Your Favorite Parts?

Mine are

-- The opening title sequence, with "Mack the Knife" and the fast-paced montage of New York.

-- When Enright and Freedman, in trying to entice Charles Van Doren to be on "Twenty-One," deride Herb Stempel: "Kids don't look up to him...If you were a kid, would you want to be an annoying Jewish guy with a sidewall haircut?" It's funny how desperate they are to create camaraderie with Van Doren.

-- When Stempel and Van Doren are shown competing against each other on TV. I have a special fondness for "telescoped" movie sequences like this one.

-- The scene in which Charles "takes a dive." I love the way the script and Ralph Fiennes' brilliant acting create suspense by drawing the moment out (he stutters, keeps patting his face with his handkerchief, etc.) And then, when he finally answers "Leopold," it sounds much more convincing than when Stempel falsely answered "On the Waterfront"; in other words, Van Doren is a better "actor" than Stempel.

-- In the college classroom scene between Mark Van Doren and his son: "They gave you the answers...they gave you the answers?" (Mark) and "It was mine, mine alone" (Charles).

-- Charles Van Doren's heartfelt speech at the hearing, and Stempel's astonished reaction to it (he didn't think Charles had it in him to admit wrongdoing).

-- The very end, with Charles pausing beside the taxicab for a moment of self-reflection before getting in. I love the trumpet solo on the soundtrack and the slow pulling away of the cab, with the voice of Freedman testifying audible from within the building. Great ending.