Me, Meet Me

So I've written a new book about the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. It's called "Truth and Consequences" and you can order it here.

My publisher asked me to interview myself about the book for their website. Since I am my favorite subject, I did it, and here it is:

Q. Mystery guest, will you sign in, please?

A. Hello! My name is David Inman and I grew up watching too much television. Fortunately, I was able to parlay that into a gig as "The Incredible Inman," a nationally syndicated TV and movie trivia Q&A column that ran from 1981-2013. I've also supplied material for Turner Classic Movies hosts Ben Mankiewicz and Dave Karger, and I've written several books about movie and TV history, including Performers' Television Credits 1948-2000 and TelevisionVariety Shows. I also have a podcast, The Incredible Inman's Pop Culture Potluck, and my other writing about film and TV can be viewed at www.theincredibleinman.com.

Q. How did this project originate?

A. It began back in the pre-internet days of 1990, when I found myself at the Paley Center for Media (then the Museum of Broadcasting) in New York City. After watching a few episodes of The $64,000 Question I found myself feeling what audiences at the time must have felt -- the suspense of watching an everyday Joe/Josephine strain their memory to win a lot of money and change his/her life. The show had it all -- the dramatic roll of kettle drums, an audience full of anxious and excited people, nervous contestants and frantic family members. It seemed like high drama on a tightrope, all playing out on live TV. To see that -- and to realize that everyone watching was being bamboozled -- led to my interest in the subject.

Q. You started this in 1990? Are you a slow typist?

A. No, but life got in the way, mainly in the form of a full-time job and two children arriving within 14 months of each other. I worked on the project on and off until I retired at the end of 2022. Then I went into high gear.

Q. Was big money the only draw on these shows?

A. I don't think so. At least at the beginning, the first big quiz -- The $64,000 Question -- had an immense amount of human appeal. The contestants were simple working-class people -- a cobbler, a police officer, a grandmother -- with unusual knowledge in surprising subjects -- opera, Shakespeare and baseball, respectively. Seeing these people win big money just because of their love of and expertise in certain topics was heart-warming. It was an embodiment of the American dream and, to audiences, a kind of validation of American exceptionalism at a time when we were the world's dominant nation.  

Q. Talk more about why this particular scandal is so interesting to you.

A. The book begins in 1955, when television was a relatively new medium, and the audience had no reason to doubt the authenticity of anything they saw on that box in the living room. To say it was a less cynical time is an understatement, and there was an unspoken trust between those who watched TV and those who produced TV. Nowadays, television practically defines cynicism. We have no reason whatsoever to believe anything billed as "real." We have been fooled many, many times before. Not so in 1955. 

Q. Anything else?

A. I've always been interested in the relationship between art and commerce, and the staged, fake "art" on these shows was directly ordered by "commerce" -- the sponsor -- in order to increase ratings and thereby sales. This was in the days of unprecedented sponsor influence, when a sponsor bought an entire block of time -- a half-hour or an hour -- and totally dominated the production of the program, network be damned. The fall of the quiz shows played a role in ending that domination.

Q. Do you find anyone or anything to admire in this book?

A. I have a great deal of sympathy for Charles Van Doren, who was probably the best-known -- and therefore, most notorious -- of the quiz contestants. He was a genuine scholar and an associate professor at Columbia University at the time. He later admitted being fed answers and being coached on how to respond during his time on Twenty-One. He justified it to himself because he believed he was championing the cause of teaching and education, and he received many viewer letters attesting to that fact. Today, we live in an age of widespread shamelessness, of celebrity redemption arcs, of bad behavior milked for more air time. After Charles Van Doren's scandal was discovered and he confessed before a congressional subcommittee, he had the sense of honor -- the decency? -- to just disappear from public life. When he was offered $100,000 to be a consultant on the 1994 film Quiz Show, about the scandal, he refused to participate.

