Quiz Show (1994)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Quiz Show (1994) – R. Redford

Have I over-rated this film? I think not.  As a morality play, set in the early days of television as a growing mass-medium, it interrogates the psychology of its characters, the contestants’ motivations (and rationalisations) for accepting the offer to cheat (on the game show Twenty-One), as well as the producers’ greed and anti-Semitism.  The tension created by director Robert Redford (rest in peace) is real, as federal investigator Dick Goodwin (Rob Morrow) starts honing in on the deception, aided by a developing relationship with Charlie Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) supported by their shared Ivy League backgrounds (Harvard for Goodwin – with Morrow sporting a terrible Boston accent; Columbia for Van Doren, son of noted poet Mark Van Doren).  Van Doren famously beat Jewish Herbie Stempel (John Turturro), purportedly because the producers (and sponsor Geritol, headed by Martin Scorsese) wanted a more attractive WASPish winner.  Did Redford take notes while acting in All the President’s Men? This film does not reach the dynamic heights of that thriller but the structure feels similar. Reflecting back on this time in the early ‘90s, it is hard to remember that Fiennes was just fresh from his triumph in Schindler’s List, Morrow was a TV star (Northern Exposure) seeking to make the leap to the big screen (unsuccessfully), and Turturro was already an established character actor (for Spike Lee and the Coen Brothers). It seems like a lifetime ago – and the quiz show scandal seems like ancient history, though I recall watching The Joker’s Wild as a child, not realising it was host Jack Barry’s comeback after a decade in the wilderness following the scandal of Twenty-One.  Engrossing.