Q is for Quiz Show

 A to Z Challenge

A Month At The Movies

Hello and welcome back to A Month at the Movies,  my contribution to the A to Z challenge for 2023.

This year I am copying from a myriad of other A to Z  challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter.  You can skip over this part if you want to.  

I love movies and have decided to share with you a movie each day that I have enjoyed to one degree or another.  With each entry, I'll give a brief synopsis of the film, share a positive and negative review from Rotten Tomatoes ( a website, I didn't use much at all until preparing for the challenge), discuss its resiliency (the theme of the A to Z challenge this year), and other tidbits like whether the film may appear in my top 100 film list, which I have been revamping this year. I think that's enough in the way of introduction, considering you'll be reading it (hopefully) 9 more times this month.

Film: Quiz Show (1994)

Director: Robert Redford

Positive Tomato: Redford's best film to date is a poignant examination of pop culture, TV, greed, and race relations in American society of the 1950s, with the perfect casting of John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes, and particularly Paul Scofield. Emanuel Levy - Emanuel Levy.com

Negative Tomato:  As a pure period piece Quiz Show delivers beautifully, but Redford's foursquare, documentary-like approach, however artful, unspools a story with about as much drama as a game show itself. Monica Hayde - Palo Alto Weekly

Quiz Show is Robert Redford's amazing take on the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. This trailer gives a pretty good synopsis...

 

 

Herb Stempel, Charles Van Doren & Jack Barry on 21
By Macfadden Publications, no photographer credited - https://archive.org/stream/radiotvmirr00mac#page/20/mode/1up TV Radio Mirror, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91457687

By Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9071793

Resiliency: Robert Redford who is a director better known for his work in front of the camera was able to convince director Martin Scorsese to act in Quiz Show. The Resilient Scorsese looks really good in this clip.

 

Top 100: The 1955 film Marty is mentioned multiple times in this movie.  My wife and I decided to watch Marty after seeing this film, and Marty is now one of our favorite movies.  Quiz Show is definitely in my top 100, but Marty is in my top 10.

A to Z Connections: Robert Redford also directed Ordinary People.  Paul Scofield (A Man For All Seasons) is mesmerizing as the father of Charles Van Doren. 

Next Time: Random Hearts