Q. Speaking of Quiz Show, how does this book compare to Robert Redford's film?

A. Quiz Show is a great movie but it only covers one aspect of the quiz scandals. It doesn't deal at all with the chicanery behind the scenes of the original rigged quiz, The $64,000 Question, and its spinoff, The $64,000 Challenge. On those two shows, Charles and Martin Revson -- the men behind the sponsor, Revlon -- ruled with iron fists, decreeing which contestants succeeded and which failed. In the book we go into all-encompassing detail on what happened on those shows and on Twenty-One, where contestants were literally rehearsed on how to provide pre-arranged answers.

Q. If we shouldn't believe much of what we see on TV today, what about the quiz shows? Are they are crooked as ever?

A. Ironically, they're probably more above-board than many other shows. Because of the quiz scandals, strict standards were put in place to keep everything kosher. Watch an episode of Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy! today and you'll see a little disclaimer at the end proclaiming that anything edited out of the show had no impact on the final outcome and that, in so many words, contestants received no answers in advance.

Q. Describe your book as a Jeopardy! question and answer.

A. "David Inman's book begins in a producer's Park Avenue study and ends in a Washington D.C. congressional hearing room, with lives and careers destroyed along the way due to Madison Avenue chicanery."

"What is Truth and Consequences: The Quiz Show Scandals of the 1950s and Their Aftermath"?
         

My New Book

The biggest television drama of the late 1950s wasn't a romance, or a western, or a cop show. It was the TV quiz-show scandals -- deception on a grand scale that played out on a small screen. After contestants became beloved celebrities, the nation learned that all was not as it seemed -- that many of them went on the air already knowing the questions they would be asked, the answers to those questions, and how to "perform" when answering them on the air for maximum dramatic effect. A story that began in a producer's study on Park Avenue ended in a congressional hearing room in Washington, D.C. Along the way careers were wrecked and reputations were ruined. My book TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES is a all-encompassing look at the people involved, the chicanery behind the scenes and the Madison Avenue Mad Men who enabled it.

To read an excerpt, click here.

To buy the book from the publisher, click here.

 

Pre-Code vs. Post-Code: "State's Attorney" and "Criminal Lawyer"

The 1932 film "State's Attorney" and its 1937 remake, "Criminal Lawyer," are based on the same story by Louis Stevens.

But in the hands of different screenwriters working under different production codes -- and performed by lead actors with distinctively different styles -- you get two, well, different movies.

Stevens's story is about a flamboyant attorney who's the mouthpiece for a big-city gangster. Thanks to the gangster's influence, the attorney becomes the chief prosecutor and starts dreaming of the governorship. But then the gangster commits murder, and, thanks to the love of a good woman, the attorney risks the wrath of his biggest backer -- not to mention his life -- to see that justice is done.

Both films follow that plot. In the 1932 film, John Barrymore plays the attorney, named Tom Cardigan. In the 1937 film, Lee Tracy plays the attorney, named Barry Brandon.

The screenplay for the Barrymore film, "State's Attorney," was written by Rowland Brown and Gene Fowler. Brown was responsible for some tough, notable pre-code movies, including "Hell's Highway" and "Doorway to Hell." Fowler was a longtime Barrymore crony -- he kept vigil at Barrymore's deathbed and later wrote the Barrymore biography "Good Night, Sweet Prince."

So the character of Cardigan is very much colored by what seems like Barrymore himself -- a wisecracking blend of impishness and melancholy, with plenty of boozing thrown in. Barrymore slides from comedy to drama with great grace and style. He doesn't look like he's acting, which is the best kind of acting.

The Tracy film, "Criminal Lawyer," is likewise heavily colored by its leading man, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

Tracy's screen persona was that of a fast-talking operator who was often just this side of being a con artist. Barrymore knew how to let silence work for him; with the characters Tracy played, there aren't any moments of silence, because to stop talking meant that the rubes were more likely to catch on to your scheme.

Beyond that, the script for "Criminal Lawyer," written by G.V. Atwater and Thomas Lennon, is scrubbed clean of spice. Sure, there's crime aplenty, but very little of that sex stuff.

Both movies begin with a party thrown by the gangster -- in the 1932 film it's Valentine "Vanny" Powers, played by William Boyd, and in the 1937 film it's Larkin, played by Eduardo Ciannelli (seen with Tracy at left).

