Quiz Show

Rating:
Summary: Television's Going to Get Us!
Review: "I thought we were gonna get television," says Rob Morrow's character, the investigator Goodwin, "truth is, television's gonna get us!" That line sums up so much about the film's outlook. This story, with great liberties to historic fact, still presents a compelling look at the quiz show scandals of the 1950's. While "The $64,000 Question" and "Dotto" are never mentioned, the basic tale of Charles Van Doren, Herb Stempel, Dan Enright, and Albert Freedman presents a very compelling case study in why good, honest people do dishonest things, and their rationalization behind it. Even as the film's credits are rolling, you'll hear Enright remain unrepentant, and insist their problem was they were just too successful at what they were doing, hence the attack on their "Twenty-One." The viewer should know that the Van Doren-Stempel clash was, in truth, stretched out for several weeks, and it was a few years after Van Doren's defeat that the truth of the fix was finally revealed. (Also, Enright tells Van Doren in this film that Dwight Eisenhower didn't write "Crusade In Europe." Students of Eisenhower can attest to the fact that Ike most certainly did author "Crusade In Europe" and it was not ghost-written.) This film, and "Network" are probably two of the most important films about the broadcasting industry you can find. Both do a very good job of telling the audience what the industry thinks of them, which isn't, at the end of the day, very much.

Rating:
Summary: flawed rendering of important topic
Review: "Quiz Show" details the famous scandal that brought TV game shows into disrepute in the late 1950's. One of the most popular, "21" put rival contestants in sealed glass booths where they answered obscure trivia and became celebrities. In fact, producers rigged the game so that more popular contestants won out over the lesser. (Popular contestants stay with the show until their appeal begins to wane or, in the case of Herb Semple, when network bosses get sick of watching them sweat. Then they lose). The none-too-deft script of "Quiz" makes clear that the show's craven producers (led by the underrated David Paymer) callously use and discard contestants that initially click with but eventually annoy the show's audience - and tneir own bosses. (though Paymer's character acts at the direction of network execs, he proves he can find the reservoir of weakness in his victims, and shows no mercy). Taking a payoff to "lose" to the brighter and handsomer Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), Herb Semple (John Turtorro, playing against type as a soft-spoken, weak-willed loser) raises a stink but fails to bring the show down - nobody will believe his conspiracy theories, mostly because of the popularity that Charles has before he comes to "21". The son of poet laureate Mark Van Doren (Paul Scofield) and a Columbia professor in his own right, Charles doesn't look or sound like the kind of man who would have to cheat at anything. While not suspecting Charlie, Assistant US Attorney Dick Goodwin (Rob Morrow) is primed to "put television on trial" by exposing quiz shows and punishing the corporate execs who rig them. Finding Stemple as his only apparently cooperative witness (Herbie accuses other contestants of taking payoffs, neglecting to mention what he's received), Goodwin finds little to support the case against TV. Network bosses "confirm" their assessment of Stemple as severely emotionally disturbed - as indicated by his accusations that "21" builds up Jewish contestants only to have them routed by gentiles. Goodwin agrees that it sounds ludicrous, but the statistics actually seem to support what Stemple has been saying. Not quite convinced by Herb, Goodwin tracks down other players, but finds only dead-ends. Eventually, and despite Charlie's impeccable pedigree, Goodwin comes to suspect him of cheating as well. Charlie is in fact so beyond reproach that congressmen even begin to applaud him at first when he testifies about his nationally televised fraud.

This film is a disappointment - it's well made, but never arises to ask itself who or what it's really about. The script focuses on each of Stemple, Van Doren and Goodwin, the relegates them to bit players in the story of the other characters (so we never get to see how they transform against the backdrop of the emerging scandal; it also detracts from the depth of their performances). Also, the script takes a long time to develop as incredibly ironic something that we all pretty much assumed when we started watching - that only those lowest would take the fall, while the bigger fish (the network heads) would walk away without ever having to explain where their loyalties lay. See it though for the (admittedly undermined) performances, mainly from the smaller characters like Paymer's producer or Scofield as Charlie's father. Having played Thomas Moore years ago, Scofield updates his "Man For All Seasons" shtick here, setting the tone early on when he passes on a rumor that Ike is dead ("Nixon's president?" asks a terrified fellow Ivy-Leaguer). When Charlie tells his father of his wrongdoing, you expect the older man to reply back sadly "what profits a man if he gains the world but loses his soul? And you did this for Television?"

