Quiz
ShowDIRECTED BY: Robert Redford
An examination of the Quiz Show scandals surrounding the 1950s show Twenty-One. Starring Ralph Fiennes, John Turturro, and Rob Murrow.
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Quiz
Show
DIRECTED BY: Robert Redford
An examination of the Quiz Show scandals surrounding the 1950s show Twenty-One.
Starring Ralph Fiennes, John Turturro, and Rob Murrow.
Plot Summary and Critique of "QUIZ SHOW"
"An outstanding tale of the quiz show scandals of the late 1950's. Robert Redford's best work as a director as he reincarnates the feel when television dominated the entertainment of the United States. Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) was the perfect game show champion: a handsome gentile who was prepared to cheat to win. The only problem was the hotheaded sore loser Herbie Stempel played by John Turturro. Rob Morrow, who plays FBI investigator Dick Goodwin, pokes around and finds what he is looking for but has trouble completing the task he sets out to accomplish," said Roger Ebert.
Taking a dive. After winning over $70,000 by receiving the answers before hand, Stempel was told to lose on a question that he would have known in his sleep. For taking the dive he is promised to return on a different panel game show. When he never receives his chance on the show he goes to a grand jury to investigate the quiz shows. The results of the trial were sealed to the public which hadn't been done in over a hundred years.
Investigating the results. When reading about the sealed findings FBI agent Dick Goodwin, from Washington D.C., decides to investigate the quiz shows on a hunch something was going on. Most of the people involved with the hearing wouldn't talk to him, until he came to Herbie Stempel. Stempel told him that he received the answers to the question, and that there was no way that the current champ, Charles Van Doren, wasn't getting them too.
Putting TV on trial. After finding evidence that contestants received the answers beforehand, Goodwin tried to put TV on trial in front of Congress. With all of the testimonies saying that the answers were given in advance, there was no way to prove that NBC or any of its sponsors knew that this was going on. Van Doren made a statement in front of Congress that he received the answers and was sorry for misleading the public. Even though he came forward and confessed he lost his job at Columbia and was looked down upon by the public.
Rob Morrow plays the perfect FBI investigator who is meddling around in something he knows nothing about. No one expects that he will be able to unravel the cover up and cause any trouble. Ralph Fiennes is an excellent upper class know it all who thinks that nothing can touch him. Redford does an excellent job of putting the story together and making it seem that it was as important as Water Gate.
Historical Events
During the mid-1950s quiz shows made their appearance and began to dominate television. Television producers often manipulated the show to produce the highest ratings and the largest audience. One quiz show, "Twenty-One", went beyond manipulation and leapt deep into fraudulence and deception.
In July 1955, CBS, launched "The $64,000 Question". Almost immediately the show became a huge success. Within ten weeks the show had an audience of forty seven million. Other quiz shows quickly followed such as "The Big Surprise", "Do You Trust Your Wife", "The $64,000 Challenge", and dozens of others. All wanted a piece of what "The $64,000 Question" had started and achieved.
All of these shows had a different format but they did share one thing in common; "secret manipulation by the producers, who made sure that popular contestants were asked questions they would answer correctly and unpopular ones were asked questions they were likely to miss," according to Walter Karp (Karp 78). This was a common practice for the first year or two of the quiz show. Then "Twenty-One made its appearance. The show was modeled after the card game and pitted two contestants against each other. Each bet a number of points from one to eleven on questions and tried to get closer to twenty-one than the other. The difficulty of the question was based on the number of points bet.
In its first few weeks, "Twenty-One" was a complete failure. To save the show something drastic had to be done, and Daniel Enright had just the plan. He found Herbert Stempel, a poor Army veteran trying to get through City College. He fit the ‘common man’ role that the other shows' contestants were based and was very knowledgeable on many things. Enright visited him in his home, went over the shows questions and asked him, "how would you like to win $25,000" (Karp 79).
Obviously Stempel accepted. He was coached in all the details of his appearance and how he should act in addition he was given the answers to the question that would be asked. Stempel was a sure winner. He defeated one contestant after another and became an instant celebrity. He loved the attention and was experiencing the respect he had sought his whole life. He thought this was his calling and that he would have a long prosperous career in television. Little did he know his dreams were about to come to a sudden end.
Charles Van Doren, an English professor, went to NBC to take the entrance test for "Tic-Tac-Dough" a daytime quiz show to see if he could earn some money and get out from under the shadow of his famous father. Van Doren was young and attractive, smart and charismatic. Enright saw this right away and knew the audience would love him. A week later he was invited to be a contestant on "Twenty-One". He was told that he was to be victorious over Stempel and that deception would be involved. At first he resisted complying with the deception, but he soon accepted it. The next day he was given a script to memorize. The script contained the answers to the show and instructions how to make it all seem real. Of course, all of this required Stempel’s cooperation.
