Write 500 words on this: “Quiz Show did not tell the truth about key historical figures. Did this break the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness’?”
During the mid-to-late 1950’s, television quiz shows were popular, but in 1957, their popularity ended in a wave of scandals. The movie Quiz Show (1994) is about the most famous of these scandals which took place on the show Twenty One. Quiz Show tells the true story of how the game was rigged, from the initial deception to eventual confession.
At the beginning of the movie, contestant Herb Stempel was on a winning streak. Stempel appeared to be an odd, bumbling, nervous nerd, who sweat profusely and mumbled through the show. After a six week run, one of the producers, Dan Enright, told Stempel that his ratings were dropping, and that it was time for him to “take a dive.” Enright then instructed Stempel that when the host, Jack Barry, asked him “Who won the academy award for best picture in 1955?” he was to answer “On the Waterfront” instead of the correct answer, “Marty.” This was particularly humiliating for Stempel, reflecting on the event, Stempel said “I knew that the answer was Marty, but Dan Enright specifically wanted me to miss that question. This hurt me very deeply because this was one of my favorite pictures of all times and I could never forget this.” Stempel begged Enright to at least let him lose on a question he genuinely didn’t know, but Enright wouldn’t budge.
Stempel had signed a contract, so he had to follow through with Enright’s wishes. The new victor was a pedigreed, clean-cut, intellectual from a literary family, and English instructor at Columbia University, Charles Van Doren. Van Doren was persuaded by Enright to cheat by an appeal that his appearance on the show would help glamorize information and intellectualism. Convinced, Van Doren was clandestinely given the questions and answers in advance of each episode, which resulted in a nine week reign and earning him hundreds of thousands of dollars. His charming persona and popularity on the show landed him on the cover of TIME magazine in February, 1957, and after he was defeated in March 1957, he was signed a three-year contract with NBC and a slot on The Today Show.
Stempel was outraged with the situation. Enright had promised him a job in television, but never followed through, and here was Charles Van Doren getting exactly what he had been guaranteed. Stempel decided to expose the fraud, and an investigation ensued that eventually lead to the confession of Enright and Van Doren.
It’s important to note that Quiz Show crammed all of these events into one year, but the real story actually took place over the course of three years. If one watches closely, certain details like car models, dates of referenced historical events and songs playing on the radio don’t match up date-wise. An important question to ask oneself is if these inconsistencies are all that important. The director of the movie, Robert Redford, said that “dramatic license” was taken in the making of the film, and made no apologies for those liberties. He further stated that he had tried “to elevate something so that people can see it … otherwise, you might as well have a documentary.”
I happen to agree with Redford’s defense of the way he portrayed the quiz show scandals. Technically, it may have broken the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness’?” but I don’t believe that the arc of the story, or its overall message of the importance of honestly integrity were compromised by the changing of some dates.