Rating:
Summary: Great perspective on the quiz show scandals of the 50's
Review: "The $64,000 Challenge." "Twenty One." "Tic Tac Dough." In the 1950s, America was in love with television game shows. But, little did the public know that things were not well at the television networks. Many game shows were rigged, contestants cheated, and integrity was given up for money and higher ratings. "Quiz Show," the 1994 movie directed by Robert Redford, takes a painful and memorable look at the television game show scandals of 1958.

"Quiz Show" is based off the true story of Richard Goodwin, the lawyer who uncovered the scandal of the popular NBC quiz show "Twenty One." When ratings begin to fall of the show, David Paymer, playing "Twenty One" producer Dan Enwright, blames the geeky long-standing champion Herb Stempel, comically played by John Turturro, for the show's troubles.

Enwright recruits another contestant, a handsome, refined college professor named Charles Van Doren (played by Ralph Fiennes), whom he feels will gain public approval and help ratings. To ensure that Van Doren stays on television, Enwright insists that Van Doren receive the answers to questions asked on the show in advance.

Once Van Doren arrives on "Twenty One," ratings climb and Van Doren becomes a hero to millions of fans across the nation (not to mention the infatuation of thousands of young girls).

When the outraged Stempel goes to court and declares that the "Twenty One" was fixed, Richard Goodwin, a young lawyer from Washington, is intrigued by the case and decides to probe further. Thus, a national scandal is born.

The development of the characters in "Quiz Show" are compelling, particularly that of Charles Van Doren. First, Fiennes portrays Van Doren as an honorable man with values - he initially questions the ethics of being given answers to questions. Then, Van Doren is cast as a man who knew that he was breaking rules but was enjoying himself too much to care. Finally, the audience begins to feel Van Doren's pain when he finally confesses to the world of his wrongdoings.

Van Doren's anguish can be felt in a scene with his father, Mark Van Doren, a distinguished poet played by Paul Scofield. In this scene, Charles questions his morals and desperately needs guidance, but cannot bring himself to disappoint his father by telling him what he has done. Fiennes is able to radiate these struggling emotions without saying a word.

Scofield also gave an amazing performance as Mark Van Doren. In a later scene when he hears of Charles's predicament, his sorrow can be seen in his face. When Charles tries to assure his father that this will not damage his reputation, the elder Van Doren expresses his disappointment and pain all in one, sorrowful sentence: "Your name is mine."

Robert Redford did an amazing job on "Quiz Show". His recreation of the 1950s was complete and believable. The beginning scenes of people glued to their television sets helped to show how obsessed America was with television. The jazz music by Mark Isham helped to further recreate the atmosphere of the time period.
One flaw in this movie, however, was that of Rob Morrow's portrayal of Richard Goodwin. His faked Boston accent was annoying at best. His character also was overdone, perhaps because the movie was based off a book by Richard Goodwin himself. The movie should have focused on other characters, such as the NBC producers.

The 1958 "Twenty One" case questioned the ethics of the television show business. Robert Redford created an unforgettable movie by presenting a painful yet compassionate perspective of the people involved in this scandal. This can be seen in a noteworthy line from Charles Van Doren when he testified at court:
"I've stood on the shoulders of life and I've never gotten down into the dirt to build, to erect a foundation of my own. I've flown too high on borrowed wings..."

