“Quiz Show” (1994)
Robert Redford, the face of a number of exceptional conspiracy thrillers in the ’70s, wasn’t done with the subject of digging into national scandals in 1994. He directed his first film on the subject that year, “Quiz Show,” based on Richard Goodwin‘s memoir about the rigging of a network quiz show in the 1950s, which stars John Turturro and Ralph Fiennes as contestants in opposing booths but equal pawns in the capitalistic game of “who’s got the better ratings?” Turturro plays Herb Stempel, a socially awkward, pedantic man with natural encyclopedic knowledge and thus a killer on the popular quiz show ‘Twenty One.’ But once the ratings of the show begin to plateau, the producers of the show (memorably played by David Paymer and Hank Azaria) alongside NBC head honchos and representatives of important sponsor Geritol decide they need new blood. This turns out to be the young, telegenic Columbia professor Charles Van Doren (Fiennes, in one of his most refined performances), and it’s not long before they start feeding him answers, just as they have been doing with Stempel all along. Delicately wrought, thanks to Redford’s experience with familiar material, and subtly punctuated without veering into the sentimental by Paul Attanasio‘s adaptation, “Quiz Show” went on to be a major contender for the Oscars and unravels a type of public offense rarely seen on screen. Keep your eyes peeled for Martin Scorsese‘s cameo as a shady Geritol exec.
“A Royal Scandal” (1945)
If it’s known at all, “A Royal Scandal” is probably noted among cinephiles due to the odd circumstances of its making: it was billed as written, produced by the great Ernst Lubitsch, but though he rehearsed the actors, he suffered his fifth heart attack on the eve of production, and Otto Preminger stepped in in his place. Whether it might have been more effective under the original director is difficult to say, but as it is, it’s an uneven and disappointing picture. A remake of Lubitsch’s 1942 German silent “Forbidden Paradise,” itself based on the stage play “The Czarina,” the film sees the famously lusty Catherine The Great (Tallulah Bankhead) fall in love with an army officer (William Eythe), who is so disillusioned with her that he decides to plot a revolution. The Lubitsch sparkle is recognizable in the screenplay (“A woman who takes away somebody’s fiancé is not going to respect anybody’s peninsula,” Eythe’s intended Anne Baxter quips at one point), but as he’d continue to demonstrate up through “Skidoo,” Preminger mostly has a tin ear for comedy, and everything feels a little bit off here —a beat too late, a line delivered too grandly. Bankhead in particular is playing to the rafters without the subtle underplaying that the best Lubitsch players pull off, though Charles Coburn steals the show as her quietly amused chancellor.
“Scandal” (1989)
It’s 1959, and osteopath Stephen Ward (John Hurt) is a highfaluting bon vivant rubbing shoulders with England’s elite, MPs and other high-ranking government officials among them. He meets beautiful 16-year-old Christine Keeler (Joanne Whalley) in a nightclub and takes her under his wing, nurturing her into a high-society butterfly and introducing her to his friends. It’s the beginning of an unlikely friendship, but even more importantly, it’s the match used to light the dynamite that blew up the British government from the inside out in the early ’60s. Thanks to Ward’s connections and debauched lifestyle —orgies, drugs, and alcohol are indulged every single weekend— Christine, living carefree and carpe diem, gets tangled up in affairs with the likes of Lord Astor (Leslie Phillips), Soviet attache Eugene Ivanov (Jeroen Krabbe), and, most controversially, England’s Secretary of State for War Jack Profumo (Ian McKellen). What’s most interesting about Michael Caton-Jones‘ “Scandal” —working off of Michael Thomas‘ script— is that the infamous “Profumo Affair,” which shamed the politician out of office and brought the Conservative Party to its knees, begins only after a whole hour has passed. In the first, Christine and her friendship with Stephen is very much at the forefront, while a pretty hip soundtrack (Dusty Springfield, Nat King Cole, a chirpy Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren duet) and some stylish montages keep things gleefully fun. Once the scandalous part hits, we, therefore, sympathize with Christine and Stephen on a human level, something that another film tackling the subject might have skipped altogether, concentrating more on the political arena and Profumo himself. Thanks to this unconventional approach, the frivolity of baser instincts found in all the players involved, no matter how sympathetic, is both engine and engineer of all fates.
“A Scandal In Paris” (1946)
Melodrama master Douglas Sirk considered “A Scandal In Paris” one of his best films, though the critic-rati have rarely agreed with him, perhaps because like much of his early work, it’s relatively little seen. Count us on Team Sirk on this one: while the film’s atypical for the director, it’s enormously enjoyable and well worth tracking down. Made for United Artists, it’s a strongly fictionalized version of the life of Eugène François Vidocq, considered by many the first private detective and who helped to build the French police force, but had been a criminal in his early life. Here, George Sanders plays Vidocq as a caddish rogue who reinvents himself as the chief of police while trying to rob the Bank of Paris, only to eventually turn against his long-time criminal associate (Akim Tamiroff). Sirk treats the material, which can get dark and almost Victor Hugo-ish in places, with a light, Lubitschian touch, but with the keen interest in morality that would later infuse his more famous work: the film suggests that no one is born good or evil, but has to make a choice. “Within all of us is a saint as well as a dragon,” one character tells Vidocq at one point. Twisty, funny and full of great performances (Carole Landis is particularly good value as a tragic love interest), it’s dismissed by many auteurists as workmanlike, but would that all workmen could turn out a film like this.
