It’s hard for me to imagine that more than a handful of my blog’s visitors and readers have yet to see the 1986 billiards movie masterpiece The Color of Money.  As this is my 50^th blog post, rather than attempt to review this film, I thought I would commemorate it with an appropriately-titled quiz, “50 Questions about The Color of Money.”  Answers appear after the quiz, including some detailed explanations.   Though I anticipate a lot of you will be able to answer many of these questions, I suspect precious few can answer them all, as they range from the easy to the esoteric.   For those who can answer more than 40, you are truly Balabushka-worthy.  Enjoy!

Origins

1. How many years occurred before The Color of Money was made as a sequel to The Hustler?
2. Who wrote the book The Color of Money?
3. In preparation for the movie, who said, “I know nothing about pool.”
4. Why does Jackie Gleason’s character, Minnesota Fats, not appear in The Color of Money?
5. Who convinced Martin Scorsese to make The Color of Money?

Actors

1. Which three actors have received Oscar nominations since the release of The Color of Money?
2. Who won a Best Actor Oscar for his acting in The Color of Money?
3. Who plays Amos, the young man who successfully hustles Eddie?
4. What actor, who frequently appears in Spike Lee and Coen Brother movies, plays Julian?
5. What actress from The Color of Money first appeared on-screen as an uncredited extra in another Martin Scorsese film, The King of Comedy?

Quotes

1. Who provides the opening voiceover in which the game of 9-ball is described?
2. What does Carmen tell Eddie he’ll be doing if he wins one more game (against Grady Seasons)?
3. According to Eddie, what are the two things one needs to win?
4. Who said the memorable quote, “It’s like a nightmare isn’t it?  It just keeps getting worse and worse.  The impossible dream.”?
5. What are the final two words spoken in the movie?

Critical Reaction

1. What film critic panned The Color of Money, calling one of its pool sequences “gimmickry that looked like it had been set up for a TV commercial”?
2. What newspaper ran a review of The Color of Money, calling it “a white Cadillac among the other mainstream American movies of the season”?
3. How many Oscar nominations did The Color of Money receive?
4. What film critic said, “If this film had been directed by someone else, I might have thought differently about it because I might not have expected so much.”?
5. What newspaper ran a review of The Color of Money, calling it “a scratch, a contrived cliffhanger that sets us up for Hustler III”?

Music

1. What famous Warren Zevon classic was used when Vince first plays Moselle and introduces him to “Doom” (the Balabushka in the case)?
2. What song did Eric Clapton write and sing specifically for The Color of Money?
3. What punk rocker makes a cameo as one of the many people Vincent hustles on the road?
4. What famous musician produced the soundtrack to The Color of Money?
5. What song is the lounge singer singing in the Atlantic City green room?

Pool Professionals

1. Tom Cruise did all his own trick shots, except the shot in which he jumped two balls. Who made that shot?
2. What professional pool player plays Vincent’s nemesis, Grady Seasons?
3. What four pool professionals had speaking roles in The Color of Money?
4. What two professional pool players served as the principal technical consultants in the movie?
5. In 1996, what two professional pool players competed in an event called “The Color of Money,” a three-day race-to-120 challenge match of 9-ball?

Pool Playing

1. What’s the name of the initial hustle that Eddie teaches Vince and Carmen?
2. What type of pool cue was made to look like the famous Balabushka that Eddie gives to Vincent?
3. As Eddie starts to regain his confidence, what kind of “trick” 8-ball shot does he successfully make?
4. In contrasting the game of 9-ball to straight pool, what two games does Eddie mockingly compare 9-ball to?
5. In which ball does Eddie see his reflection when he decides to forfeit at the Atlantic City 9-Ball Classic tournament?

Locales

1. What is the name of the real-life pool bar where Eddie first discovers Vincent and hears his “sledgehammer break”?
2. To what restaurant does Eddie take Carment and Vincent for a meal and a lesson in “human moves”?
3. What famous Chicago billiards hall is used in the scene where Vince first plays Grady Seasons?
4. Where was the final Atlantic City 9-Ball Classic tournament actually filmed?
5. What former billiards hall was used for the scene in which Eddie is hustled by Amos?

Cultural Impact and References

1. What comedic actor made a parody of The Color of Money called The Hustler of Money in which Vince is now an amazingly talented bowler?
2. What NBC comedy television show featured a spoof of the “Werewolves of London” scene, with both characters stripping out of their clothes?
3. What first-person video shooter game got its name from a scene in The Color of Money?
4. According to movie historians Ray Didinger and Glen Macnow, what movie was a cross between The Color of Money and Dumb and Dumber?
5. In the movie Poolhall Junkies, Mars Callahan’s character, Johnny Doyle, wears a black shirt with white lettering that is intentionally a reference to the shirt Vince wears in The Color of Money.  What does Doyle’s shirt say?

Movie Minutia

1. What video game does Vincent play and describe as tougher than 9-ball?
2. At what toy store does Vincent work?
3. What is the license plate of Eddie’s Cadillac?
4. What is Vincent’s last name?
5. How much did The Color of Money gross domestically?

