From the last years of silent film to the collapse of the studio system, this covers the period when the rules of commercial cinema were written. Every answer is old enough to be settled history.
Cinema went from a fairground novelty to the dominant popular art form in about thirty years. The turning points are surprisingly easy to date: sound in 1927, colour spreading through the 1930s, and a Supreme Court ruling in 1948 that broke the studios' grip on the cinemas themselves. These ten questions stay inside that stretch, roughly from the mid-1920s to the mid-1950s. Nothing here depends on box-office tables or reputations that shift with each generation of critics, so the facts have had seventy years to settle.
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
Play it insteadAnswer: D. Citizen Kane
Why: Welles was twenty-five and RKO gave him unusually free rein over the production. His cinematographer Gregg Toland shared the closing title card with him, a credit almost unheard of at the time.
Answer: C. Wings
Why: Wings was a silent First World War aviation drama directed by William Wellman. Sunrise won at the same ceremony but in a separate category for Unique and Artistic Production, which was then abolished.
Answer: B. It carried synchronised songs and spoken dialogue
Why: The film used the Vitaphone system, which played sound from a disc locked to the projector. It was mostly still a silent picture with musical numbers, but within three years the silent feature was finished.
Answer: A. Sergei Eisenstein
Why: Its Odessa Steps sequence is the most analysed piece of editing in film history. Eisenstein argued in his essays that meaning is produced by the collision between two shots rather than by anything inside a single one.
Answer: D. Buster Keaton
Why: Keaton held a completely deadpan expression through stunts he performed himself. In Steamboat Bill, Jr. the front wall of a house falls on him and an open window passes over his body with inches to spare.
Answer: C. Gone with the Wind
Why: She won Best Supporting Actress at the ceremony held in February 1940. The hotel hosting it was segregated, and she was seated at a small table away from the rest of the cast.
Answer: B. Studios owning the cinema chains that showed their films
Why: The majors were forced to sell their theatre chains, which removed the guaranteed screens that had made the studio system work. The same judgment also outlawed block booking, where cinemas had to take a bundle of films sight unseen.
Answer: A. A set of content rules the Hollywood studios imposed on themselves
Why: Named after Will Hays, it was enforced from 1934 and governed how crime, sex, violence and religion could be shown. It was abandoned in 1968 and replaced by the age ratings system still in use.
Answer: D. Singin' in the Rain
Why: The plot turns on a silent star whose speaking voice is unusable once microphones arrive. Gene Kelly starred and also co-directed the film with Stanley Donen.
Answer: C. Akira Kurosawa
Why: The story of villagers hiring swordsmen to defend a harvest was remade in 1960 as the Western The Magnificent Seven. Kurosawa had a long working partnership with the actor Toshiro Mifune, who appears in sixteen of his films.
Harmony is not a matter of taste alone. Simple ratios, overtones, and the compromise hiding inside every piano.
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