Rating:
Summary: "They just wanted to watch the money."
Review: Ah, the good ol' Fifties. The time when, after decades of depression and war, people finally wanted to get on with their lives, rebuild the economy and sweep everything dark and dirty under a big rug (including the escalating arms race with the Soviet Union). When television was everybody's new best friend, and ruled by the likes of Ed Sullivan, Lassie, Bozo the Clown and Lucy ... and by quiz shows.

Well aware of the contests' new, uniquely thrilling live entertainment, studio executives and sponsors quickly capitalized on their appeal, eager to maximize the resulting profits. To that end, however, the shows' outcome couldn't be left to chance: Then as now, viewers were looking for the "right" kind of hero to identify with; so ultimately it was unthinkable to let someone like Herbert Stempel (John Turturro) - not only an annoying nerd with thick glasses and bad teeth but worse, an annoying *Jewish* nerd with thick glasses and bad teeth - win the famous "Twenty-One" for more than a couple of weeks. A more suitable replacement was found in Columbia University lecturer Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), descendant of one of New England's foremost intellectual families and, in the words of the show's co-producer Albert Freedman (Hank Azaria), soon the TV nation's new "great white hope." A brilliant intellectual who nevertheless felt eternally inferior to his Pulitzer Prize-winning father, poet Mark Van Doren (Paul Scofield), his mother (Elizabeth Wilson), likewise a distinguished author, and his uncle, Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Van Doren, Charles ultimately agreed to sell his integrity for a high flight to fame and fortune on borrowed wings, and thus succumbed to the one force driving a quiz show's appeal more than anything else: money, and astronomically large sums thereof.

Based on former Congressional investigator and Kennedy speechwriter Richard Goodwin's "Remembering America: A Voice From the Sixties" and scripted by Paul Attanasio, Robert Redford's 1994 film brilliantly traces the "Twenty-One" scandal - the biggest of several scandals involving rigged quiz shows - from the moment Stempel was told to take a humiliating dive and pass the helm to Van Doren (Goodwin also co-produced). The movie's tone is set from the opening scene, which focuses on neither of the contestants but Goodwin himself (Rob Morrow), newly arrived in Washington with a first-in-his-class Harvard Law School degree in his pockets, and admiring the latest thing in automobile technology in a Chrysler showroom ("Used to be the man drives the car, now the car drives the man," he eventually comments, wowed by the dealer's sales talk). Turning on the radio, they catch an announcer's remark on the Sputnik launch: "All is not well with America" (but "America doesn't own the [Chrysler] 300," the dealer responds). Then Goodwin changes the station and the film's opening credits begin to roll, significantly over Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's "Threepenny Opera:" Although originally conceived as a "Moritat," a darkly cynical ballad, Darin's swinging, upbeat 1959 version, a No. 1 hit for all of 22 weeks (1 1/2 times as long as Van Doren reigned on "Twenty-One") musically pulls every last tooth out of the song's sharp-edged lyrics; just as television's goody-two-shoes pseudo-reality and America's newfound prosperity seemed to obliterate the era's grimmer sociopolitical truths.

"Quiz Show" has been described, in turns, as a political thriller, a morality play, a parable on the loss of innocence and a fact-based drama; and it is all that, and more. It obviously has to be seen in context with "All the President's Men," Redford's 1976 film costarring Dustin Hoffman and Jason Robards, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Woodward-Bernstein account on Watergate. Just as America lost its political innocence there, it had already lost its innocence vis-a-vis showbiz in the quiz show scandals. But this is also a fascinating exploration of the scandal's underlying psychology; of that mix of insecurity, greed, ambition, hero-worship, prejudice and self-deception which made the manipulation possible in the first place and allowed it to go undetected for so long.