 NOW THE ANSWERS

Origins

1. 25 years.  The #1 movie?  Bambi, which went 63 years before its sequel Bambi II.
2. Walter Tevis, the same person that wrote the novel The Hustler.
3. Director Martin Scorsese
4. Jackie Gleason turned down Paul Newman and Martin Scorsese, saying the role they had written for him felt like an afterthought.  Apparently, Newman and Scorsese desperately wanted Fats to be in the film, but according to Newman, “every time we put him in, it seemed like we were trying to glue an arm on a man and make it stick.”  In Tevis’ original 1984 novel, Fats does play a central role, with Eddie and Fats playing exhibition matches in shopping malls for prizes like cable television.
5. Paul Newman.  You can watch a 1986 interview that Martin Scorsese gave on the movie. In the interview, Scorsese draws similarities between “Fast” Eddie Felson and Scorsese’s characters in Mean Streets, Raging Bull, and King of Comedy, who all have “elements of self destruction.”

Actors

1. Paul Newman (Road to Perdition; Nobody’s Fool); Tom Cruise (Born on the 4^th of July; Magnolia; Jerry Maguire); and Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland)
2. Paul Newman.  Though he had received an Oscar Honorary Statuette the previous year, this was his first Oscar.  It also marked only the second time in history a married couple had won Oscars. (Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, won hers in 1958 for The Three Faces of Eve.)
3. Forest Whitaker
4. John Turturro
5. Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio

Quotes

1. Martin Scorsese.   This brief monologue, said over cigarette smoke and a cue stick, includes the famous quote, “… that luck plays a part in nine-ball. But for some players, luck itself is an art.”
2. “Humping his fist for a long time.”
3. Brains and balls.  Eddie goes on to tell Vince that he has “too much of one and not enough of the other.”
4. Grady Seasons (played by pool legend Keith McCready)
5. “I’m back!,”  Eddie says, right as he’s breaking in his side-room game with Vincent.

Critical Reaction

1. Roger Ebert.  You can watch his review on YouTube.  The quote is at 1:40.
2. The New York Times.  You can read Vincent Canby’s review.
3. 4. (Best Art/Set Direction; Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Supporting Actress; and Best Actor, for which Paul Newman won the award.)
4. Roger Ebert
5. The Washington Post.  You can read Rita Kempley’s review.

Music

1. “Werewolves of London”
2. “It’s in the Way That You Use It”
3. Iggy Pop
4. Robbie Robertson, formerly of The Band.  Apparently, David Geffen was so annoyed that Robertson’s first solo album was being interrupted that he refused permission for Robbie’s voice to be used on The Color of Money soundtrack. Instead, Robbie recorded various instrumentals and did what he’d done on The King of Comedy, which was to blend already-recorded songs with special performances. (Source:  Barney Hoskyns, Across the Great Divide)
5. “The Boy from Ipanema”

Pool Professionals

1. Mike Sigel.  Also known as “Captain Hook,” Sigel, at the age of 35, was the youngest player ever to be inducted into the Billiards Congress of America Hall of Fame.  He was 34 when he helped in The Color of Money.
2. Keith McCready
3. Keith McCready (as Grady Seasons), Steve Mizerak (as Duke, Eddie’s first opponent), Grady Mathews (as Dud), and Jimmy “Pretty Boy Floyd” Mataya (as Julian’s friend in the green room).
4. Mike Sigel and Ewa Mataya Laurance
5. Earl Strickland and Efren Reyes

Pool Playing

1. Two Brothers and a Stranger
2. A Joss J-18 cue
3. A frozen kick-off-the-rail shot.  Dr. David Alciatore describes how to make this shot (and others from the movie) in “Billiards on the Big Screen – The Color of Money” as part of his Illustrated Principles series.
4. Handball and cribbage.
5. 8 ball

Locales

1. Fitzgerald’s in Berwyn, Illinois.  The venue has also been used in the films A League of Their Own; Blink; Adventures in Babysitting; and The Express.
2. O’briens, one of the most famous steakhouses in Chicago’s Old Town.
3. Chris’s Billiards in Chicago.
4. Navy Pier in Chicago.
5. North Center Bowl.  However, this place is long gone, closed in 1999.

Cultural Impact and References

1. Ben Stiller.  To watch and learn about The Hustler of Money, read my review.
2. Community.  To learn about the hilarious episode “Physical Education,” read my review.
3. Doom.  According to the game’s programmer, John Carmack, who picked the game’s title: “There is a scene in The Color of Money where Tom Cruise shows up at a pool hall with a custom pool cue in a case. ‘What do you have in there?’ asks someone. ‘Doom.’ replied Cruise with a cocky grin. That, and the resulting carnage, was how I viewed us springing the game on the industry.”
4. Kingpin (1996).  The quote is from The Ultimate Book of Sports Movies.
5. HUSTLER.  You can read my review of the movie here.

Movie Minutia

1. Stocker.   Aside from its reference in The Color of Money, this 1984 car racing video game is basically a pop cultural blip and one of the least popular arcade video games in existence, according to Arcade-Museum.
2. Child World.
3. TK 6.  To my knowledge, there have been many theories behind the meaning of TK 6, but no definitive answer.
4. Lauria
5. $52 million (according to IMDB).   According to Luke Bonnano’s review for DVDizzy, the $52 million it took in held opposite meaning for its two leading men: over the next dozen years, it was the lowest gross up-and-comer Cruise saw and the highest return on a Newman movie.