact NOT a real life band. They certainly do have all the little details down to make them seem like they were actually performing in the sixties, and many viewers of the movie have thought they were real. There were even some fictional Stillwater band webpages put on the net by the movie studio at the time of the movie's release, which further cemented the notion in some viewer's minds that the band was real. However, Stillwater was in fact a compilation of bands that the movie's writer and director, Cameron Crowe, and interviewed or worked with during his time as a young reporter for the Rolling Stone.
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We are trying to find the name of a movie. We think that Richard Pryor was in it. It was about a man who worked for the government on a computer in an accounting office. They rounded up a penny and he questioned where it went. Then he decided to funnel all those extra pennies to an account for himself. Can you help me?
-Anna Adams
CMT Answer:
That movie is none other than "Superman III", where Pryor played a character who worked at evil Robert Vaughn's company. After Pryor came up with a way to funnel those half-pennies into an account for himself, he was busted by Vaughn because he showed up for work with a new sports car the next day. Vaughn put him to work programming his evil supercomputer that he tried to use to defeat Superman at the end of the movie. Hijinks ensued, including the white and red Walk and Don't Walk guys at a traffic light getting into a fistfight.

Unfortunately, the movie sucked. However it did provide some good laughs in the 1999 comedy "Office Space", when some office workers decided to replicate Pryor's plan from the Superman movie at their own company.
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Is the movie "Catch Me If You Can" a re-make?
-Mike
CMT Answer:
No, it's not. As you probably know it was based on the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr, and this was the first time his story was told on the big screen.

There were, however, three other movies called "Catch Me If You Can": a 1959 movie, a 1989 movie, and a 1998 made-for-tv movie. None of the three have anything to do with the story of Abagnale, however.
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My mother-in-law can't think of the name of this movie she really likes. There's this king who has to marry his daughter and they have this donkey type animal who poops gem stones. The title is something like, "The Skin of ...". Can you help?
-Marie
CMT Answer:
The closest I could come up with was a 1970 Dutch movie called "Peau d'ane" which is also known in English as "Magic Donkey" or "Donkey Skin". The IMDB user comments seem to match your description, so I'll steal one here and you
can ask your mother-in-law if this is the flick:

"This musical is based on a fairy tale of the same name written by Charles Perrault. After the death of his wife, a king goes mad and decides to marry his daughter. Seeking advice from her fairy godmother, the young princess tries to stop the wedding by demanding from her father dresses that are apparently impossible to make. When this scheme fails, she asks for the skin of her father's donkey, the king's most valuable animal because it defecates golden coins. When even this wish is granted, seeing that she can no longer stop her father, the princess wraps herself in the donkey's skin so that she won't be recognized and runs away to another kingdom. There, she lives as a poor peasant in a small shanty, and is despised by everyone because of her looks. But one day the prince of that kingdom stops by her shack, peeps through her window, and sees her without her donkey skin. He falls in love with her and invents a stratagem to make her reveal her true identity. A very light musical comedy with great music by Michel Legrand."

Here is the page on IMDB if you wanted to look up further info on this movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066207/
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I'm sure I remember Shirley Knight being in the James Bond movie Goldfinger. I think she played the sister of the girl who was painted gold. But I can't find the credits for Goldfinger anywhere in Shirley Knight's bio. Am I correct, or is my memory fuzzy? Guess my question is--Was Shirley Knight ever in a James Bond flick? Thanks.
-Billie Rapczynski

CMT Answer:
I did some searching and I don't believe Shirley Knight was in any Bond movie. My reasons: as you mentioned she is not in the credits, IMDB does not list her with an 'uncredited' appearance, and I could turn up no Google page listing her. One other source I tried was a definitive Bond site- "James Bond Multimedia". They have pictures of all the Bond girls, and she
is not listed. You can take a look at the page, and maybe see if there is someone who looks like the image you had of Shirley Knight in one of the movies. Here's the link:
http://www.jamesbondmm.co.uk/women.html
What was the name of the hotel in "The Godfather" that Fredo and Moe Green owned?
-John
CMT Answer:
The name of the hotel was the "Flamingo". Michael came to Vegas in the 1972 epic to buy Moe Greene's share from him, and trouble ensued...
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Who was the psychotic girl that said "I'll never tell?"
-Chelsea

CMT Answer:
Sounds like you're refering to the 2001 thriller "Don't Say a Word", in which Michael Douglas once again played a super-rich professional. The girl was Ashton Kutcher's girlfriend-for-a-month Brittany Murphy, who also does the voice of Luann on the animated series "King of the Hill".
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In the movie "LA Story", Steve Martin is walking with the British woman in the cemetary and a grave digger uncovers the skull of Steve's favorite magician. What was the magician's name?
-Bruce Wright
CMT Answer:
The scene you're refering to is one of countless Hamlet allusions found on the silver screen- everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to the MacKenzie brothers in "Strange Brew" have been in on the act. The magician's name in the L.A Story scene was the Great Blunderman, and here are the lines from the scene you were after:

Grave digger-Now here's somebody who's been around for 35 years or more.
Harris-Who was that?
Grave digger-That there's a magician, name was....the great...Blunderman. Not so great now, is he?
Harris-The Great Blunderman? I knew him, Sara! (picks up skull) God. He was a funny guy...He taught me magic.
Sara-A fellow of infinite jest....
Harris-Yeah.
Sara-He hath borne me on his back a thousand times....
Grave digger-She's got it.
Sara-Where be your gibes now? Your flashes of merriment that would set the table on a roar?
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What is the movie, where at the end, a football player (I think its Billy Blanks) is running the ball in for a touchdown in the pouring rain, and when a guy is about to tackle him, the runner shoots him with a gun. What movie am I thinking of? Thanks.
-Matt
CMT Answer:
That movie is the underrated Bruce Willis actioner "The Last Boy Scout". Any movie that ends with the bad guy falling through spinning helicopter blades, and/or features Halle Berry as a stripper, is ok in my book. The football player was indeed played by Billy Blanks, although the scene you were thinking of happens at the start of the movie and not the end...
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What is the clap board used to start action in film production called?
-Daniel Brown

CMT Answer:
It's called a............... clapboard. Here's a definition from one movie terms page:

Clapboard
A slate with a pair of boards hinged together that is photographed at the beginning of each take, both for information on the take an to sync the sound and the picture.
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What movie has been re-made the most often?
-Traci Snyder

CMT Answer:
That's a toughie, and one to which I could find no definitive answer on the net. From what I did come across, though, and my own personal experience, I will go with "Hamlet". IMDB lists 93 total titles containing "Hamlet", with 69 of those being theatrical releases. Also from the Bard, "Romeo and Juliet" has 33 theatrical releases and 11 TV-movies (not to mention countless others 'influenced' by the story, like "Romeo Must Die" or "Underworld"). Another popular runner up is the "Three Musketeers", with 22 'Versions of' listed on IMDB and 30 theatrically released movies that have the words "Three Musketeers" in the title, and "A Christmas Carol" which has 13 theatrical and 28 TV-movie releases. For all of these entries, not all of the versions listed by IMDB will be direct versions of the stories, but the figures should give you a good idea of the number of times the story has been told.

As for remakes based on a movie that is not most well-known for it's basis (be it book or original screenplay), that would be more difficult. One that pops off the top of my head as a contender would be "Brewster's Millions", which until I just looked at IMDB for this question, did not know was originally based on a novel. However, it has seven versions total, starting with the 1914 original, and with the most recent being Richard Pryor's 1985 remake.|
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