I wanted to post this puzzle yesterday as part of the Sunday Morning Puzzle series, but I was buried deep in W2s, 1040s, Schedule Bs, receipts, and current tax law documents. Ugh…what a mess! I know many of you have also just gone through the same type of tax nightmare, so after THAT—this puzzle should be a breeze.
The puzzle involves sixteen movie titles. The titles were broken into “doublets”, and the doublets were then alphabetized. For example, if the title was “Internal Revenue Service”, it would be broken into IN TE RN AL RE VE NU ES ER VI CE and alphabetized thus: AL CE ER ES IN NU RE RN TE VE VI.
Problem: Prior to their being broken into doublets, the movie titles were visited by the IRS, and a tax was levied. A certain number of consecutive letters were therefore removed. That number is indicated in the parentheses following each doublet set.
Mitigating Circumstance: Each of the titles was fortunately due a refund. The refund was returned in either three or four letters. If the refund was in three letters, it consists of an extra doublet and a single letter matched with a single letter from the original title. If the refund was in four letters, then it merely consists of two extra doublets. The refund includes its source.
Note: The titles are listed in alphabetical order by their tax.
Can you find the original sixteen titles as well as the “refund”?
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ER ER ER HE HE IV OG ON QU SC SE ST TR UN (4)
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HA ND NG OA RD TA (4)
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EO ES NA ND TH TT VI (4)
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EI FO HE HI IN NG NT RE TA TH UN (5)
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ET FF HO IA IR MA NT SA TH (5)
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AN BA CK CO DE E& EA EF HE IM IV JI ME MM MY NJ TH TO WO YD (4)
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AL AN CA DT LA MP NA NS ON ON OO PE RL TI TI VA (4)
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DY ED ED ER FR GO ND OU TG (3)
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AL ER ET IS KI LE MU NG ST TH (5)
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AN AN DI EE EM NG TH TH TH UN WI (4)
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IL LU NC ON SI SI (5)
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EO ET FZ OM OR RO TH (4)
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AL AX EC OF OL OR TH (5)
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BE EG FW RA RA RT TH TH (4)
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DO EI EN FM IC NS TH US (3)
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IN TE TL (3)