Quiz Show

Because the filmmakers have framed this fame game so much like a conventional love story, the audience, like Goodwin, is seduced by Van Doren's pretty face. This is precisely what the film warns us to guard against, so the experience of watching Quiz Show is supercharged. As the wedge is driven in between what we think (lying is bad) and what we feel (that nice Van Doren boy can't have lied) - Redford and Attanasio make us aware of how readily we accept style divorced from substance. [16 Sept 1994, p.03]

Robert Redford's intricately woven and brilliant movie Quiz Show paints a witty but poignant portrait of that tainted time on television, when Eisenhower's America lost its innocence. [15 Sept 1994]

A supremely elegant and thoughtful parable.

So it is an especial triumph that Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford and written by Paul Attanasio, turns that footnote of television history into a thoughtful, absorbing drama about moral ambiguity and the affability of evil. Sticking moderately close to the facts and using real names whenever possible, it succeeds by pulling back and looking at the situation through an unexpectedly subtle and wide-ranging lens.

It's nice to see Scorsese making a cameo here, a kind of symbolic olive branch that may herald an overdue armistice. At last, it's OK to like Marty and Bob. [16 Sept 1994, p.53]

Robert Redford's best and richest directorial effort.

It's a blessedly old-fashioned, well-made and well-acted narrative.

Quiz Show is enjoyable depending on your taste. No, wait... let me reword that because 'enjoyable' is beginning to get overrated. Quiz Show is lovable and quizzing depending on your taste.

Based on the real world quiz show scandals of the 1950's, Quiz Show makes for a fascinating and entertaining watch.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

The Applause Sign. Quiz Show Redford's show is more choreographed for me than it is rigged. And boy what a dance it is, it fiddles with well coordinated multiple characters that puts an elegant and corrupted show on the screen. The director Robert Redford has long productive procedure, that is more thought provoking than it is gripping. And this is where the film wins all the points, with a nail biting personal and emotional crisis that puts you right on the trial is not an experience you usually get. Even the courtroom drama doesn't go accordingly. Redford wisely builds up the entire film to a definite scenario and then when it reaches its last stage, he shakes up the entire base or premise of that topic. And this vulnerable, hanging in the middle, feeling is a delightful to behold. What was a fight of good vs. evil, is now evolved into something beyond a personal vendetta or the glory that everyone is snatching to conquer it in this show business. And this juxtaposition of an entertaining field as such and what it represents is beautifully colored in the final note of the film. Paul Attanasio's adapted screenplay criticizes its own skillful script, and manages to "check and mate" himself out. Ralph Fiennes is force to be reckoned with, as he accepts all the undeserved fame but his true self bubbles up in a glossy champagne glass when his father played by Paul Scofield goes head to head, it can leave you shook at the brisk of your seat as they peel each other off naked on screen. The other supporting cast has done a decent work where John Turturro stands alone for his acting that is basically on steroids. Quiz Show is less of a show than it pretends to be, this pack of gusto will make you think twice, before you tune in any show, from now on.

The Quiz Show is slow-paced, clever historical drama that doesn't need to rely on other means of capturing the viewer. The role played by John Turturro as book-smart, but in other ways simple-minded contestant Herb Stempel deserves a separate mention.