"You're the Uncle Tom of the Jews," his wife accuses him. But he cannot help himself; Charles himself has become such a friend that he cannot bear to bring him crashing down. In a way, the movie subtly argues, Goodwin arrived at the same casting decision as the sponsors.
The movie uses real names throughout, including the network (NBC) and the sponsor (Geritol, which cured "tired blood" and made you "feel stronger fast"). It depicts TV producer Dan Enright (David Paymer) and game show host Jack Barry (Christopher McDonald) and there is a certain fascination in the fact that the movie, to use a 1950s catch phrase, "names names." There is real poignancy in its portrayal of the upright, ethical Mark Van Doren (Paul Scofield) realizing what has happened to his son.
There are also little shocks along the way, as characters reveal that they have standards we no longer much adhere to. One executive says, in justifying the fix, "It isn't like we're hardened criminals here - we're in show business." His moral justification was higher ratings. Today on TV, so many sins are justified in the name of ratings that any other standard hardly exists. Then, such reasoning was new.
The screenplay, by former Washington Post film critic Paul Attanasio, is smart, subtle and ruthless. And it is careful to place blame where it belongs. Oh, yes, Charles Van Doren was wrong to take the answers and play the game. But he has paid for his moment of weakness a thousand times over, year after year; to this day, millions of people remember him as "the guy who cheated on the quiz show." But Van Doren is better remembered as the guy on the quiz show that cheated. The network, the sponsors and the producers set him up, and then they all stepped clear when the scandal broke.
The movie makes it clear that NBC and Geritol were able to claim they "knew nothing" about the rigged games, although they clearly did. And Dan Enright, the producer, was soon back at work making more TV shows. Only the contestants have continued to pay, and pay, and pay. There is a theological belief that it is a greater sin to tempt than to be tempted, and this movie firmly reminds us of that.
Now take stock of what we have lost in the four decades since "Twenty-One"came crashing down. We have lost a respect for intelligence; we reward people for whatever they happen to have learned, instead of feeling they might learn more. We have forgotten that the end does not justify the means - especially when the end is a high TV rating or any other kind of popular success. And we have lost a certain innocent idealism.
Charles Van Doren lied on a quiz show, and then the standards that created that quiz show went on to infect ever-widening circles, until Oliver North could lie to Congress, and then run for it.
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