Final Jeopardy: 1970s Films (6-30-14)

The Final Jeopardy question (6/30/2014), in the category “1970s Films” was:

In 2013 Mario Cuomo said he finally saw this film, which he had boycotted for personal reasons, & called it “maybe …a masterpiece”.

Jill Rowley won $12,201 on Friday and is back today to try out for a second win. Today she takes on these two players: Ben Zimmer, from Jersey City, NJ; and Melinda Dudley, from Hayden, CO.

Round 1: Melinda found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “A Model of Ford, &…” under the $600 clue. She was in the lead with $4,000, $1,000 ahead of Jill in second place. She bet $2,500 but could not come up with anything so she was WRONG.

A thermonuclear reaction. show

Ben finished in the lead with $5,400. Jill was second with $4,800 and Melinda was last with $4,700.

Round 2: Melinda found the first Daily Double in “Mashed Up Book Titles” under the $800 clue. She was in third place with $5,100, $6,900 behind Jill’s lead. She bet $3,000 and she was RIGHT.

“A” is for Trespass” show

Ben found the last Daily Double in “U.S. Colony Names” under the $1,200 clue. In second place with $11,400, he was $5,400 behind Jill’s lead. He bet $4,000 and he was RIGHT.

Massachusetts means “at the big” one of these; Colony Gov. John Winthrop said, “We shall be as a city upon” one of these. show

Jill finished in the lead with $18,800. Ben was next with $15,800 and Melinda was in third place with $7,300.

ALL of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHAT IS “THE GODFATHER”?

In October 2013, former NY Governor Mario Cuomo finally ended his boycott against this film, which in his view depicted Italian-Americans in a bad light. He told Larry King “maybe this thing was a masterpiece.” The NY Times reported: “Cuomo’s stand against negative depictions of Italian-Americans went far beyond preferring not to watch mob movies. He frequently railed against the suggestion that organized crime is mainly Italian, and even told reporters in 1985, ‘You’re telling me that Mafia is an organization, and I’m telling you that’s a lot of baloney.’ (Then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani countered that there was in fact a group called the Mafia that ‘organizes itself around the fact that it is Italian or Italian-American.’)”



Melinda bet $3,000 so she finished with $10,300.

Ben also bet $3,000. He finished with $18,800.

Jill bet $12,801 so she won the match with $31,601. Great to start out the week with a big win! You go, Jill! Her 2-day total is $43,802.

Here are the only triple stumpers in Double Jeopardy!

U.S. COLONY NAMES ($1600) New York is named for the Duke of York, who would become this king in 1685

LASTS ($2000) This Hitler deputy was the last prisoner at both the Tower of London & Spandau
2 years ago:: ALL of the players got this FJ in “Famous Relatives.”

In 2011 his daughter Svetlana, living in the U.S. under the name Lana Peters, died in Wisconsin at age 85. show

We may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases made from Amazon.com links at no cost to our visitors. Learn more: Affiliate Disclosure.

Share

You may also like...

27 Responses

  1. Jesse Yu says:

    Ben was one of the holdovers from my contestant pool, Jersey City guy. Guess he got to go in the first game of the day, like James did last Monday, as he was a local alternate making his second attempt to get on the show…

    Didn’t get to see the episode since I was out in Flushing, but I’m sure I can find it online eventually.

    As I said before, Jill is a very nice person and I’m glad she continues her winning streak.

    Ben was a really nice person too, and his wife and kid didn’t get to see him play on the Tuesday tapings, so I hope they came back and saw him this time. He did his best and apparently kept it close, so I hope he feels like I did after my game and doesn’t feel too bad about how the game panned out.

    One more person left in my contestant pool to compete, which she will this week, guaranteed. As I said somewhere else, she’s a woman from a suburb of Boston I remembered from my audition in a hotel off of Times Square way back in May 2013. Can’t wait to see how she does!

  2. jacobska says:

    This was a good game. A fast paced game and well played. Very few triple stumpers. Jill is a little fireball. Highly intelligent and well rounded with respect to information. It is a pleasure to watch her play.

    Glad Trebek did not attempt any impersonations in fj, vj. It would have been out of place. Glad to see all 3 contestants get fj correct. My prediction over on CotD was a clean sweep in fj. Hope to see more of these this week.

  3. eric s says:

    JOHN, I don’t know if you saw the piece on FIFA. As a sports fan who really only watches soccer (yes, futbol, I know) during the World Cup, I’d be interested in your take.

