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This Catch Me If You Can trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers Steven Spielberg's 2002 film from the animated title sequence to the closing captions: Frank Abagnale Jr.'s three careers (pilot, doctor, lawyer), his aliases, the FBI agent who chases him across two continents, the Christmas Eve phone calls, the engagement party escape and the getaway through an airliner's toilet. It also goes behind the camera to the directors who nearly made it, the actor once cast as Hanratty, the 52-day shoot, the Oscar nominations, and the real Frank Abagnale, whose 1980 memoir sparked it all and whose story has since been picked apart by investigators. The 2011 Broadway musical gets its own questions too. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question carries its citation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can?
Steven Spielberg
He committed in August 2001 after several other directors came and went, and shot the whole film in 52 days.
Q 02Which actor plays FBI agent Carl Hanratty, the man on Frank Abagnale's trail?
Tom Hanks
Gandolfini had been lined up for the part in an earlier version of the project under director Gore Verbinski.
Q 03Which actor earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination as Frank Abagnale Sr.?
Christopher Walken
He also picked up a BAFTA nomination. The film's only other Oscar nod went to John Williams for his score.
Q 04Which then little-known actress was cast as Brenda Strong, the nurse Frank gets engaged to?
Amy Adams
Martin Sheen and Nathalie Baye play Brenda's parents; her father, a Louisiana lawyer, helps Frank sit the state bar exam.
Q 05Which airline's pilot uniform does Frank wear while forging payroll cheques under the name Frank Taylor?
Pan Am
He deadheads on flights for free and, in the film's telling, runs up forgeries worth millions of dollars.
Q 06Cornered by Carl in a motel, Frank claims to be a Secret Service agent with what name?
Barry Allen
Carl only later realises the name belongs to the Flash's comic-book alter ego, a clue that his quarry is barely more than a kid.
Q 07Under what alias does he pose as a doctor at a Georgia hospital?
Dr. Conners
That is where he meets Brenda, a naive young nurse. He soon leaves medicine for law.
Q 08Which state's bar exam does Frank pass in the film with the help of Brenda's father?
Louisiana
He goes to work as a prosecutor. The real Abagnale claimed to have been an assistant attorney general there, one of many claims later disputed.
Q 09How does Frank escape when Carl turns up at his engagement party?
Through a bedroom window
He tells Brenda to meet him at Miami airport two days later, then slips past the agents there behind a group of women dressed as stewardesses.
Q 10In which French town, his mother's birthplace, is Frank finally arrested in 1967?
Montrichard
Carl convinces him to surrender to the French police. Quebec City's Old Town stood in for the town on screen.
Q 11How does Frank get off the plane bringing him back to the United States in 1969?
Through the lavatory
Carl has just told him his father is dead. Frank runs to his mother's house and finds she has a new family.
Q 12How long is the prison sentence a judge hands Frank after he surrenders to Carl?
12 years
Carl eventually persuades the FBI to let him serve the rest of it working in the Financial Crimes Unit, spotting forged cheques.
Q 13According to the film's closing titles, how long had Frank been married as of 1991?
26 years
The captions add that he has three sons, lives in the Midwest and remains friends with Carl.
Q 21On what date did Catch Me If You Can open in US cinemas?
December 25, 2002
The premiere had been held a week earlier in Westwood, Los Angeles. It holds a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Q 22Roughly how much did Catch Me If You Can gross worldwide?
$352 million
That was nearly seven times its budget, making it one of the biggest hits of the 2002 holiday season.
Q 23Who composed the jazzy score for Catch Me If You Can?
John Williams
It brought him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score, alongside Frank Sinatra's 'Come Fly with Me' and 'The Girl from Ipanema' on the soundtrack.
Q 14With whom is Frank's mother Paula having an affair, in the discovery that precedes his parents' divorce?
Jack Barnes, his father's friend
James Brolin plays Barnes. When Frank finally reaches his mother's home years later, she is married to Barnes and has a young daughter.
Q 15In which New York suburb does the Abagnale family live in 1963 before IRS troubles force them to move?
New Rochelle
Frank watches his father work his charm on bank managers there, and picks up the tricks.
Q 16In which French port city does the film open, with Carl arriving to collect his prisoner in 1969?
Marseille
The rest of the story then unfolds in flashback from 1963.
Q 17Which director was first attached to Catch Me If You Can before leaving for another project?
David Fincher
Verbinski, Hallström, Miloš Forman and Crowe were all considered before Spielberg committed in August 2001.
Q 18How many days did it take to shoot Catch Me If You Can?
52
Filming ran from February to May 2002 across 147 locations in Los Angeles, New York, Quebec and Montreal.
Q 19How many filming locations were used for Catch Me If You Can?
147
They included the TWA Flight Center at JFK, and Quebec City stood in for the French town where Frank is caught.
Q 20What was the production budget of Catch Me If You Can?
$52 million
It went on to gross $352.1 million worldwide after opening on Christmas Day 2002.
Q 24Which Frank Sinatra song features on the Catch Me If You Can soundtrack?
Come Fly with Me
Fitting for a film about a fake airline pilot. Stan Getz and João Gilberto's 'The Girl from Ipanema' is on there too.
Q 25The real Frank Abagnale makes a cameo in the film as what?
A French police officer
He appears during the arrest in France. His 1980 memoir, co-written with Stan Redding, was the basis for the screenplay.
Q 26Carl Hanratty was based on which real FBI agent, who did not want his name used in the film?
Joseph Shea
The surname Hanratty was borrowed from football player Terry Hanratty instead.
Q 27Carl's surname in the film was borrowed from a well-known figure in which field?
Football
Terry Hanratty was a Notre Dame quarterback who won two Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Q 28Spielberg spotted Jennifer Garner in which TV series before casting her in Catch Me If You Can?
Alias
Ellen Pompeo and Elizabeth Banks also turn up in small parts, as Marci and Lucy, a few years before their own breakthroughs.
Q 29Which future Grey's Anatomy star plays Marci, one of the young women Frank charms?
Ellen Pompeo
Elizabeth Banks plays Lucy, the bank teller who explains cheque routing to Frank.
Q 30Who wrote the screenplay for Catch Me If You Can?
Jeff Nathanson
He adapted Abagnale's semi-autobiographical 1980 book, whose film rights were sold the year it was published.