Of the movie's tremendous cast, John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes and Paul Scofield particularly give standout performances as the nerdy, deeply humiliated Herb Stempel, the dazzling Ivy Leaguer Charles Van Doren and his intellectually brilliant, unwaveringly supportive and profoundly moral father Mark, who can snap out a Shakespeare quote appropriate to any situation at the drop of a hat. Rob Morrow's Dick Goodwin, the Jewish kid from Brookline who made it to Harvard and D.C. but is still occasionally up against prejudice, is not far behind (although I confess I sometimes find his accent a tad unconvincingly thick; more so than Fiennes's and Scofield's more refined New England versions). Not to be overlooked are also their female costars - besides Elizabeth Wilson, Mira Sorvino and Johann Carlo as Goodwin's and Stempel's wives - and of course the gang responsible for the goings-on at "Twenty-One:" David Paymer as slick producer Dan Enright, Hank Azaria as his sidekick, Christopher McDonald as host Jack Barry, Allan Rich as NBC boss Robert Kintner and Martin Scorsese in a rare and deadpan appearance as an actor as corporate sponsor Geritol's chairman Martin Rittenhome. (Besides, watch for Barry Levinson as "Today Show" host Dave Garroway and Calista Flockhart and Ethan Hawke [uncredited] as star-struck students).

When first setting out to investigate "Twenty-One," Goodwin aimed no lower than putting television itself on trial. But while the Congressional hearings did cause the downfall of the show and its greatest champion, Enright and Barry soon returned to television, and none of the others responsible for the manipulations suffered any consequences at all. Quiz shows are more popular than ever. "Give the public what they want ... It's entertainment. We're not exactly hardened criminals here. We're in showbusiness," was Al Freedman's cynical conclusion. And the movie's last words are again those of Berthold Brecht, but this time in Lyle Lovett's much darker version of the Moritat: "Mackie, how much did you charge ...?"

"Millionaire," anyone?

Rating:
Summary: "They just wanted to watch the money."
Review: Ah, the good ol' Fifties. The time when, after decades of depression and war, people finally wanted to get on with their lives, rebuild the economy and sweep everything dark and dirty under a big rug (including the escalating arms race with the Soviet Union). When television was everybody's new best friend, and ruled by the likes of Ed Sullivan, Lassie, Bozo the Clown and Lucy ... and by quiz shows.

Well aware of the contests' new, uniquely thrilling live entertainment, studio executives and sponsors quickly capitalized on their appeal, eager to maximize the resulting profits. To that end, however, the shows' outcome couldn't be left to chance: Then as now, viewers were looking for the "right" kind of hero to identify with; so ultimately it was unthinkable to let someone like Herbert Stempel (John Turturro) - not only an annoying nerd with thick glasses and bad teeth but worse, an annoying *Jewish* nerd with thick glasses and bad teeth - win the famous "Twenty-One" for more than a couple of weeks. A more suitable replacement was found in Columbia University lecturer Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), descendant of one of New England's foremost intellectual families and, in the words of the show's co-producer Albert Freedman (Hank Azaria), soon the TV nation's new "great white hope." A brilliant intellectual who nevertheless felt eternally inferior to his Pulitzer Prize-winning father, poet Mark Van Doren (Paul Scofield), his mother (Elizabeth Wilson), likewise a distinguished author, and his uncle, Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Van Doren, Charles ultimately agreed to sell his integrity for a high flight to fame and fortune on borrowed wings, and thus succumbed to the one force driving a quiz show's appeal more than anything else: money, and astronomically large sums thereof.

Based on former Congressional investigator and Kennedy speechwriter Richard Goodwin's "Remembering America: A Voice From the Sixties" and scripted by Paul Attanasio, Robert Redford's 1994 film brilliantly traces the "Twenty-One" scandal - the biggest of several scandals involving rigged quiz shows - from the moment Stempel was told to take a humiliating dive and pass the helm to Van Doren (Goodwin also co-produced). The movie's tone is set from the opening scene, which focuses on neither of the contestants but Goodwin himself (Rob Morrow), newly arrived in Washington with a first-in-his-class Harvard Law School degree in his pockets, and admiring the latest thing in automobile technology in a Chrysler showroom ("Used to be the man drives the car, now the car drives the man," he eventually comments, wowed by the dealer's sales talk). Turning on the radio, they catch an announcer's remark on the Sputnik launch: "All is not well with America" (but "America doesn't own the [Chrysler] 300," the dealer responds). Then Goodwin changes the station and the film's opening credits begin to roll, significantly over Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's "Threepenny Opera:" Although originally conceived as a "Moritat," a darkly cynical ballad, Darin's swinging, upbeat 1959 version, a No. 1 hit for all of 22 weeks (1 1/2 times as long as Van Doren reigned on "Twenty-One") musically pulls every last tooth out of the song's sharp-edged lyrics; just as television's goody-two-shoes pseudo-reality and America's newfound prosperity seemed to obliterate the era's grimmer sociopolitical truths.