The party is raided, and we end up at night court. In both movies, the gangster orders the attorney to sweet talk the female judge into releasing the party without bail. But the attorney is feeling contrary, so instead he makes sure the judge sets bail -- at fifty bucks a person, which the gangster grudgingly pays.

Here is where things begin to diverge.

Next up on the night court docket is a woman -- in the 1932 film she's June, played by Helen Twelvetrees; in the 1937 film it's Madge, played by Margot Grahame.

Both women have been picked up for soliciting, although in the 1932 film it's much clearer. June, in fact, works for Vanny, which means he also does some pimping on the side. But as opposed to Vanny's well-heeled patrons, she really does need help, and Cardigan jumps in. First he reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out a wedding band, and slips it on June's finger. Then he stands before the judge and proceeds to pull on her heartstrings:

This is a pretty cynical scene, but Barrymore plays it completely straight and practically makes you believe him. As Brandon, Tracy isn't as conniving as Cardigan -- he doesn't carry a wedding band in his pocket. Madge is already wearing a costume jewelry ring, so he turns it so that its large setting is hidden and only the band shows. Oh, and Madge doesn't work for the gangster -- she's apparently a freelancer.

The way Cardigan cross-examines the cop who arrested June also has more of a pre-code bite. Seems the cop served a hitch in reform school, and if we don't get the point that he's a bad egg we hear that after being paroled he was sent back again for torturing a dog. In "Criminal Lawyer" we don't hear anything about that.

In both movies, the attorney ends up taking the woman back to his place. Cardigan gently removes June's coat and pours her a drink, and she asks him what he wants for breakfast in the morning. Brandon, on the other hand, wastes no time in getting Madge an apartment in his building. No impropriety (or breakfast, for that matter) here! June is pretty clearly kept by Cardigan, but not Madge -- she goes to work in Brandon's office, where she can gaze at him longingly.

Once they become chief prosecutors, both attorneys hitch their star to a headline-heavy murder case -- a housewife (named Nora Dean in the 1932 film, Nora James in 1937) is accused of killing her husband as he slept. Nora whoever contends it happened during a break-in. Both attorneys are determined to break down Nora on the stand, and the 1932 treatment is much more lurid than the 1937 one. Cardigan has the bed where the murder take place brought into the courtroom, so that the jurors can see the bloody sheets. Then he takes the murder weapon -- an iron sashweight -- and incessantly taps it on the metal bed as he questions the suspect, causing her breakdown. In the 1937 film, there are no such histrionics, and Brandon takes only about five seconds to elicit a confession from Nora.

Romantic rivals rear their ugly heads in both movies in the form of the spoiled daughter of a political kingmaker. In the 1932 film it's Jill Esmond as Lillian, who purrs lines like "to me there's something thrilling about a woman killing for love." She's hot to trot for Cardigan, who willingly (if drunkenly) marries her to ensure his political success, even if it means shafting June. Her 1937 film equivalent, Betty, played by Betty Lawford (Peter's cousin), is kind of wan, and she shanghais Brandon into marrying her.

In both movies, however, the woman's character is quickly disposed of because the attorneys quickly have second thoughts, and because the women have eager suitors waiting in the wings. And as luck would have it, both suitors are played by actors with tangential relationships to Astaire-Rogers musicals.

In the 1932 version, Lillian is wooed by Alvarez, played by Raul Roulien, who would also play Gene Raymond's rival for Dolores Del Rio's affections in "Flying Down to Rio." In the 1937 film, Brandon's romantic rival is Bandini, played by Erik Rhodes (left), the comic actor best known as the Italian gigolo in "The Gay Divorcee" and "Top Hat."

There's a scene in both movies where the attorney meets with the suitor and lets him know that he's cutting the daughter loose. In the 1937 film, it's done with lots of mugging from Rhodes, and in the 1932 version it's done over a glass of saline laxative -- see for yourself:

 

 

The dramatic climax of both movies comes when the gangster goes on trial for murdering a rival ("Bird Legs" Duffy in the 1932 film and "Bird Dog" Duffy in the 1937 film, if you must know). The murder was witnessed by June/Madge, but she won't talk for fear the gangster will harm Cardigan/Brandon. In the 1932 version, there's an even stronger reason for Cardigan to back off from prosecution -- he himself was a burglar and served time in reform school.

