Puzzle: Movie Inaccuracies

The Game Room
1

This puzzle consists of a list of 22 movie titles with something in common. The movie titles have been broken into “doublets”, and the doublets then alphabetized.

Example:

GREEN LANTERN
GR EE NL AN TE RN
AN EE GR NL RN TE

Problems:

  1. Mistakes were made with the common factors. Each letter of the common factor is off by one-- either a letter too high or too low. So if the one of the common factors was “GREEN”, it might have been entered instead as “HQDDO”. These miscues occurred prior to the titles being broken up. Sorry about that, but errors do arise. Flubs happen.

  2. Nine of the movie titles have an odd number of letters, making it impossible to break these titles into even doublets. In such cases it was necessary to add an extra letter at the beginning of the titles so that they could be broken up properly. These extra letters, therefore, are not really part of the titles at all.

Mitigating Circumstance:

The extra nine letters in order of occurrence spell out a description of the common factor mistakes.

Can you find the titles of the movies as well as the extra description?

** As a solving aid, the number of letters in the common factor has been generously given.

  1. AN AN DT EE EE GR HE NE NG RZ SS TA (3)

  2. AN CI EL ES HE IM NS OP PR TH (4)

  3. AM AW BM CE ER IC LD LI OR PO UD (3)

  4. BA CO EN ES GT HE NS NT RE SA (4)

  5. AL DS ER FM MA NA NO NO NT NX OA ON RY SI TE TI TI US YS (5)

  6. AM BB HE LO RP US (5)

  7. CH HO IO OC OO (3)

  8. BI FA FO KH NE NX OF OL RC UM (7)

  9. CI EG FF FI GH NE TA TE TH TY UN (5)

  10. BT ER ER ES FR ND NU OW SD TH (3)

  11. AR BM ED KB SZ TH TS (7)

  12. BA CR DE HE MI NT OS SI ST ST WI (4)

  13. AD BB BR EM HT IG IM OI ON RS (5)

  14. AK ES IL LI LY ME NG RN (4)

  15. BO DO ES FT HE HE HS LT NE NI TI VA (4)

  16. EA ED FR GG HH IS KS LD LE (5)

  17. AL CH CI CL DN FZ HE NE SO ST UB (3)

  18. AN BA CA ES FB FT GE HE ID NS OO PI RA RI RT SO TE TR (4)

  19. EA IT LE NX OF OR RR TA TE TO WH (4)

  20. AN BE BS DB DK HD LS NO OM RO RU (5)

  21. BH EH ND NG OF RO ST (8)

  22. ED NB SB TD TR (10)

2

I’m not clear on “common factors”, here. Would that mean that, say, “Green Lantern” and “Green Hornet” (or “The Green Mile”, or some other green movie) were both on the list, making “green” a common factor? Should we expect such pairs of movies to appear together, or are they scattered around the list?

3

Here’s a similar puzzle the OP posted a while ago, which should give you some idea what he’s on about.

4

All the movie titles have something in common. For example:

That Darn Cat
All Dogs Go to Heaven
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Jackass

Common factor: “Animals”

5

Question: I can tell from your example that all of the letters in the word did NOT change in the same direction (G -> H is +1 but E -> D is -1), but do repeated letters (in this case, “D”) all change in the same direction? That is, could you have changed “GREEN” to “HQDFO” just as easily?

6

Alas, yes.

7

I think #3 is:

Team America World Police

But I guess I don’t understand what the deal is with the wrong letters. Is it just to make the puzzle a little more difficult? Does " the number of letters in the common factor" mean the number of incorrect letters?

8

Presumably there’s some sort of pun that pulls the words together - in #3, UDB becomes TEA - maybe they’re all names of drinks?

9

18:

AN BA CA ES FB FT GE HE ID NS OO PI RA RI RT SO TE TR (4)

PI RA TE SO FT HE CA RI B(A FB O)O NS TR AN GE RT ID ES

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (bean)

Common factor is plant products?

10

18:

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
“bean” is the altered element, which changed to AFBO
Edit: :shakes fist:

11

BO DO ES FT HE HE HS LT NE NI TI VA (4)

(L)T HE BO N(E HS D)O FT HE VA NI TI ES

The Bonfire of the Vanities (Fire) - extra letter is L

I guess fire could be a plant product sort of - or is it all things related to brewed drinks? Or cooking?

12


BT ER ER ES FR ND NU OW SD TH (3)
TH ER ES (BT F)R SD OW NU ND ER
The Rescuers Down Under (Cue)

I’m now totally clueless what the common factor is supposed to be.

13

OH, ok, I get what the incorrect letters are now. I misunderstood before.

  1. BI FA FO KH NE NX OF OL RC UM (7)

(K)H FA NX OF FO RC OL UM BI NE
(K)B OW LI NG FO RC OL UM BI NE

Bowling For Columbine (Bowling)

14

Ahh, they’re all words that

combine with “ball” (Teaball, cueball, fireball, beanball)

ETA - also works with Barkis’s answer, which cross posted.

15

slight correction

[spoiler]letters should be in a bit different order for the first 8 - they have to be one letter off in the alphabet

(F)A NX KH OF works, making the spare letter F[/spoiler]

16
  1. CH HO IO OC OO (3)

(O)(O HO) OC CH IO
Pinocchio Pin, extra letter O

Giving it a rest for a while now.

So we have 3, 7, 8, 10, 15, 18.

17

Everyone is doing so well with this one. I’ll be interested to see who gets #22.

18
  1. BA CO EN ES GT HE NS NT RE SA (4)

(G)T HE BA RE (EN NS) CO NT ES SA
The Barefoot Contessa (Foot) ; extra letter G

19

Common factor words so far:

foot, pin, bowling, tea, cue, bean, fire

Spare letters:
F, G, L, O

20
  1. CI EG FF FI GH NE TA TE TH TY UN (5)

TH EG UN FI GH TA T(E NE FF) CI TY
The Gunfight at Dodge City (Dodge)