Search - Quiz Show on DVD

MPAA Rating: PG-13 Content Advisory: Adult Situations, Adult Language, Watch With Your Teen Movie Release: 1994 DVD Release: 09/07/1999 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 2 hrs 13 mins Studio: Walt Disney Video Members Wishing: 4 Genres: Drama, Americana, Period Film, Docudrama

It's 1958, and the producers of the quiz show 21 have a problem. Their current champ, Herbert Stempel (John Turturro), has a phenomenal memory and a broad range of knowledge. He's also a pudgy loudmouth with a grating personality, so Herbert is encouraged to "take a dive" and allow Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a handsome and charming college professor, to become the show's new champion. Audiences like Van Doren, and he's certainly not averse to the money he's winning, but the ethics of the situation begin to trouble him, especially when the show's producers begin to give him the questions in advance. Director Robert Redford and writer Paul Attanasio paint a telling portrait of how the network heads and advertising men who manipulated the quiz shows were also able to manipulate the responsibility for the scandal away from themselves. While on the surface a story about the scandal itself, Quiz Show is just as importantly about a turning point in the 1950s when TV and advertising began to change American character and culture. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

John Turturro - Herbie Stempel
Rob Morrow - Dick Goodwin
Ralph Fiennes - Charles Van Doren
Paul Scofield - Mark Van Doren
David Paymer - Dan Enright