"Quiz Show" has been described, in turns, as a political thriller, a morality play, a parable on the loss of innocence and a fact-based drama; and it is all that, and more. It obviously has to be seen in context with "All the President's Men," Redford's 1976 film costarring Dustin Hoffman and Jason Robards, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Woodward-Bernstein account on Watergate. Just as America lost its political innocence there, it had already lost its innocence vis-a-vis showbiz in the quiz show scandals. But this is also a fascinating exploration of the scandal's underlying psychology; of that mix of insecurity, greed, ambition, hero-worship, prejudice and self-deception which made the manipulation possible in the first place and allowed it to go undetected for so long.

Of the movie's tremendous cast, John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes and Paul Scofield particularly give standout performances as the nerdy, deeply humiliated Herb Stempel, the dazzling Ivy Leaguer Charles Van Doren and his intellectually brilliant, unwaveringly supportive and profoundly moral father Mark, who can snap out a Shakespeare quote appropriate to any situation at the drop of a hat. Rob Morrow's Dick Goodwin, the Jewish kid from Brookline who made it to Harvard and D.C. but is still occasionally up against prejudice, is not far behind (although I confess I sometimes find his accent a tad unconvincingly thick; more so than Fiennes's and Scofield's more refined New England versions). Not to be overlooked are also their female costars - besides Elizabeth Wilson, Mira Sorvino and Johann Carlo as Goodwin's and Stempel's wives - and of course the gang responsible for the goings-on at "Twenty-One:" David Paymer as slick producer Dan Enright, Hank Azaria as his sidekick, Christopher McDonald as host Jack Barry, Allan Rich as NBC boss Robert Kintner and Martin Scorsese in a rare and deadpan appearance as an actor as corporate sponsor Geritol's chairman Martin Rittenhome. (Besides, watch for Barry Levinson as "Today Show" host Dave Garroway and Calista Flockhart and Ethan Hawke [uncredited] as star-struck students).

When first setting out to investigate "Twenty-One," Goodwin aimed no lower than putting television itself on trial. But while the Congressional hearings did cause the downfall of the show and its greatest champion, Enright and Barry soon returned to television, and none of the others responsible for the manipulations suffered any consequences at all. Quiz shows are more popular than ever. "Give the public what they want ... It's entertainment. We're not exactly hardened criminals here. We're in showbusiness," was Al Freedman's cynical conclusion. And the movie's last words are again those of Berthold Brecht, but this time in Lyle Lovett's much darker version of the Moritat: "Mackie, how much did you charge ...?"

"Millionaire," anyone?

Rating:
Summary: Even Redford Can Make a Fine Movie with a Cast Like This
Review: Almost everything I've seen by Robert Redford bowls me over with its blandness. Remember the aptly titled Ordinary People? Few people seem to any more. Quiz Show was the exception that proved the rule. Although it's overdone in parts, particularly Rob Morrow's role, many of the other actors do such a superlative job here that the film approaches masterpiece status. Ralph Fiennes, John Turturro and, of course, Paul Schofield are three of the very finest actors working today and each is up to his best here. Another performer who has been very good whenever I've seen him, but who seems to be highly underrated, is David Paymer who also brings a subdued intensity to his role as the producer at the center of things. Although the plot, based on the notorious government investigations of the game show frauds of the late 50's, is a bit loose ended, the performance by these four actors is just splendid and overcomes any script shortcomings. It's difficult to imagine Schofield, Fiennes or Turturro needing any direction here. Now, if only Robert Redford could work with them all the time his productions wouldn't be limited to white bread consistency.

