Puzzle: Misguided Movies

The Game Room
1

This puzzle is a list of 21 movie titles with something in common. The movie titles have been broken into “doublets” and the doublets alphabetized.

Example:

AMERICAN HUSTLE
AM ER IC AN HU ST LE
AM AN ER HU IC LE ST

**
Problems:**

  1. Something went wrong with my computer (probably due to the recent power outage) and unfortunately all the letters of the “common factor” part of the title are off by one letter, either a letter too high or a letter too low. So, for example, if the common factor was “body parts” then MY LEFT FOOT might become MY LEFT GNPS and THE CHINA SYNDROME could become THE DIHOA SYNDROME. Sorry about this, but don’t blame me. Blame the power company.
  2. Some of the titles have an odd number of letters. So in order to break them properly into doublets, an extra letter had to be added at the beginning of these titles prior to breaking them up. Also, all the titles with an even number of letters have an extra doublet. These extra letters will not be used when solving the titles.

**
Mitigating Circumstance:**
The extra letters, when read in order, will spell out something you might say upon figuring out the common factor and then solving the puzzle.
Can you reconstruct the movie titles and discover the common factor?

  1. AN AP DA EL ES GR HE NT OT TE TH
  2. AC AR BR DE EM EW GG KS LD NM OM OR OR SA TH TT
  3. EE ES HA HA MP NK ON OR SF TH TI WS
  4. AR EA ES EW HB ID OS RS
  5. DF DO ES FR IE IN MA SF TO TO
  6. DA ER HM IE LD NK OR PY RS SO TI UB
  7. AG DV EI ER ET FB HO NA NG OG RK SI TI WT
  8. CA EB EC FA NR OF OK ON RM RO RT YB
  9. ET FT HE HE HI IG NA OH SO UA
  10. AM CA DE DU ED RE RN SA SD SI TU
  11. BS EA HE HO ME NW OA ST TG TS TU
  12. AK ER IL OR PP
  13. BZ DE EE EN EP NC ND SI
  14. AT BB CK ET HE IO LL LS NR NS TA UR
  15. FI GH HO KN LL OC OL RO SC WR
  16. AL BA BE DB HE HN LA LB MA NT OW RA RI RO SI SM SO TH TY
  17. CO CO EC ED ER HR IS IT LU MB OH RY TH UN US VE
  18. BB BI BO BS CH ER GF IN IS LI OR RD YF
  19. GT IN NG NS RA RO TI
  20. AI CA EW HT LD LZ MO NA ND OF OR OW PT RR TH TO
  21. AN DE DO HA NH TS WS
2

I’ll take the short easy one:

  1. Moonraker - leftover letter: I
3
  1. Independence Day - leftover letter: S
4
  1. Trainspotting - leftover letter: G

scrambled words so far: moon, day, spot

5
  1. The Shawshank Redemption - leftover: OR
6
  1. Searching For Bobby Fischer - leftover: LI

the common theme seems to be words that precede the word light:

red light
moon light
day light
spot light
search light

7
  1. Shadows and Fog - leftover: T
8
  1. Fried Green Tomatoes - IN
  2. Christopher Columbus: The Discovery - E
9
  1. The Night of the Iguana - E
10

9 down, 12 to go. Nice job so far Nauplius!

Apologies ahead of time for the somewhat obscure 1940’s sci-fi flick and that other rather disreputable title.

11
  1. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Left over: H
12
  1. The Grand Budapest Hotel. Left over: N
13
  1. A Streetcar Named Desire. Left over: S
14
  1. The Men who Stare at Goats. Left over: S
15
  1. Rock ‘n’ Roll High School. Left over: W
16
  1. Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-a-rama. Left over: TH

:rolleyes: I never heard of that movie before. After working on it a while, I suspected “sorority babes” was in there, so I did an IMDB search on that phrase and this is what turned up.

17

Dang! You are rocking, blbliophage!

(And hey, you try and find a movie with “lime” in the title. It ain’t easy.)

18
  1. How to Get Ahead in Advertising - RK
19
  1. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - DA

The leftover letters seem to be spelling out:

No more darkness I saw the light
That means the last few leftovers are:
2. OM
4. E
8. N
14. A

20
  1. The Black Stallion Returns - A