A slight interruption, followed by a continuation and a couple of red herrings

How is it that an athlete who is attempting to secure a spot on a country's Olympic team does not know of the traditional Olympic ceremony that follows each and every event? To recap, the top three winners are presented with their medals (bronze, silver, or gold), they watch their countries' flags displayed, and they hear the national anthem of the first-place winner's country performed. Since the modern Olympics have been held every four years since 1896 (except that the 1940 and 1944 games were cancelled because of World War II) and there has been worldwide. wall-to-wall television coverage in recent decades, anyone who has ever watched the Olympics is aware of this. So how is it possible that the young woman in the news this week would not be aware of it also? It isn't possible. She placed third in her event during the U.S. Olympic Trials this week and qualified to be a member of the U.S, team, but she feels that she "was set up" and "disrespected" by the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the end of the event. Really? She must be either incredibly ignorant or incredibly disingenuous or incredibly self-centered, or all three. It is impossible to reach any other conclusion.

Moving right along...

In the preceding post I invited you to play Last Lines From Movies. I gave you the line and the person who said it. You were to name the movie in which it was the last line. You could receive an extra point if you also named the person or group to whom the line was spoken, and you could receive another extra point if you knew the year the film was released. I told you, "No fair looking anything up. You either know the answers or you don't. Guessing is always allowed. Since there are seven questions, the maximum score is 21." I also added, and this is very important, that there might be a red herring or two in the list.

Here is the list:

1. "Nobody's perfect." (Joe E. Brown)
2. "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." (Gloria Swanson)
3. "Mediocrities everywhere, I absolve you, I absolve you, I absolve you, I absolve you, I absolve you all." (F. Murray Abraham)
4. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." (Clark Gable)
5. "Rosebud." (Orson Welles)
6. "Louie, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." (Humphrey Boogart)
7. "Say? Oh, I'll say, 'The play is over. Go home.'" (Helen Hayes)

We had a whopping two participants in the game. At least it wasn't a complete washout.

Bonnie from Missouri said the following:

1.Some Like It Hot
2.Sunset Boulevard
3. ?
4.Gone With the Wind
5.Citizen Kane
6.Casablanca
7. ?

and probably thought she had scored a 5 (out of 7 in the simple version of the game, out of 21 in the expanded version of the game) but I gave her a score of 3.

Emma Springfield who lives so far northwest in northwest Iowa that she is almost in Minnesota and South Dakota said that she scored a whopping 15 points but didn't show any of her work. I mentally gave her a score of 0 and said I would explain and elaborate in the next post.

Which brings us to here. Here are the answers, along with the explanations and elaborations.

1. Some Like It Hot (1959). Joe E. Brown (Osgood) said it to Jack Lemmon (Daphne) as he whisked her away in his speedboat.

2. Sunset Boulevard (1950). Gloria Swanson as the mentally deranged Norma Desmond said it ostensibly to Cecil B. DeMille but actually to the movie audience (all those wonderful people out there in the dark).

3. Amadeus (1984). F. Murray Abraham (Antonio Salieri) said it to a hallway full of mental patients.

4. The correct answer is None, because the line spoken by Clark Gable (Rhett Butler) to Vivien Leigh (Scarlett O'Hara) as he left Tara was not the last line in Gone With The Wind (1939). The last line in Gone With The Wind (1939) is Vivien Leigh (Scarlett O'Hara) saying "I'll think about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day!" to herself.

5. The correct answer is also None, because, again, the line spoken by Orson Wells (Charles Foster Kane) on his deathbed to no one in particular was not the last line in Citizen Kane (1941). The last line belonged to the unidentified workman who threw Rosebud (Kane's childhood sled) into a fiery furnace.

6. Casablanca (1942). Humphrey Boogart (Rick Blaine) said it to Claude Raines (Captain Louie Renault) after Ingrid Bergman (Ilsa) boarded a plane to escape to America with her husband, Victor Laszlo. At least Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris.

7. Anastasia (1956). Helen Hayes (Dowager Empress Alexandra Feodorovna) planned to say it to a ballroom full of Russian nobility.

Well, I enjoyed it, red herrings and all, very much, even if not many of you - at last count, only two -- did.

I am not discouraged. I will not be deterred. I will go on blogging.