ErebusFact library / Trivia
25 film facts, each paired with a strange little scene and a hook for the hard word.
The Lumière brothers held the first public paid film screening in Paris in 1895.
Picture it
In a Paris café basement in 1895, two brothers whose name means "light" crank a projector. Workers stream out of a factory on screen. The audience paid to watch: cinema is born.
Memory hooks
The Jazz Singer (1927) was the first feature-length film with synchronised spoken dialogue.
Picture it
In 1927, a cinema audience gasps when the actor on screen opens his mouth and they hear him: "Wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet!" The talkies have arrived with a jazz singer.
Memory hooks
Wings, a silent film about First World War pilots, won the first Academy Award for Best Picture in 1929.
Picture it
At the first Academy Awards dinner in 1929, a silent film about fighter pilots in the First World War takes the top prize. Its name flaps like a biplane: Wings.
Memory hooks
The Academy Award statuette is nicknamed Oscar, reputedly because a librarian said it looked like her Uncle Oscar.
Picture it
A librarian at the Academy looks at the gold statuette of a knight on a reel of film and says, "He looks just like my Uncle Oscar!" The name sticks.
Memory hooks
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) is set partly at the Bates Motel; its famous shower scene used chocolate syrup for blood.
Picture it
In 1960, a master of suspense kills off his star in a motel shower just 47 minutes in. The "blood" is chocolate syrup, the stabbing sound a knife plunged into a melon. The motel: the Bates.
Memory hooks
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In Citizen Kane (1941), directed by Orson Welles, "Rosebud" turns out to be the name of Kane's childhood sled.
Picture it
A dying newspaper tycoon drops a snow globe and whispers "Rosebud". Reporters chase the meaning for the whole film. In the last scene, workers throw his childhood sled into a furnace and the name burns on it.
Memory hooks
Casablanca (1942) stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick, owner of a nightclub in Morocco.
Picture it
In wartime Morocco, a cynical American runs a nightclub. His old flame walks in and asks the pianist, Sam, to play "As Time Goes By". The club's name is Rick's Café Américain.
Memory hooks
Dorothy's slippers in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz are ruby, changed from silver in the book to show off Technicolor.
Picture it
A girl from Kansas clicks her heels three times. In the book her slippers were silver, but the film makes them ruby red to show off its new Technicolor.
Memory hooks
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was Disney's first full-length animated feature.
Picture it
In 1937, Hollywood calls it "Disney's Folly": who'd sit through a feature-length cartoon? Then audiences weep when a girl bites a poisoned apple and seven little men cry around her glass coffin.
Memory hooks
Toy Story (1995), made by Pixar, was the first feature film made entirely with computer animation.
Picture it
In 1995, a cowboy doll and a space ranger argue in a boy's bedroom. Every frame was made on computers by Pixar, the first feature film made entirely that way.
Memory hooks
George Lucas's Star Wars (1977) ends with the destruction of the Death Star.
Picture it
In 1977, yellow words scroll up into space: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." A farm boy, a princess and a smuggler blow up a planet-sized space station, the Death Star.
Memory hooks
The mechanical shark in Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) was nicknamed Bruce, after his lawyer.
Picture it
On a 1974 film shoot off Martha's Vineyard, the mechanical shark keeps sinking. The young director, named after a spiel, names it Bruce after his lawyer and hides it for most of the film. The suspense works better.
Memory hooks
Ben-Hur, Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King each won 11 Oscars.
Picture it
A ship sinks, a door floats, and three films share the record of 11 Oscars: Ben-Hur, Titanic and The Return of the King. Picture eleven gold statues on the bow of a ship.
Memory hooks
Peter Jackson filmed The Lord of the Rings trilogy in his home country, New Zealand.
Picture it
Hobbits walk through green rolling hills that are really a sheep farm in New Zealand. A director from Wellington, Peter Jackson, films all three books back to back.
Memory hooks
The first James Bond film was Dr. No (1962), starring Sean Connery.
Picture it
In 1962, a Scotsman in a dinner jacket lights a cigarette at a casino table and introduces himself. His first film villain is a doctor who simply says No.
Memory hooks
The Godfather (1972), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, follows the Corleone crime family.
Picture it
A film producer wakes up in bed next to his prize horse's severed head. The man who made him an offer he couldn't refuse is a mob boss named after a Sicilian town: Corleone, the lion-hearted.
Memory hooks
Bollywood, the Hindi film industry based in Mumbai, takes its name from Bombay and Hollywood.
Picture it
In Mumbai, a hero breaks into song on a Swiss mountainside with a hundred dancers. The Hindi film industry here makes more films than Hollywood. Its nickname joins Bombay and Hollywood.
Memory hooks
Nollywood, the film industry of Nigeria, is one of the most prolific in the world.
Picture it
In 1992, a trader in Lagos with too many blank video tapes shoots a home-video drama to sell them. It launches one of the world's most prolific film industries: Nollywood.
Memory hooks
Spirited Away, by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli, won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2003.
Picture it
A ten-year-old girl's parents gobble a feast and turn into pigs. She works in a bathhouse for spirits to save them. The film by Hayao Miyazaki wins an Oscar in 2003.
Memory hooks
Parasite, by Bong Joon-ho, was the first non-English-language film to win the Oscar for Best Picture, in 2020.
Picture it
A poor family wriggles into a rich family's house one job at a time, like parasites. In 2020, this South Korean film by Bong Joon-ho becomes the first non-English-language Best Picture winner.
Memory hooks
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Charlie Chaplin's most famous character was the Tramp, with his bowler hat, cane and toothbrush moustache.
Picture it
A little man in a bowler hat, baggy trousers, too-big shoes and a toothbrush moustache waddles away down a road, twirling his cane. He's the Tramp, played by a Londoner: Charlie Chaplin.
Memory hooks
Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) features a robot double of the heroine Maria.
Picture it
A gleaming metal woman is brought to life in a crackling laboratory in a futuristic city where workers toil underground. This 1927 German silent film was directed by Fritz Lang.
Memory hooks
The top prize at the Cannes Film Festival is the Palme d'Or, the "golden palm".
Picture it
On the French Riviera, stars walk up a red-carpeted staircase in May. The top prize is a golden palm leaf, after the palm trees on the town's crest.
Memory hooks
The Venice Film Festival, the world's oldest, awards the Golden Lion.
Picture it
A winged lion, symbol of St Mark, sits at the edge of a lagoon. Since 1932, film-makers have competed there at the world's oldest film festival for a golden one.
Memory hooks
The Hollywood sign was built in 1923 as an advert for a housing development and originally read "Hollywoodland".
Picture it
In 1923, giant letters go up on a Los Angeles hillside to advertise a housing estate: HOLLYWOODLAND. Years later, the last four letters come down.
Memory hooks