THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 3, 1994 TAG: 9410010023
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 44 lines
We don't normally review movies here on the editorial page, content as we normally are to leave that to those paid to do it full time. Still, it is hard to escape noticing the controversy now swirling around Robert Redford's latest film ``Quiz Show.''
The film centers on the famed quiz-show scandals of the late 1950s, specifically ``Twenty-One,'' which was subsequently shown to have been rigged. The film is presented as a stark morality play, with an intrepid investigator up against the powers of the broadcasting industry. Greedy sponsors are portrayed as willing to sacrifice honesty for profit.
Ironically, the film itself is now under attack for perpetrating many of the same practices it condemns. Dialogue has been invested, court scenes are portrayed that never took place, facts that pertain to the ``64,000 Question'' have been mixed with those of ``Twenty-One,'' and three years' worth of events are compressed into one.
The central character, congressional investigator Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow), is shown breaking the scandal open. In fact, most of the participants agree Goodwin was a minor player. Joseph Stone, now a retired New York state judge who was in fact the lead investigator, calls the movie ``a farce.''
That Hollywood plays fast and loose with historical fact is scarcely news. But when one is dealing with recent events and real people, many of whom are still living, it becomes harder to cite dramatic license.
``I think the movie is a lot of bunk,'' says Jeff Kisseloff, author of a forthcoming history of television called The Box. ``Robert Redford has said in interviews he doesn't believe in lying for profits. But that seems like what he's doing here.''
Redford has indeed always been among Hollywood's most outspoken moralists. In fact, he defends the distortions in ``Quiz Show'' as justified because the film makes ``a moral point or an ethical point.'' Not to mention a lot more money than the truth, apparently. by CNB