Quiz Show (1994)

Ralph Fiennes: Charles Van Doren

Photos 

Quotes 

• [At a poker game] 

  Dick Goodwin : I know you're lying.

  Charles Van Doren : Bluffing. The word is bluffing.

• Mark Van Doren : I'm sorry, Charlie. I'm an old man, it's all a little difficult for me to comprehend!

  Charles Van Doren : It's television, Dad. It's... it's just... just television...

  Mark Van Doren : You make it sound like you didn't have a choice!

  Charles Van Doren : What was I supposed to do at that point, disillusion the whole goddamn country?

  Mark Van Doren : Charlie, you took the money!

  Charles Van Doren : Yes, yes, I took the money!

  Mark Van Doren : Is that what this was about?

  Charles Van Doren : No... no, um, I don't know...

  Mark Van Doren : It was a goddamn quiz show, Charlie.

  Charles Van Doren : An ill-favored thing, sir...

  Mark Van Doren : This is not the time to play games!

  Charles Van Doren : At mine own, it was mine!

  Mark Van Doren : Your name is mine!

• Charles Van Doren : They gave me the answers.

  Mark Van Doren : They gave you the answers... they gave YOU the answers?

  Charles Van Doren : Well, no... no, at first they'd ask me questions they already knew I knew the answers to. We ran through those, and I really didn't want them to give me the answers, so they gave me the questions and I'd look up the answers on my own, as if that were any different. Well, we ran through those in a couple of weeks and I just didn't have the time, finally, and it just seemed silly, so...

  Mark Van Doren : They gave you all that money to answer questions they knew you knew... now, that's inflation!

  Charles Van Doren : You're not being very helpful!

• Charles Van Doren : I've stood on the shoulders of life and I've never gotten down into the dirt to build, to erect a foundation of my own. I've flown too high on borrowed wings. Everything came too easy.

• Dick Goodwin : Hey, you don't have to be a genius to connect the dots.

  Charles Van Doren : Well, don't connect them through me.

  Dick Goodwin : Hey, don't treat me like some member of your goddamn fan club. Are you telling me everybody got the answers but you?

  Charles Van Doren : You're so persistent, Dick. You know, I really envy that.

  Dick Goodwin : Was it just the money, Charlie?

  Charles Van Doren : You'll forgive me, but anyone who thinks money is ever "just money" couldn't have much of it.

  Dick Goodwin : Charlie, you wanna insult me, fine, but you can't envy me at the same time.

• Charles Van Doren : Dad, I can't simply just tell them the truth.

  Mark Van Doren : Can't tell them the truth? Why on earth not?

  Charles Van Doren : Because it's complicated.

  Mark Van Doren : Complicated?

• Jack Barry : Eleven points will bring you to 21 and you will be our new champion! Because of a disagreement with his commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant was virtually placed under arrest for a brief time early in 1862. Who was the commanding general of the Union army at that time? Tough question.

  Charles Van Doren : Just so oddly familiar.

• Dan Enright : How much do they pay instructors up at Columbia?

  Charles Van Doren : Eighty-six dollars a week.

  Dan Enright : Do you have any idea how much Bozo the Clown makes?

  Charles Van Doren : Well... we, we can't all be Bozo the Clown.

• Charles Van Doren : I've been swarmed by stockbrokers lately; I feel like a girl with a bad reputation.

• Cornwall Cousins : Charles, is Jack Barry single?

  Charles Van Doren : I think so.

  Cornwall Cousins : My roommate has a huge crush on him, she wants you to introduce her.

  Cornwall Cousins : What's Dave Garroway like?

  Charles Van Doren : Cheap.

  Cornwall Aunt : 'Cheat'?

  Mark Van Doren : Wasn't I talking?

  Bunny Wilson : You were, just talking, and talking, and talking...

  Cornwall Cousins : Charlie's famous, like Elvis Presley!

  Mark Van Doren : And like Leopold of Belgium, usurped by his son before his time!

  Charles Van Doren : Oh, that makes me King Baudouin!

  Mark Van Doren : Next birthday, you all get a dirty limerick.

  Thomas Merton, The Monk : I certainly hope so!

• Charles Van Doren : Last week alone, I had 11 proposals of marriage!

  Mark Van Doren : Perhaps you should accept one of them.

  Dorothy Van Doren : [to Mark]  And to think, they unleash you on those impressionable young minds.

  Mark Van Doren : Well, why not? He's 33 years old, Jesus Christ had a girlfriend at 33 years old.

  Dorothy Van Doren : Look how that turned out.

  Thomas Merton, The Monk : And, he shared an office with His Father!

• Mark Van Doren : Charlie, from what I understand, it's just a bunch of frauds showing off an erudition they really didn't have. All you have to do is...

  Charles Van Doren : The problem is, Dad, is that it seems I was one of those frauds.

• Mark Van Doren : Why don't you just put it in the bank Charlie? That's what I've always done with my prize money.

  Charles Van Doren : It's just, you don't understand dad, it's, there are all sorts of tax implications

  Mark Van Doren : You Think I can't understand the concept of taxes.

  Charles Van Doren : At this level it's a bit more complicated.

  Mark Van Doren : And at my level? I never thought of myself as having a level. What level might that be?

• Albert Freedman : If you were a kid, would you wanna be an annoying Jewish guy with a side wall haircut?

  Charles Van Doren : Well I wanted to be Joe Dimaggio.

  Albert Freedman : Oh yeah, me too. Especially after he signed for that hundred grand.

• Charles Van Doren : [to Enright after his first fixed show]  "So pure it floats", hmm?

• Dan Enright : Charlie, Charlie, the only people who can implicate you directly are all in this room, just think about that, okay?

  Albert Freedman : You think that noodge is going to get me to talk?

  Charles Van Doren : He may be a noodge but he first in his class at Harvard Law School.

  Albert Freedman : [Making a masturbation gesture with this hand]  Oh, Harvard.

• Charles Van Doren : I'm just trying to imagine what Kant would make of this.

  Albert Freedman : I don't think he'd have a problem with it.