[Q]: Build a movie plot around this: What event did the Shields' son hire extras for? Attend his funeral
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[A]: Three much-sought-after people in Hollywood--a director, an actress, and a writer--each receive transatlantic calls from one Jonathan Shields. Each one refuses to talk to him. Yet when mutual friend Harry Pebbel asks them to meet him in Jonathan Shields' old office at the Shields studio, they agree, and even agree to share their grievances with Harry. Harry tells them that after two years of financial reorganization, Jonathan wants to produce a picture, and he wants the three to participate in it.Fred Amiel, the director, speaks first, having met Jonathan Shields eighteen years ago:Fred Amiel accepts a promise of eleven dollars to attend the funeral of producer Hugo Shields--but once there, he can't resist muttering jibes about the elder Shields under his breath. He doesn't know, of course, that he is standing right next to Hugo's son Jonathan. Jonathan tells him straight out that he didn't act like a mourner, so he won't be paid. Later that day, Fred goes to see Jonathan to apologize. Jonathan asks him to stay, and the two talk of their frustrations and dreams.For years they get by on what they make by making quickie Westerns on Poverty Row--and then Jonathan proposes to raise a stake to get into a poker game with noted B-movie executive producer Harry Pebbel. Fred and his friends raise the stake, and Jonathan proceeds to run up a debt of over $6,000--to Harry. Jonathan goes to Harry and makes a deal: Harry hires Jonathan, and Jonathan will pay Harry back. Harry does hire Jonathan, and asks him, "Just bring me a picture I can shoot."So for a few more years Jonathan produces, and Fred directs, several B movies for Harry. But when Harry assigns them to make a horror flick featuring five men dressed like cats, Jonathan substitutes his own ideas. The result is the best reception that a Harry Pebbel sneak preview has gotten yet. After the preview, Jonathan takes Fred to see the home of an actor named George Lorrison. There Jonathan cuts out a piece of loose wallpaper holding a drawing made by Lorrison of Hugo...

[Q]: Build a movie plot around this: Who is crowned "Mr. Julius Caesar"? Mehta
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[A]: Professor William Hundert is a distinguished Classics history teacher at St. Benedict's Academy for Boys. Another year is beginning, and the students file in and introduce themselves. Hundert has a certain plaque above his door he requires one student, Martin Blythe to read. The plaque states: "I am Shutruk Nahunte, King Anshand and Sussa, sovereign of the land of Elam. By command of Ishushinck I destroyed Sippar, took the stele of Niran-Sin, and brought it back to Elam, where I erected it as an offering to my god, Inshushink." He requires his students to look up Shutruk Nahunte, then stops them, saying they won't find it in any history book, because Nahunte is not any. Hundert then says that Nahunte was virtually forgotten because "Ambition and conquest without contribution is without significance." Then he challenges his students, saying "What will your contribution be? How will history remember you?" which becomes the theme of the film. A friendly relationship between Hundert and fellow teacher Elizabeth is also introduced, as she has returned from Greece and presents Hundert with a snow globe of the Parthenon.A new student enter the fray shortly after, a certain Sedgewick Bell, the son of a senator from West Virginia. The cocky Bell starkly contradicts the principled Hundert, and various acts of rebellion lead to much tension between the two. As Bell's attitude worsens, and Hundert unable to straighten him, Hundert feels forced to travel to Washington D.C. and have a word with Senator Bell, Sedgewick's father. The Senator shows a surprising amount of apathy in his son's character development, and reprimands Hundert, telling him that Hundert's job is to teach him facts out of a text book, but not to influence him as a person. Hundert dejectedly returns to St. Benedict's and begins preparations for a certain "Mr. Julius Caesar" contest. The three finalists are determined by a series of essays given by Hundert, and the three highest net scores proceed to the finals, where they stand on stage in togas and...

[Q]: Build a movie plot around this: What college does Humbert decide to leave? Beardsley College
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[A]: The film begins in a quarrell between two men at a remote mansion. Humbert Humbert (James Mason) a 40-something British professor of French literature, arrives at the masion which is ramsacked from an apparently wild party the night before and finds the insane and debauched Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers), whom is not only suffering from some kind of severe dementia, but is also clearly drunk, as he babbles on incoherently and does not seem to remember Humbert from a time ago. Quilty goes mad when Humbert points a gun at him. After a mutually exhausting struggle for it, Quilty, now insane with fear, merely responds politely as Humbert repeatedly shoots him. He finally dies with a comical lack of interest, expressing his slight concern in an affected English accent. Humbert is left exhausted and disoriented.The film then turns to events four years earlier and goes forward as Humbert travels to Ramsdale, New Hampshire, a small town where he will spend the summer before his professorship begins at Beardsley College, Ohio. He searches across the town for room to let, being tempted by widowed, sexually famished mother, Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters) to stay at her house. He declines until seeing her beautiful 14-year-old daughter, Dolores Haze (Sue Lyon), affectionately called Lolita (hence the title). Lolita is a soda-pop drinking, gum-chewing, overtly flirtatious teenager, with whom Humbert falls hopelessly in love.In order to become close to Lolita, Humbert accepts Charlotte's offer and becomes a lodger in the Haze household. Soon, however, Charlotte announces that she will be sending Lolita to an all-girl sleep-away camp for the summer. On the morning of departure, Humbert receives a love confession note from Charlotte, asking Humbert to leave at once. The note says that if Humbert is still in the house when Charlotte returns from driving Lolita to camp, then he must join Charlotte in marriage. Humbert willingly marries Charlotte days later. After the wedding and honeymoon, Charlotte discovers Humberts diary...

[Q]: Build a movie plot around this: Who betrayed Johnny? Sheila
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[A]:
Two professional hit men, Charlie (Lee Marvin) and Lee (Clu Gulager), enter a school for the blind and terrorize the principal until she reveals the whereabouts of a teacher, Johnny North (John Cassavetes). As the hitmen walk toward North's upstairs classroom, the teacher receives a phone call from the blind principal's aide, warning him of their arrival. However, a saddened Johnny responds, "It's okay. I know them." He calmly waits at his desk as Charlie and Lee enter the classroom and shoot him to death in a fusilade of bullets.As they depart town by train, Charlie admits that he is bothered that North refused to flee, aware that he was warned prior to their arrival. Lee also notes that from the look on Johnny's face when they entered the classroom is that he wanted them to kill him. It is revealed here that both Charlie and Lee were annoymously sub-contracted by an unseen party to kill Johnny North. It is apparent that the hitmen's business is not to make any direct contact with their paying clients, or know their names, just the name of their hit. Charlie and Lee run through a file they were given of what they knew about the man they have just killed. Johnny was once a champion race car driver whose career ended in a violent crash. Four years before his death, he was involved in a one million dollar mail truck robbery. Tempted by the thought of a $1 million payday, Charlie and Lee travel to Miami in order to interview Johnny's former mechanic, Earl Sylvester (Claude Atkins).Earl, who considers himself Johnny's only friend, is devastated to learn of his death. In between sobs and gulps of whiskey, he tells the story to Charlie and Lee as he remembers it:Four years earlier. Johnny North was at the top of his profession when he met the beautiful Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson) who asked him out to dinner. Despite Earl's suspicions, Johnny fell deeply in love and planned to propose marriage after winning his next big race. However, Johnny's late night days with Sheila had left him disoriented from lack of...