Two Thumbs Down for Redford

Answer: Famed movie star and director who volunteers to preview his new, critically acclaimed film at Harvard and then backs out, without an explanation.

Question: Who is Robert Redford?

This much is clear: "The Quiz show" is superb. the film chronicles the rise and fall of Charles Van Doren, the disgraced game show champion whose projected image masked the fact that his victories were rigged.

Redford uses the film to send a powerful message about moral rectitude. Would that he lived up to his own ideal.

Early this summer, members of Redford's staff approached Harvard administrators unsolicited, to offer a free screening of the movie for Harvard's entering first-year class. The administrators were wild about the showing, which would have been tonight. They even printed up a series of press brochures advertising the event.

Then, in the eleventh hour, Redford backed out. Last week, his associates telephoned Harvard to say they could no longer show the movie here. They provided no explanation, and, since then, have been unreachable for comment.

Harvard officials were, to say the least, peeved. "Now we have 150 press guides sitting on my shelf," Dean of Freshman Elizabeth Studley Nathans told The Crimson. "They're very glossy, very fancy and now very useless." Privately, University officials admitted that they were fuming.

Granted, in the great scheme of things, the Second Quiz Show Scandal is a trivial affair. But we would hope that Redford could at least, in some small way, practice what he preaches. As it stand, the film deserves two thumbs up. As it stands, the film deserves two thumps up. Redford, on the other hand, gets the finger.