Quiz Show (1994)**

Seen on 14-9-2009 - Star Movies film
Cast: Ralph Fiennes (Charles Van Doren), John Turturro (Herbie Stempel),...
Dir. : Robert Redford
Set in 50s this is about fixing of the Quiz Shows on the tv to augment their trps. What's even more shocking is that the chief players of this drama are let off at the Congressional Subcommittee hearings although they have confessed to the guilt of fixing.
The thourough investigation into the game fixing of a show that is being watched by millions of people constitute the staple drama of interest in this film. A lot of considerations like Jew-WASP prejudices, things done for mass appeal and ugly stuff like that also come to light in course of investigation: to increase mass appeal of the game show, pretty boy WASP Charles Van Doren is fed answers so he beats geeky Jew Herbie Stempel. However Stempel goes in appeal and initiates the investigatio that throws the whole thing in the face of the NBC channel operators. Details below:
IMDB summary--
"An idealistic young lawyer working for a Congressional subcommittee in the late 1950s discovers that TV quiz shows are being fixed. His investigation focuses on two contestants on the show "Twenty-One": Herbert Stempel, a brash working-class Jew from Queens, and Charles Van Doren, the patrician scion of one of America's leading literary families. Based on a true story."
Another IMDB summary
"In 1958 when television quiz shows ruled the airwaves, Charles Van Doren was the wildly popular champion of a successful TV show called "Twenty-One." A national celebrity who appeared on the covers of both "Time" and "Life" magazines, Van Doren was an American folk hero. Week after week audiences tuned in to watch as Van Doren, a popular English instructor at Columbia University and the product of one of America's most renowned literary families, seemed to draw from his vast knowledge the correct answers to obscure questions. His charming presence seduced 50 million people into believing him. But the truth is, viewers were fooled and saw only what the network and program's producers wanted them to see. Then someone pulled the plug. When disgruntled contestant Herbie Stempel charged that the quiz game was a fraud, Congressional investigator Richard Goodwin uncovered the facts that exposed the deception, and sent shock waves reverberating across America."