On March 11, 1957 Charles Van Doren ends his amazing win streak and loses to Vivienne Nearing on the super popular game show Twenty One, hosted by Jack Berry. In the early days of TV, people were shocked and mortified that TV games shows were not entirely fair. In fact some were even rigged. The big shoe ready to drop? Twenty One. It was learned that the show producers gave Van Doren the correct answers in an effort to beat the unstoppable Herb Stempel. While Stempel was a great player, he was bad for demographics or something. Who knows?
Fifty-one years ago today, Van Doren's winning ways came to an end and one of TV's first cheaters lost to Vivienne Nearing.
Do we really need any more videos of New York political corruption? Well, today we suggest Corrupt NY Governor, v. 1.0. As we heard the sad news about Eliot Spitzer, we were reminded of a movie that features a corrupt NY Governor named Angel on My Shoulder. No, it doesn't involve a prostitution ring, though the title sounds like it might. But it does involve the criminal underworld. Claude Rains in terrific in the role of Satan, and Paul Muni stars as Eddy Kagel, the hardened criminal who is tempted by Satan to sell his soul. The film also stars Anne Baxter the fetching nice girl that Eddy learns to love.