Stempel was told to ‘take a dive,' to intentionally answer a question wrong and be defeated. This was very unsettling to him, but he went along with it because he believed that Enright was going to help him continue his television career. Stempel was wrong, Enright had no intention of seeing Stempel on any of NBC’s show or helping him in any way. When Enright wouldn’t answer any of his calls or help him, Stempel got mad and blew the whistle on the corruption taking place on the show.
An investigator began looking into the allegations and eventually found some truth in Stempel’s words. Other witnesses turned up and the whole thing went to trial. In the end the network faired okay but the contestants were haunted for the rest of their lives.
from Karp, Walter. "The Quiz Show Scandal". American Heritage. May-June. 1989: 76-88.
The Reactions to "Quiz Show"
Game shows have always been a welcomed guest in families' homes since the introduction of TV. From the early shows like Twenty-One and The 64,000 Question to the incredibly popular "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire", game shows have always been regarded as wholesome, honest entertainment. But when the show Twenty-One was accused of fixing the show and providing the contestants with the answers, the American people lost trust in these truly entertaining shows. Just when the scandal was all but forgotten in the minds of TV viewers, Robert Redford reintroduced the scandal with his movie Quiz Show.
Many critics
agreed that Quiz Show was a brilliant production and that Robert Redford did an incredible
job as Director. Movie critic Leonard Maltin was very impressed with the casting (which
included Martin Scorsese and Geritol's owner, and Ethan Hawke as a college student at
Columbia University). Maltin gave the movie 4.5 stars out of 5. World famous critic Roger
Ebert said that Quiz Show was a "historically correct retelling of the scandal that
rocked the world. It also reflects intriguing conflicts of race and class: Stempel (John
Turturro) is portrayed as an unpolished Jew who is replaced by Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes),
and urbane WASP." Ebert gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 5.
But not all critics had all good things to say about the movie. Lucy Mohl, a critic for Film.com, says "The only problem is one of balance: Redford treats a rigged quiz show as if it were Watergate. For a modern audience, the story doesn't inspire outrage; it makes you almost nostalgic for a time when this could have been considered a scandal." Also, the Christian Spotlight on the Movies explains, "One of the weaknesses of Quiz Show is how long it takes to get to the bottom of it. At 2 hours and 13 minutes, one can't help but hope the conclusion comes quickly. Eventually it does, but the investigation should have been edited more tightly." They gave the movie 3 stars out of 5. The one fact that most critics agreed on is that the movie was a bit lengthy, Yahoo! Movies states" The hardest thing for a movie to do is keep the audience interested for over two hours." Yahoo! gave the movie 5 stars out of 5.
Although the movie was a failure at the box office, it definitely was not a flop in the awards department. Quiz Show was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Reel.com critic Pam Grady was especially impressed with Robert Redford and his crew, she states "Redford does a masterful job in evoking the 1950's, from the big cars to the moral rot lurking beneath the relative innocence of the era. This is a handsome film, with gorgeous cinematography by Michael Ballhaus and exquisite production design and art direction by Jon Hutman and Tim Galvin."
Overall, Robert Redford's Quiz Show provided a nostalgic look back at the early days of game show entertainment- the good and the bad. As well as a historical look back at the 1950's, it provided entertainment to the American audience of all ages.
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For Consideration: How did the film affect television?
Many who have watched Quiz Show say that it evokes an innocence that can hardly be remembered, it's so long gone. Because television has a defining role in our culture today that was only being discovered when the quiz shows created mass audiences for the first time, the stakes now are higher than many anticipated when the scandal unfolded 35 years ago.
In this film, NBC President Robert Kitner looks Charles Van Doren in the eye and says, "Television is a public trust. We can't afford even a hint of scandal at our network." According to the script, what he means by the "public trust" is that he wants the public to trust his network, not that his network has a special duty to the public. And it is also telling in the film, I think, that the senior producer of "21" shrugged his shoulders at the unfolding disaster. He said, "It's not like the quiz shows are a public utility. It's entertainment. We're in show business."
There, it seems, is the dilemma.... Is television a public trust? If so, how should that be defined? Who holds the responsibility for it? What have we learned from this scandal 35 years ago? Is such deception still prevalent today, but perhaps in more subtle ways?
Finally, I think the most important question is: What incentives can be devised to bring out the best in television to actually serve the public trust, if there is one?
Discussion Questions
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