And the ending, the same in both movies, is what you'd expect for that time -- the attorney walks out of the courtroom with his self-respect intact, along with the woman who stood with him through thick and thin.

We'll close with one more moment from the Barrymore movie -- a drunken conversation between Cardigan and a carriage driver where Cardigan is plinking out the wedding march on a series of half-full glasses of beer:

"Silver Streak," or Train Man

The star of the 1934 film "The Silver Streak" isn't first-billed Sally Blane, or even male lead Charles Starrett.

It's the future.

Specifically, it's the future in the form of the Pioneer Zephyr, a streamlined diesel train here called the Silver Streak. But incidental roles in the movie are played by the Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair; by Boulder Dam (now known as Hoover Dam), at that point the nation's largest construction project; and even by the recent development of the iron lung.

All these projects sent the same message to depression-weary America -- that prosperity was connected to innovative engineering and improved infrastructure.

As a film, "The Silver Streak" sends a much simpler message -- work hard, be handsome, develop a streamlined train, and you end up winning Loretta Young's sister. But it's a fast-moving B movie that's very much a product of its time, with lots of cool location footage of the Zephyr, the Chicago World's Fair and Boulder Dam (with real workers in bit parts).

We begin in the offices of the Stuffy Old White Guy Railroad, run by B.J. Dexter (William Farnum). Passenger revenues are off, and Dexter's assistant Allan (Hardie Albright), who is also his son, supports a plan for a new, more efficient streamlined train developed by lantern-jawed Tom Caldwell (Starrett). Caldwell pitches his idea to a skeptical board of directors:  

Caldwell is thrown out by the seat of his blueprints, but he has another booster -- Dexter's daughter, Ruth (Blane, Young's real-life sister). She approaches a locomotive manufacturer on Tom's behalf, and before you can say "Amtrak," the Silver Streak is ready for its maiden run.

The elder Dexter and Ruth are on board, but things don't go as planned -- there's an engineering glitch:

(Dig that 1934 streamlined Chrysler Airflow on the road, by the way.)

Naturally, instead of spending a little more time figuring what's wrong with the Silver Streak, the decision is made to scrap the whole project and put in on display at the fair in Chicago. Tom tells off Dexter, and he and Ruth break up.

A few weeks later, Tom has figured out the engineering problem, but the railroad management would prefer to keep the train as the world's largest paperweight.

Meanwhile, Allan Dexter is leaving the family railroad because of his father's refusal to be innovative. This leads to a nice scene where the elder Dexter puffs his stogie like a locomotive and reminisces about trains of the past:

Allan Dexter goes to work at the dam in Nevada. Turns out that the men on the project are coming down with infantile paralysis, and no sooner does Allan get there than he passes out. Ruth has come to see him, but that's not enough -- he needs an iron lung immediately. Father Dexter is beside himself -- how to get an iron lung cross country toot suite? If only there was some sort of really fast train to take it!

The last third of "The Silver Streak" is all about the 100 mile-an-hour overnight race from Chicago to Las Vegas. Edgar Kennedy, God love him, steps in as an old school co-engineer and gives us several good examples of his slow-burn takes in between thrill sequences like this:

There are lots of complications along the way, including close calls with oncoming trains, tricky curves and guys who almost don't get their handcar off the track fast enough. On board, meanwhile, Tom has to deal with hysterical passengers, an escaping murderer and, worst of all, Arthur Lake as comedy relief.

To the surprise of no one in the civilized world whatsoever, the Silver Streak makes it to Vegas, the train's future is assured, and Ruth and Tom make up.

In real life, by the way, the Pioneer Zephyr made headlines in May 1934, when it traveled from Denver to Chicago in about 13 hours, almost breaking the land speed record for that time -- and the engineer happily endorsed Camel cigarettes after his run.

And if you'd like to see the real Pioneer Zephyr, it's on permanent display at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.