bout de papier, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1988), pp. 47–48
The following clues each relate to a movie with a different major city in the title (for example that great Elvis Presley thriller “Fun in ACAPULCO”’). The cities (not the movie titles) are in alphabetical order. The number in parenthesis after each clue gives the number of letters in the city-name. Multi-word city names (e.g. Sao Paulo) are treated as one word (eg. SAOPAULO). The city-names in turn fit into the unnumbered “skeleton” of boxes. Ten of the boxes have dots in them. If you re-arrange the letters that fall into these boxes, you will come up with the one-word title of a famous 1926 “city” movie.
Clues
(a) Douglas Fairbanks as a larcenous Iraqi of Arabian Nights
vintage, 1924 (7).
(b) Michael Caine pays his last respects behind the Iron
Curtain, 1967 (6).
(c) Everyone comes to Bogie’s, 1942 (10).
(d) Singing in the rain (on the Normandy coast) with Catherine
Deneuve, 1964 (9).
(e) Graham Greene’s reluctant Caribbean spy, 1959 (6).
(f) A Franco-Japanese anti-war story, my love, 1959 (9).
(g) Title from Kipling, sounds like Hope and Crosbie, 1926 (8).
(h) Woody Allen on his home turf, 1979 (9).
(i) Russian defector Robin Williams in the Big Apple,
1984 (6).
(i) Robert Altman dissects the country music capital, 1975 (9).
(k) DiNiro and Minnelli — if they can make it there, 1977 (7).
(1) War crimes trial with a star-studded cast, 1961 (9).
(m) Dirty dancin’ meets Marlon Brando, 1972 (5).
(n) Katherine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant in
Quakerville, 1940 (12).
(o) Astaire and Rogers wing their way south, 1933 (short
form, 3).
(p) Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn on vacation in Italy,
1953 (adjective form, 5).
(q) Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy get all shook up on the
West Coast, 1936 (12).
(r) Marlene Dietrich on a fast train through China, 1932 (8).
(s) Dirk Bogarde does in Thomas Mann on the canals,
1971 (6).
(t) James Stewart takes on the US Senate, 1939 (10).
Send in your answer (the completed skeleton plus the unscrambled anagram — not necessary to include the movie titles themselves) to bout de papier. The first correct answer drawn wins a book prize!
NOTE to READERS from A AALTO: Nobody submitted an answer, correct or otherwise, to the Spring issue puzzle “The Pugilist’s Dilemna.” Mrs. Aalto solved it (I never send in a puzzle to the magazine unless she does), so I know it was not impossible, but it must have been tricky enough to discourage everyone else. Unlike a World Series pitcher, I regard a no-hitter as a defeat rather than a victory, so it seems time to hold another reader survey. Please write me care of bout de papier and let me know your views on my creations. What kind of puzzles do you want?? Logic puzzles like the Pugilist’s Dilemna (but perhaps easier)?? Word puzzles like this one or last issue’s Name of the Rogues?? Something else?? if so, what?? Are the puzzles too tough?? How hard should they be: that is, if given to a random selection of 100 of your friends and acquaintances, how many should be able to solve them — 10% (tough puzzle), 90% (easy) or somewhere in the middle?? On the same scale, where would you rank this issue’s puzzle?? How about the Pugilist’s Dilemna or the Name of the Rogues??
Please let me know, Sincerely, AAa
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1988), pp. 47–48. Read the rest of this issue →
