Lights Out Movie Reviews
Copyright (c) 1994, Bruce Diamond
All rights reserved

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RATING SYSTEM:

$$$$ - worth full price, take a date
 $$$ - worth full price
  $$ - matinee material
   $ - wait for dollar cinema
   0 - wait for cable

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QUIZ SHOW:  Robert Redford, director.  Paul Attanasio, screenplay.
Starring John Turturro, Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes, Paul Scofield, David
Paymer, Hank Azaria, Christopher McDonald, Johann Carlo, and Elizabeth
Wilson.  Hollywood Pictures.  Rated PG-13.

QUIZ SHOW is the most faithful recreation of 1950s television since MY
FAVORITE YEAR (1982), meticulous in detail and rich in performances
sure to garner several Oscar nominations, including standouts Rob
Morrow, John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes and David Paymer.  Director
Robert Redford has gathered an outstanding cast and crew to give us
one of the best films of 1994.

The quiz show scandals of the late 1950s is a subject taught in every
Introduction to Mass Communications course conducted on college
campuses across America.  It's a pivotal point in television history
and helped catalyze the purge of a long-neglected area of broadcasting.
Unfortunately, the networks refused to take the blame or punish the
guilty, aside from brief banishments.  ("Twenty One" producer Dan
Enright and show host Jack Barry eventually returned to television and
made millions.)  The show most associated by the public with the
Congressional inquiry was "The $64,000 Question," though in reality it
was one of several programs under investigation at the time.  QUIZ
SHOW focuses on the center of the scandal:  the NBC program "Twenty
One," produced by Dan Enright (David Paymer) and hosted by Jack Barry
(Christopher McDonald, in an unfortunately shallow portrayal, an
eyesore when all around him are so rich and varied).

By choosing such a narrow focus, however, Redford and screenwriter
Paul Attanasio have gone to the other extreme:  presenting this one
show as the only program that betrayed America's trust by providing
answers to contestants.  I understand the artistic choice, and it's a
good one for the most part -- working with one quiz show allows the
filmmakers to peel back the layers of deceit and show us the seamy
underbelly of American television and capitalism at their worst.
Redford uses his cinematic microscope to examine how the race for
ratings and the almighty dollar resulted in misguided intentions and
unbridled greed.  The flip side to this choice reveals the limits
placed on the subject matter:  the mistaken idea that "Twenty One" was
an isolated case.  The sweeping indictment of standard industry
practices of the late 1950s and the slow death of single-sponsor
television shows resulted from this inquiry.  Of his peers, producer
Dan Enright did not act alone.

For the contestants, television is ironically the great equalizer even
as the quiz show pretends to present the intellectual cream of the
crop.  The medium chews up material and spits it out on a weekly
basis, even in television's infancy, all to sell soap for the sponsor.
Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes, playing the character a little too
much as a tragic hero), the network's pick to unseat reigning champ
Herbie Stempel (a raving looney of a publicity hound, despite his
encyclopedic knowledge, played to perfection by John Turturro).  In
Van Doren's interview, producer Enright pitches an idea to him:  what
if the staff fed him the answers?  Van Doren laughs the suggestion off
as a joke, agrees to do the show, but asks Enright to keep it pure.
"So pure it'll float," Enright tells him, selling Van Doren the very
soap, metaphorically speaking, that "Twenty One" sells to its
audience.  Van Doren's surprised at first when he's asked a question
during the show that he answered correctly during the interview.  He
doesn't hesitate long, though, in taking the first step in his
personal downward spiral.

Rob Morrow (CBS-TV's "Northern Exposure") tracks the fixed shows
almost by accident -- he sees an item in a Washington newspaper about
sealed court records in New York.  Morrow plays cigar-chomping Dick
Goodwin, a junior investigator for a Congressional oversight
committee.  He's jeered for wanting to pursue the matter, an opinion
echoed by Van Doren's father, a famous poet and professor of
literature at the same university that Charles teaches at.  "Cheating
on a quiz show," he tells his son disdainfully, "is like plagiarizing
a comic strip."  Redford shows us that this attitude is what allowed
television producers to get away with rigging programs for so long;
it's only tv, so why worry?  Well, as Morrow finds out, the fix goes
all the way up the ladder to the sponsor (Geritol, manufactured by
Pharmaceuticals, Inc., at the time), but he can't prove it, even with
Stempel's truthful blathering, a long-forgotten contestant's
testimony, and Enright's personal admissions.

QUIZ SHOW is a fascinating picture on several levels:  the effect of
greed on people from all walks of life, the investigation of major
players in American commerce, broadcasting *and* pharmaceuticals, and
a rich character study.  In a way, Redford falls into the same trap
the script sets for so many of the movie's characters.  Wherever
Charles Van Doren goes, he turns heads.  He's a blond, blue-eyed
intellectual, the romantic ideal for many Americans (don't deny it,
it's still an endemic part of our society), and he seems to get
nothing more than a slap on the wrist for his wrong-doing, whereas
Herbie Stempel, a Jew from Queens, only has his brains to go on.
"There's a face for radio," a crewmember murmurs during one telecast,
and indeed, Stempel is saddled with an asymmetrical face and a wild
personality to match.  He has no way of getting ahead in life, really,
while Charles Van Doren seems to be born to privilege.  We see Stempel
in squalor, but we never really see the consequences of Van Doren's
sins, a major flaw in Redford's direction.

But it's fascinating to watch both of these disparate spirits share
the same character defect:  a hunger for fame and wealth.  Examine
yourself closely and see if you can answer just as Goodwin answers
when Van Doren asks if he could have turned down the money.

RATING:  $$$$