    • john blahuta says:

      which one? the “dive” by robben, the bite by suarez…? there are dozens of articles about FIFA ( Federation Internationale de Football Association in french . the english acronym would be IFAF, International Federation of Assosiacion Football. but FIFA sounds better)the most corrupt organization in the world, and the president, sepp blatter (a swiss) the top crook. so you have to be more specific, eric!there are too many stories, articles, accusations etc than to shake a stick at….still by far the most played and watched sport on the planet.the money involved in today’s pro football is unbelievable. where there is money, there is temptation, where there is temptation, ……

      • john blahuta says:

        plus, the red sox suck at the moment….

        • eric s says:

          The Sox are pacing themselves for a tremendous playoff run (just like they always do when they’re not in first place, ha!).

      • eric s says:

        Sorry, John. I meant the video piece VJ put up by John Oliver, but I think that you may have covered it.

        • john blahuta says:

          yeah, oliver covered it, but he could just scratch the surface. UEFA (the european branch of FIFA) are the second biggest culprits. you can not deny that football has brought a lot of money and jobs to countries and people who would never would have even clean water….
          but FIFA is the capo di tutti capi….
          a billion bucks reserve and a non-profit organization….if we both had the money that disappeared in the black hole aka FIFA we could each buy our own island in the caribbean…..i could write books about that” organization” but they have so much money, they are untouchable….

        • eric s says:

          John, have you ever written a book?

        • john blahuta says:

          btw, john oliver is hilarious. i found a new guy to follow. of course all the stadiums in qatar will be covered and equipped with a/c, but again, cosa nostra has a lot to learn from fifa. primarily , how to have billion bucks in the bank, be a NON-PROFIT organization and as such pay no taxes….
          oh switzerland, land of chocolates and bank accounts that don’t exist!
          but thanks for drawing my attention to oliver. i think i will enjoy quite a few hours watching him on all kind of subjects. since he is english, he understands europe. since he lives in the u.s., he understands america.

        • eric s says:

          Happy to reflect the enlightenment to which VJ provides a path.

        • john blahuta says:

          re your question about ” have i written a book”?. no, unless you want to call my thesis a book, (after all, it was over 300 pages long…)
          but i think i …well you know: could have,should have, would have. some of those paperbacks you can read today in under 24 hours, i could probably grind out 2 or 3 per year (vince flynn etc…)i think i was born some 30 years too early. there are options today for people who are 30 that were not there when i was 30…..and i have been to enough places and saw things, lived through events where each one could make a book. especially TODAY.

  4. VJ says:

    No impression fron Trebek… boo hoo hoo

    • eric s says:

      Too cold to do on FJ: they don’t want the audience laughing while there’s two losers (or at least one).

  5. john blahuta says:

    can somebody please explain melinda’s bet to me???
    ben was in a tough place. to overtake the leader (or tie with her) he had to abandon guarding against #3. but it did not matter anyway.jill for once made the right bet (remember friday???) AND was right.

    • eric s says:

      My best guess was she knew that she couldn’t catch them, so she left a decent amount (more than the difference between Jill and Ben). That way, if Jill made the bet she made (as seen as correct) and Ben went Roger Craig, and they were both wrong, she would win regardless of her answer. It was really her only winning strategy.

      • eric s says:

        Nevermind. Totally wrong. She should have bet less than or up to 1300. Good point.

        • john blahuta says:

          if melinda would have bet 1.300, ben everything and jill as she did and all were wrong, melinda would have been left with 6K,ben with 0 and jill with 5.999 (18.800 minus 12.801. so zero to a max of 1.300 would have made sense, you are absolutely right,eric!

        • eric s says:

          Thanks, John. Even a blind nut finds a squirrel every once in a while.

        • john blahuta says:

          you don’t look that blind to me! 🙂

        • eric s says:

          Are you calling me a nut?

          Ha, ha.

      • john blahuta says:

        would you rather be the squirrel? har,har…

    • eric s says:

      What I have to wonder about, as I don’t always get to watch the games, is the last DD bet by Ben. By the ending numbers there was some game left, to be sure, but he would have been crippled if he was left with only 7400 (11.4-4.0) to Jill’s 16800. Why not go Newton-Einstein (or Roger Craig, if you prefer)? Take the bloody lead. I think as game theory in Jeopardy advances (like football teams going for it on fourth down inside the other teams 40 yard line, or Patrick Roy pulling his goalie with two or three minutes left: Sport Team knows what I’m talking about) things will get much more interesting.