Question: Why did all of the officers and high-ranking officials put out their cigarettes when Hitler's plane landed at the airfield?
Answer: They are supposed to stand at attention when he arrives and salute when he walks past them. It is considered bad form to salute the Führer (or any leader) with a cigarette in your mouth or hand.
Question: When they finally break the code, Turing reads the decrypted message. Wouldn't it have been in German, which he earlier in the film admitted he did not read?
Answer: It is in German; you can see it as it's being written down. Afterwards, Turing doesn't read it out; Cairncross hands it to Alexander, who reads it aloud (in English).
Question: Does anyone know if there is a soundtrack (CD) for this movie available anywhere?
Answer: I doubt it as, the film was made during Parker's college years, but every song asis available as an mp3 at www.cannibalthemusical.net.
Answer: You can now buy it via the link - it became available in May 2024: https://www.klaaturecords.com/products/cannibal-the-musical-music-from-the-motion-picture-soundtrack.
Question: A lot of fuss was made over the omission of the lunar flag planting in this movie. However, when I saw the movie in the theater, I distinctly remember seeing the flag on the moon, just not the actual planting. However, that particular shot seems to be missing in the home video release. Does anyone know the reason for this?
Answer: The home release includes a clear shot of the lunar lander with the American flag next to it.
Question: Why is this movie parodied online?
Answer: The "Hitler in the bunker" scene is iconic for historical reasons, being something most people understand the significance of. Being subtitled in the film means it's very easy for people to keep the original excellent acting while simply replacing the words onscreen to change the context entirely. It also ends up being a bit self-reinforcing, once people get wind of it as a "template", they then start getting their own ideas. And there's the arguable "Streisand Effect", when the film company issued a wave of copyright takedowns in 2010, a lot of people "retaliated" by making and uploading even more.
Answer: Presumably, due to its popularity.
Question: When Althea visits Larry in jail, she holds up a small notebook for a split second with something written on it. Does anybody know what it said?
Answer: It says "Can you guess where my finger is?"
Answer: It says, "Larry, where is my finger?"
Question: How could Chris have legally become sheriff? Wouldn't he have had to go to law enforcement school or academy before he could have been considered for a role as sheriff?
Answer: The role of sheriff is an elected, political position, and as recent US politics have shown, one can be elected to office with little or no previous relevant experience.
Question: Near the beginning of the film, Capote is talking about a story involving a gay black man being in love with a Jew. Since all the rest of his anecdotes involve real people and/or works, does anyone know which book he's talking about?
Chosen answer: He is talking about 'Giovanni's Room' a novel by James Baldwin.
Question: What was this demon really supposed to be?
Answer: His belief in a family curse.
Question: In the book, Dwight and Toby paint the whole house white, including the piano. But in the movie, I don't remember that scene. They definitely have movie still photos though of Robert De Niro and Leonrdo DiCaprio covered in white paint. Anyone understand this?
Answer: It's typical in movies that more scenes are filmed than what makes it into the final film. This has to do with continuity, the film's overall length, plotting, etc. If a certain scene does not serve the overall story structure, then it is edited out. Sometimes the studio insists that certain scenes be cut, even over a director's objections. After a movie is released on DVD, the deleted scenes may be restored in a "director's cut" or there's a separate section showing all the edited portions.
Thanks! Just wanted to make sure I wasn't making it up.
Question: Why was Preston a private and not an officer like the rest?
Answer: Preston was loosely based on the real-life Lincoln Kirstein. Prior to WWII, he was a noted writer and an influential person in the cultural arts in America. When the war broke out, he enlisted in the army with the rank of private. He eventually joined the Army's Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives unit, later known as the Monuments Men. He was selected for his abilities, regardless of his military rank. The movie reflected that.
Question: Is it true that Lee was able to steal enough money from her victims to buy a house (or even just put a down payment on it?) I would assume she could only use cash, and it seems unfeasible that she'd be able to acquire that much cash from people's wallets without murdering hundreds of them.
Chosen answer: In the story it shows she does not kill every man. It is possible she had sex with multiple men without killing them and got more money (but maybe not that much) than just what she stole from the men she killed.
Question: Is David Thewlis still banned from entering the China for his role in this movie? I know that Brad Pitt's ban was lifted in 2014, but was Thewlis' ban lifted too?
Answer: Brad Pitt's ban was lifted in 2014, but David Thewlis is still banned from entering China to this day.
Question: Why is the word "Happiness" in the title misspelled?
Answer: In an interview, the real-life Chris Gardiner, (played by Will Smith) explained that the deliberately misspelled word was written that way on the child daycare center's wall (representing how children can sometimes misspell words). Gardiner later interpreted it to personally mean that true happiness is not defined in just one way, there are many ways to be happy, and that was reflected in the alternate spelling.
Question: I was wondering whether the evidence that Adrian Brody gathered was true, or if it's artistic license. It seems that if it were true, there should have been a further inquiry into George Reeve's death.
Answer: Here is a good link that will help separate fact from fiction. http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/celebrity/george_reeves/1_index.html.
Question: What reason did the British general give for having opened fire on the unarmed crowd?
Answer: Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer has said his intent "was not to disperse the meeting but to punish the Indians for disobedience." Earlier that day, Dyer has banned all meetings to avoid any insurrection, but many still gathered to celebrate and protest. Dyer saw it as defiance of his order and thought it could be another mob insurgent he had seen earlier. Some reports also state while the crowd was "unarmed", that only referred to being unarmed with firearms and many in the crowd did have other types of weapons. It also seems at the time it was standard practice for the British Army to use necessary lethal force for civilian crowd control, although many saw Dyer's action to be in excess.
Question: Near the end of the film, Stephen asks Jane how long he has to live, and she says two years. But I thought they already established he had two years near the start of the film. Can someone please explain this?
Chosen answer: Throughout his existence, prognoses of the life expectancy for Dr. Stephen Hawking have been repeatedly offered and then surpassed. He continues to amaze with not only his brilliance, but his resilience. In this case it sounds like a callback to the initial estimate, which was demonstrably inaccurate.
Question: Alexander shoots the moose with a rather rapid fire action: it sounds as if the rifle is semi-automatic. What was the true story, and why did Alexander specifically ask for a a cal .22 rifle? Was it because he planned to hunt small game, and knew that a heavier rifle/calibre would be unsuitable? To plan for moose hunting, he would choose something like cal.308.
Answer: Having read Krakauers book: The rifle was a .22 Remington scoped semiautomatic. Accounts at the time mention that this may not have been the best choice, and it is clear that McCandless did not have enough experience to live in the wild, although it is impressing enough that he managed to survive for 16 weeks.
Question: Did White Castle sell cheeseburgers in this time period?
Answer: Absolutely. White Castle is credited as the first "fast food" chain in the United States. The company began its traditional brick and mortar, fast food burger operation in 1921 but had operated as a food cart company since 1916.
Answer: There is no double level bridge out of New York city.
I'm not sure what this comment is a response to, but it's not an answer to this question.
Answer: Hitler was fanatically anti-tobacco: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/the-nazis-forgotten-anti-smoking-campaign/373766/.
Brian Katcher