Rating:
Summary: Superb recounting of the Quiz Show Scandals
Review: Although not a reason this movie is so good, I would like to begin by stating that as a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas, I believe this is the only movie ever made that mentions Arkadelphia. And not just once, but twice!

There are many, many reasons this movie succeeds so marvelously, but I would like to focus on three.

First, this movie benefits from an exceedingly fine cast. Not merely the leads, but many of the lesser roles are filled with extremely good actors and actresses. While Ralph Fiennes, John Tuturro, and Rob Morrow all shine in the leads, lesser parts are filled with people like David Paymer, Hank Azaria, Mira Sorvino, and Martin Scorsese. I was especially impressed by the always superb but underutilized Paul Scofield (who won the Oscar portraying Thomas More in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS). He seems the very embodiment of the man of reason, erudition, and courtesy portraying Mark van Doren, and his pain upon learning his beloved son has lost his teaching position at Columbia is one of the great poignant moments in the film. Look very carefully at the scene where several attractive coeds interrupt Ralph Fiennes and Rob Morrow and you will spot Calista Flockhart (a.k.a. Ally McBeal).

A second reason this film succeeds so well is its tremendous period feel. The movie looks and feels like the late 1950s at every second. QUIZ SHOW does a great job of [pulling] you in and giving you an almost tangible sense of time and place.

Finally, the movie is easily one of the most accurate historical films I have ever seen, although drama is never sacrificed for the mere sake of being accurate. If one has done any reading about the scandals or perhaps if one remembers the events, the film constantly impresses with the amount of accurate detail it contains. Too often when watching a movie dealing with historical events, one can become irritated of the events are inaccurately portrayed. For instance, although LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is a truly great movie, Peter O'Toole was nearly a foot taller than the real T. E. Lawrence, which is a huge problem, since Lawrence's self-consciousness about his short stature was a major factor in his self-image. There are no such moments such as this in QUIZ SHOW.

But if you watch, or rewatch, this film, please note those references to Arkadelphia! My undergraduate hometown!

Rating:
Summary: Gets better by the day
Review: At the end of Redford's best film, Quiz Show, one of the indignent producers of "21" says that (to paraphraze) 'the quiz shows will be back, they'll just make the questions easier because no one was watching for a display of intelectual prowess, but they were watching the money.' With the flood of big money, small brains quiz shows with multiple choice questions that have hit the air waves in the past year, no one can deny the prophetic power of the film. And with great performances and a lack of clear good guys and bad guys, theres nothing that stops this from being one of the best film of the 90's.

Rating:
Summary: "In the end, television's going to get us"
Review: Before "Jeopardy," "Wheel of Fortune," or even "The Price is Right," NBC's "Twenty-One" pitted two erstwhile brainiacs against each other on a weekly basis. Millions of Americans tuned in each week to see contestants breeze through subjects that would give many college graduates a headache . . . and win thousands of dollars in the process. But, as is often the case, the seemingly clean-cut, family-oriented show had a dark underbelly. The game was a fix, with the questions tailor-made and spoon-fed to the champion of the moment, whose permanence depended on their ratings momentum.

When Herb Stempel (John Turturro), the self-made reigning champ, is asked to take a dive because his ratings have "plateaued" the producers of the show recruit the young, handsome and brilliant Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a member of one of America's most prestigious academic dynasties, to be the new champ. The ambitious Van Doren, eager to step out from under his famous father's shadow, proves to be a media darling and relishes his newfound fame. When Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow), a crusading staff member from the Congressional Oversight Committee, starts suspecting the scam, he finds Stempel. Resentful at his being replaced, the ex-champ sets about to blow the lid off the scandal.

