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Last week's Movie Quiz winners

It's a Movie Quiz first-- a correct answer in the form of a song parody!

(To the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas")
It's The Purple Rose of Cairo
That I once went to see.
It was somewhat amusing,
But not filled up with glee.

The big cast tried quite gamely
To keep us entertained.
Buster Keaton did it better;
Sherlock, Jr. was its name.

It is, indeed, Woody Allen's 1985 romantic fantasy, The Purple Rose of Cairo, about a movie character who walks off the screen and into real life. Jeff Daniels plays the movie hero and Mia Farrow co-stars as the flesh-and-blood married woman who falls in love with him. Set in the Depression (the first one), the film gave Allen the chance to not only do another of the '30s period pieces he enjoyed (Radio Days) but also to make the kind of old potboiler he grew up on. It's one of Woody's better films from his most creative period, the "Orion years" of the 1980s. (Am I the only one who gets nostalgic when that now-defunct studio logo shows up?)

Our quiz lyricist wasn't the only winner who commented on the film's heavy debt to the 1924 Buster Keaton classic, Sherlock, Jr.. Another reader wrote: "While it remains one of Allen's best films, I have to note that his use of the Sherlock Jr. business of walking to and from the screen is part of a largely ignored habit he has of grabbing material from other filmmakers.

"Brian De Palma used to get roundly criticized for replicating other directors' shots, particularly Hitchcock, while Tarantino built his entire career around unreflective imitation, yet Allen's films have almost as high a percentage of borrowings. There are the obvious Bergman pastiches and Fellini rips (though I think Allen sprinkles more Fellini in his films than he does Bergman). Small Time Crooks was Big Deal on Madonna Street, right down to identical jokes. Hell, Match Point was Crimes and Misdemeanors, so he finally came around to swiping from himself."

And for those who know Woody's version but not Buster's, here's a short clip from Sherlock Jr that makes the case that Keaton did it first-- and better.

Lots of winners this week-- always nice to see-- so congratulations and a trip to the 1930s (when Depressions were fun!) to the following winners: Josefina Avila, Vince Tuss, Wayne Palmer, ron frigstad, Song-Un Lee, Christina O'Sullivan, Bob Redwing, TMiss, Dave Mallow, Kenneth Gramer, Michael Mattson, Denny Lynch (get his album, "Sing Along with Lynch!"), Jim Moomey, Mick Arran, Bill Hearne, Thomas Miller, Don Lehnhoff, Letra Minuscula, Tupac Sotut, Fred Lorence, Shannon M. Quinlan, Nancy Louise Rutherford, Kevin Musolino, E. Yarber, and Paul Rignell.

(Send Steve an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com.)