“Yes, we did one thing wrong. We were too successful…Those advertising dollars came from somewhere. Why do you think the newspapers and magazines are making such a big thing about this?… The sponsor makes out, the network makes out, the contestants see money they would never see in a lifetime, and the public is entertained. So who gets hurt?”
In 2021, I, along with millions of other viewers, watched the amazing run of Matt Amodio on Jeopardy, a quiz show where they give you the answers, and you supply the questions. Matt would win 38 straight episodes, winning a stunning $1,519,601 during that run. Matt had a following, for sure, but he also had his detractors who felt he responded to the answers with an almost robotic cadence and never deviated from “What is…” for his responses, even if the subject was a person or a place. On his 39th episode, his final one, he deviated from his usual pattern of attack and ended up losing on Final Jeopardy by confusing Poland for Austria, and his reign as champion was officially over. Many people felt his heart wasn’t in that final episode and that he lost on purpose. The world will probably never know for certain, and I am not suggesting that any wrongdoing was at play in this situation; it just was on my mind as I watched Robert Redford’s Academy Award-nominated feature, Quiz Show.
When we watch an episode of Jeopardy, or any game show for that matter, the expectation is that anything can happen. This isn’t a television drama with actors and actresses after all. Imagine the public outcry if word got out that those shows were rigged and the winner was determined by what the audiences thought of any given contestant. If the contestant was too unlikable, they could suddenly face an easy question that they surprisingly don’t know the answer to, and that is that. On to the new champion. Just the thought of such a thing could potentially turn away viewers and sponsors because the studio is selling the illusion that if you are smart enough, you could be the one answering the questions and winning the money.
This sort of thing is not fiction. Quiz Show is based on real events that happened in 1956. The film opens with Herb Stempel (John Turturro) participating in the quiz show Twenty-One, a game that involves two contestants in isolation booths answering questions and trying to amass a score of twenty-one points. Herb has been on the show for a while, but the network and the sponsors feel his popularity has plateaued, and it is time for a new face. Herb is told that he is to lose a very easy question and accept a payout, which he eventually does. His replacement is Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a Columbia University instructor who auditions for a different show, but producers Dan Enright (David Paymer) and Albert Freedman (Hank Azaria) feel he is the right person to succeed Stempel.
After taking the dive, Stempel, who was unhappy to be forced out in the first place, tries to take legal action against the studio and the producers but is quickly shut down. However, a young Congressional lawyer, Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow), upon learning that the grand jury findings on the case have been sealed, travels to New York to investigate the rumors that the quiz shows are rigged. His investigation eventually begins to churn up some dirt that is substantiated by another contestant forced to take a fall. Meanwhile, Charles Van Dorn, fearing his family’s reputation may be tarnished, insists that he was never given answers to the questions ahead of time. Enright and Freedman do their best to tarnish Stempel’s own reputation, too. In the end, the question is posed by the studio: If it is all fake, who is really getting hurt by it?
Fraud is fraud, even if there are no perceived victims. The truth of the matter is that the people who are hurt by fraudulent acts are the public who lose their trust in the institutions, or people, that lied to them. Would we still tune in to The Price is Right or Wheel of Fortune if word got out that those shows were all a fake? Some might, but a lot of people would lose their interest. We want to see ourselves up there spinning the wheel and guessing letters. We want to see ourselves winning that brand-new car while Drew Carey smiles his big cheesy grin and congratulates us. We lose that illusion, that fantasy, when we begin to see those contestants as nothing more than actors working off of a predetermined script. That fantasy is what makes these shows so popular, and that was the case back in the 1950s, too.
These contestants became celebrities of a sort. We see in the movie Charles Van Dorn being mobbed by young people seeking autographs and pictures, wanting just a small part of the fame that he has amassed in such a short time. In this era, television was a new thing, and these “celebrities” were the biggest things on it. This scandal rocked the world as people had put their trust in what they were seeing and hearing. Robert Redford does an amazing job creating that world, one that he would have grown up in himself. This was a different era, yet is not much different than our current one with YouTube and Instagram celebrities. And people react to the fall of those people in much the same way.
Quiz Show is what I generally refer to as a competent film. It is well made, well directed, and well acted. It also evokes the time it is meant to and does an amazing job immersing you in it. But it doesn’t really pose any ethical questions that we haven’t already seen many times before. Cheating is cheating no matter the format or the gain. This film brings to light a bit of television history that may have gone forgotten, but it doesn’t really have much to say beyond the basics. It’s one philosophic question I mentioned earlier is all it really has for us to think about on the subject. It’s a solid bit of filmmaking but is not on the same level as its competition at the Academy Awards that year. Still, it is entertaining and it reminds us of a bit of early television history that we may have forgotten in the decades since. It also reminds us of how cynical the television industry really is, especially in the end titles when we learn the fates of all the main participants.
Academy Awards Nominations:
Best Picture: Robert Redford, Michael Jacobs, Julian Krainin, and Michael Nozik
Best Director: Robert Redford
Best Supporting Actor: Paul Scofield
Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul Attanasio
Best Art Direction: Jon Hutman
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Release Date: September 14, 1994
Running Time: 133 Minutes
Rated PG-13
Starring: John Turturro, Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes, David Paymer, and Paul Scofield
Directed By: Robert Redford
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