The brilliance in Robert Redford's direction lies in the flawless way in which he intertwines the four main subtexts in "Quiz Show." First, "Twenty-One" is a metaphor for American life in the 1950's: seemingly squeaky clean and wholesome, but in reality a place where a lot of dirt was swept under the rug.

Second, the admiration that Goodwin feels towards Van Doren, on the one hand, and the resentment and vindictiveness of Stempel, on the other, are an incisive illustration of the tension in inter-cultural relations at the time. This is perhaps best seen when Goodwin, eating a Reuben sandwich at the Country Club, comments to the Van Dorens "they have the sandwich but there doesn't seem to be any Reubens." Van Doren's father (the unforgettable Paul Scofield), recognizing the prejudice within his social circle candidly admits, "Touche!"

Third and, in my opinion, most poignant, is Van Doren's struggle to make a name for himself. The film shows us the lengths to which some sons will go to be recognized on their own terms and for their own achievements. The flight of fancy comes crashing down when, in a heartbreaking scene, Van Doren's father announces: "Your name is mine!"

Finally, there is television. Paul Attanasio's brilliant screenplay evens out the blame on what happened, between the Machiavellian, corporate machine behind television (particularly seen in Martin Scorsese's razor-sharp performance as the show's sponsor) and the audience, for which television was, is and probably always will be a blank screen for them to project both the best and the worst in themselves. With top-notch performances, photography, editing and writing, "Quiz Show" finds Robert Redford in top form, a master student of the flaws in human nature.

Rating:
Summary: "In the end, television's going to get us"
Review: Before "Jeopardy," "Wheel of Fortune," or even "The Price is Right," NBC's "Twenty-One" pitted two erstwhile brainiacs against each other on a weekly basis. Millions of Americans tuned in each week to see contestants breeze through subjects that would give many college graduates a headache . . . and win thousands of dollars in the process. But, as is often the case, the seemingly clean-cut, family-oriented show had a dark underbelly. The game was a fix, with the questions tailor-made and spoon-fed to the champion of the moment, whose permanence depended on their ratings momentum.

When Herb Stempel (John Turturro), the self-made reigning champ, is asked to take a dive because his ratings have "plateaued" the producers of the show recruit the young, handsome and brilliant Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a member of one of America's most prestigious academic dynasties, to be the new champ. The ambitious Van Doren, eager to step out from under his famous father's shadow, proves to be a media darling and relishes his newfound fame. When Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow), a crusading staff member from the Congressional Oversight Committee, starts suspecting the scam, he finds Stempel. Resentful at his being replaced, the ex-champ sets about to blow the lid off the scandal.

The brilliance in Robert Redford's direction lies in the flawless way in which he intertwines the four main subtexts in "Quiz Show." First, "Twenty-One" is a metaphor for American life in the 1950's: seemingly squeaky clean and wholesome, but in reality a place where a lot of dirt was swept under the rug.

Second, the admiration that Goodwin feels towards Van Doren, on the one hand, and the resentment and vindictiveness of Stempel, on the other, are an incisive illustration of the tension in inter-cultural relations at the time. This is perhaps best seen when Goodwin, eating a Reuben sandwich at the Country Club, comments to the Van Dorens "they have the sandwich but there doesn't seem to be any Reubens." Van Doren's father (the unforgettable Paul Scofield), recognizing the prejudice within his social circle candidly admits, "Touche!"

Third and, in my opinion, most poignant, is Van Doren's struggle to make a name for himself. The film shows us the lengths to which some sons will go to be recognized on their own terms and for their own achievements. The flight of fancy comes crashing down when, in a heartbreaking scene, Van Doren's father announces: "Your name is mine!"

Finally, there is television. Paul Attanasio's brilliant screenplay evens out the blame on what happened, between the Machiavellian, corporate machine behind television (particularly seen in Martin Scorsese's razor-sharp performance as the show's sponsor) and the audience, for which television was, is and probably always will be a blank screen for them to project both the best and the worst in themselves. With top-notch performances, photography, editing and writing, "Quiz Show" finds Robert Redford in top form, a master student of the flaws in human nature.