ReView: ‘Quiz Show’ Spins a Tale of Show Biz, Scandal and Schmucks

The year is 1958 and Herb Stempel is riding high — he’s on a winning streak as a contestant on the NBC quiz show “Twenty-One” and making more money than he’s ever seen in his life while being cheered on by an audience of 40 million.

There’s just one problem — the producers want him to lose.

This is “Quiz Show,” the 1994 Robert Redford film based on the true story of the 1950s quiz show scandals. Though the film came out 30 years ago, its stylish cinematography and top-notch acting still hold up today.

“Quiz Show” shines with its sets, costumes and soundtrack. The “Twenty-One” stage is recreated almost (nearly) exactly with characters donning natural, well-worn clothes instead of suits ripped from a Sears catalog. The film opens and closes with Bobby Darin’s swingy murder ballad “Mack the Knife,” a fitting metaphor for its discussion of morality.

John Turturro delivers a one-of-a-kind performance as the awkward, bespectacled Herb, a 29-year-old college student from Queens. Herb’s initial reluctance to lose his streak on purpose is overcome by ratings-obsessed producer Dan Enright (David Paymer). Enright offers him $70,000 — equivalent to over $770,000 today — if he loses on a humiliatingly easy question to Columbia University lecturer Charles Van Doren.

Charles, played by a fresh-faced Ralph Fiennes, wins against Herb and becomes a media sensation.

When ambitious congressional lawyer Dick Goodwin (played by a guileful Rob Morrow) starts investigating “Twenty-One” for rigging shows, the façade of perfection comes crumbling down.

“Quiz Show” is a story about discrimination, dishonesty and duplicity. Enright and Freedman openly disdain Herb for who he is — he’s too Jewish, too touchy, too smart. They call the blond, blue-eyed Charles their “great white hope;” Herb calls him a “big uncircumcised putz.”

The struggle of the WASP ideal is central to the film’s premise. When Dick confronts Enright about the rigging of “Twenty-One,” he brings up the antisemitic undertone of replacing a Jewish man with a gentile one. Dick, who is also Jewish, has lunch with Charles at an upscale restaurant and, with one of the best zingers of the films, notes they have a Reuben sandwich but “don’t seem to have any Reubens.”

“Now we have a clean-cut intellectual instead of a freak with a sponge memory,” a live audience member says after Charles wins.

But what’s the difference between a distinguished academic and a pretentious know-it-all? As it’s later revealed, Herb and Charles both received answers; they both hungered for public approval.

Herb’s happiest moment in the film isn’t when he’s alone on the “Twenty-One” stage, nor is it when he’s with his wife and son — it’s when he’s walking home at night to Queens after winning another show, neighbors cheering his name, the moon spotlighting his every move.

Charles, too, hungers for recognition. Fiennes (“The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Menu”) excels at subtle expressions of yearning, whether it’s for his father’s support or Dick’s protection.

There’s a hint of homoerotic subtext in the way “Quiz Show” portrays Charles and Dick’s interactions. Dick has no obligation to protect Charles from the Senate’s probe into the network’s corruption — really, he should’ve included Charles from the start — but he tries anyway.

In one tense scene, they play poker, sitting opposite each other, Dick meeting Charles’ eyes through the smoke emanating from his fat cigar. Dick’s attempts to weed out information from Charles read like masked flirtations — they banter over lunch and go sailing on a quiet, secluded lake in Connecticut.

“Please, don’t make me call you,” Dick says to Charles before the Senate proceedings begin.

Between the camera’s close-ups and the intimacy of them sharing coffee with Charles still in his bathrobe, it sounds more like a bad breakup than legal counsel.

While the film emphasizes the importance of the truth, its message is undercut by its factual inaccuracies and casting decisions. The scandals unfolded in 1956, not 1958, and contrary to the epilogue, Charles did continue teaching after his public fall from grace. Also, given the film’s justified concern about antisemitism, it’s ironic Turturro (“Barton Fink,” “The Big Lebowski”) — an actor of non-Jewish, Italian descent — plays a Jewish character.

The women of “Quiz Show” are few and far between, reflecting the social mores of the ‘50s it takes place in as well as the still very much misogynistic ‘90s. One of the only women granted enough screen time to leave an impression is Herb’s often-exasperated wife, Toby (Johann Carlo).

The film’s clichéd “where-are-they-now” epilogue leaves watchers with a few more stabs to the chest: Enright would go on to become a millionaire and NBC was never implicated in the quiz show scandals.

“I thought we were going to get television,” Dick says, peering down as the Senate hearings unfold. “The truth is, television is going to get us.”

“Quiz Show” is available to rent or purchase on Google Play Movies, Apple TV, Fandango and Amazon Prime.

ReView is a recurring movie review column.