Musing on ideas for another cinematic quiz for this regular end-of-the-month spot, I came up with this: memorable (or not?) character names.
Here are the first twenty that came to mind.... (Much harder to think of female characters, I found: I hope that's down to the comparatively smaller number of strong leading roles for women, rather than any patriarchal bias in the filing system of my memory!)
See if you can recognise the film they appeared in and the actor who played them. (I think 10 out of 20 would be pretty good going.)
Film Quiz - 20 Memorable Character Names
Sidney J. Mussburger
Howard Beale
Charlie Allnut
Ada McGrath
Rupert Pupkin
Benjamin Franklin Pierce
Nancy Callahan
Lorelei Lee
Jules Winnfield
Buddy Ackerman
Milton Arbogast
Tracy Lord
Hank Quinlan
Kyle Reese
Tom Hagen
Rosemary Woodhouse
Benjamin Willard
Travis Bickle
Vicki Allessio
Eddie Felson
I'll put the answers in the comments next week. Good luck!
ANSWERS now added in the comments below.
4 comments:
Just under half.
The entire Bond series is chock full o' wacky names.
Octopussy stands out as a slightly more subtle version of Pussy Galore. I can just picture Mr. Fleming cackling like a teenage boy at his typewrite with some of them.
A good effort, HF!
But I think most of these are in the You'll kick yourself when I tell you category.
Plenty O'Toole is my favourite Bond girl name.
Oh well, this little challenge seems to have passed unnoticed (where has Tony B been lately? or JES?!). But I did promise to furnish the answers; so, here they are (a week late, sorry).
Sidney J. Mussburger is Paul Newman's scheming company president in The Hudsucker Proxy (1994). (Paul Newman and Robert De Niro make two appearances each in this list.)
Howard Beale is Peter Finch's crazed news anchor in Network (1976).
Charlie Allnut is the alcoholic engineer played by Humphrey Bogart in C.S. Forester's classic adventure romp The African Queen (1951).
Ada McGrath (one of the trickier ones, this; I don't think her full name is used very often in the film) was Holly Hunter's character in The Piano (1993).
Rupert Pupkin is the celebrity stalker with delusions of hitting the big time as a stand-up comedian, played by Robert De Niro, in one of my favourite Scorseses, The King of Comedy (1982).
Benjamin Franklin Pierce is 'Hawkeye' in MASH (1970), played in the movie version by Donald Sutherland.
Nancy Callahan is the exotic dancer and aspiring law student played by Jessica Alba (and earlier, as a kidnapped child, by Makenzie Vega) in Sin City (2005).
Lorelei Lee is the showgirl played by Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).
Jules Winnfield, of course, is the laidback hitman so memorably played by Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction (1994).
Buddy Ackerman is the tyrannical Hollywood producer played by Kevin Spacey (my favourite of his roles) in George Huang's superb black comedy Swimming With Sharks (1994).
Milton Arbogast is the doomed detective played by Martin Balsam in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) [and by William H. Macy in Gus Van Sant's ill-advised 1998 remake].
Tracy Lord is the prissy about-to-be-remarried(or-not) heiress played originally by Katharine Hepburn in George Cukor's The Philadelphia Story (1940), and by Grace Kelly in the later musical version, High Society (1956).
Hank Quinlan is the crooked police chief played by Orson Welles in "greatest B-movie ever made" Touch of Evil (1958).
Kyle Reese is the rebel fighter who travels back in time to father John Connor; played by Michael Biehn in The Terminator (1984) (and by Anton Yelchin in 2009's franchise-killer, Terminator Salvation].
Tom Hagen is the consigliere played by Robert Duvall in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974) [but, infamously, not in 1990's Part III].
Rosemary Woodhouse is Mia Farrow's nervous housewife who falls into the power of Satanists in Rosemary's Baby (1968).
Benjamin Willard(another toughie: I don't think the character's full name is mentioned after the first couple of scenes) is Martin Sheen's spaced-out Special Forces captain in Apocalypse Now (1979).
Travis Bickle is, of course, Robert De Niro's loner/loser/vigilante in Taxi Driver (1976).
Vicki Alessio is perhaps Glenda Jackson's most improbable character name, a single mother indulging in an affair in the rather dark romantic comedy A Touch Of Class (1973).
And "Fast Eddie" Felson is Paul Newman's pool shark from The Hustler (1961) and The Color Of Money (1986).
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