Fool them once, shame on me.  Fool them twice, shame on them.

QUICK PITCH

Elevator pitch (overview): FOOL THEM ONCE is a true-crime political drama about the scandal which gripped the country during the McCarthy era and still reverberates to this day.  It is at once the literal origin story for today’s brand of con man politics and the rally cry to fight against it at all costs. Remarkably, this story finally reveals the missing link between Roy Cohn’s humiliating downfall due to the Army-McCarthy hearings and his vengeful resurrection in New York City (where he famously one day will become the mentor to Donald Trump).

What’s it like? FOOL THEM ONCE is like SPOTLIGHT meets a darker version of CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, with shades of HOUSE OF CARDS.

What’s it about? FOOL THEM ONCE is about how shockingly easy it can be to push a nation to the brink through manipulation, brazen lies and blatantly playing to the politics of fear.  Inversely, FOOL THEM ONCE is also about how a small group of people who courageously raise their voices in resistance and in pursuit of the truth can topple regimes built on demagoguery.  It takes the themes of flawed righteousness, fear of the “other”, sacrifice for the greater good, and history repeating and embeds them in the thrilling stories of a crusading underdog, a real-life supervillain, an eccentric oddball, a family under siege, and a nation in turmoil.  And it comes with a healthy dose of family drama, sordid sex, outrageous humor, clandestine espionage, and political warfare.  

What’s the way in? Our entrée into this epic is the harrowing story of protagonist Albert E. Kahn and his family risking everything to stand up against overpowering forces and overwhelming odds in the name of truth and the public good. The pressures of real life serve to humanize this tale: heated debates with Albert’s publishing partner over trusting Matusow; alliances and arguments with his wife over the safety of their family; the wrenching burden of trying to protect them all from government attacks. There is no shortage of emotional anchors which turn history into drama and make that drama relatable to everyday audiences.

What’s it based on? The gripping personal accounts of these trials, recorded in Albert E. Kahn’s memoir The Matusow Affair provide the foundational text for this project. The FOOL THEM ONCE research team has expanded upon the world of The Matusow Affair by mining archives across the U.S. and in the U.K., obtaining FBI records, and conducting interviews with period experts and the last remaining characters from this story.

FORMATS

There is strong potential for this story to play in both the scripted and non-fiction spaces. We are currently in talks on both fronts.

NARRATIVE LIMITED SERIES

We envision that FOOL THEM ONCE will be told in the form of a scripted, narrative, historical drama limited series for television and online streaming.  Through approximately ten hour-long episodes, it will take audiences from inside the halls of the U.S. government, through the trenches with Albert's publishing team as they battle against great odds, and into the home of the Kahn family as they attempt to survive a siege of government intimidation and public death threats.  Predominantly, the action will revolve around the efforts to write and publish Harvey's book, False Witness, and the government's counter-efforts to prevent it from seeing the light of day.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

The twists and turns of this story are compelling enough by themselves.  But when examined in the context of present political events, they reveal themselves to collectively form an origin story for today's climate.  Holding the two eras up against each other for comparison yields uncanny and disturbing parallels. Not only has polarizing rhetoric and demagoguery returned to the center stage of American politics, but some of the very people at the heart of FOOL THEM ONCE were responsible for molding the ideologies and individuals who now steer our national discourse.  Donald Trump’s attacks are right out of Cohn’s playbook. Entire passages from the congressional questioning of Michael Cohen seem lifted straight from the grillings that Senate subcommittees gave Albert and Harvey.

STORY STRUCTURE

The story lines of Albert Kahn and Roy Cohn operate in diametric opposition, with Harvey Matusow acting as the unpredictable disrupter.  

• On one side, Roy is grasping for power by any means and political dark art, especially that of exploiting the culture of fear that grips the nation.   

• On the other side, Albert is crusading for justice as he sees it, seeking emancipation for the unjustly oppressed —including a dear friend — and striving to dismantle the very system of demagoguery propagated by Roy Cohn and his cronies.

• Between them is the unstable spinning top that is Harvey Matusow, a young man who seems to try on various masks, and to swear alternating allegiances on mere whims.  His attempt to come clean now is either his first earnest pursuit of redemption or yet another opportunist stunt. Only time will tell as both Albert and Roy seek to use Harvey in different ways, each to their own ends. 

Time is against each of them as they race toward a personal victory which is far from certain.  But there is one thing Roy clearly knows, yet which escapes Albert and Harvey: by leveling accusations against Roy, Albert and Harvey have set up an eventual showdown between them, the stakes of which are prison for the losing side.  In FOOL THEM ONCE, all roads lead to a face-off which will have lasting effects on the American landscape.

3-ACT STRUCTURE (overview - proposed)

• ACT 1 - THE SEARCH FOR MATUSOW. Albert’s race against Spengler and the FBI to find the destructive and elusive ghost, Harvey Matusow. Everyone angles to control his secrets.

• ACT 2 - THE FIGHT TO WRITE. The struggle to secure Matusow’s confession, and to get the book written under duress of government intimidation and time ticking down. Cohn plots his revenge. Spengler feels the heat. Ward starts to go rogue. The Kahn family is tested. As Albert conducts his interrogation of Harvey, we intercut present day with flashbacks depicting the rise of Matusow, McCarthy, and Cohn.

• ACT 3 - THE SHOWDOWN. Open battles in court, contrasted with clandestine battles behind the scenes over suppression of the book and the political smearing of its author, its publishers, and anyone associated with it, the Kahn children included. Spengler chooses between his country and his heart. Harvey and Roy face off, with prison looming for the losing side.

WHOSE TRUTH MATTERS

FOOL THEM ONCE is a mediation on the powers and pitfalls of personal truth. Its subjective nature. How we manifest it. How we preach it to others. How the divergent ways in which we individually see the world form the foundation of everything we believe, fight for, and fight against. These are fights which see some who don blinders to protect their own perspective, yet see others who are forced to challenge personal notions of truth in order to grow and possibly triumph. It is said by some that history is written by the victors. Just as we see playing out on today’s various stages of social conflict, the characters in FOOL THEM ONCE are battling for not only their own survival, but also the survival of their worldview and how it might shape the future.

A different stylistic look for each “truth”. Personal truth is subjective. So should be the visual language depicting it. Creator Ben Kahn envisions an aesthetic architecture built on contrasting styles, in order to illustrate the competing factions within FOOL THEM ONCE. Each side is defined by hallmarks unique to its respective characters. Though individual looks are distinctly different, they are all unified by sharing a specific collection of techniques and devices. This allows them to overlap, transition, and play in the same space. When combined, this visual diversity forms a family of dialects under the umbrella of one language. This language transitions through time as the story shifts between respective character vignettes, and the balance of power tips within individual scenes.

We should feel these contrasting world views through the treatment of sound and picture alike. We should sense their impending clash. We should wonder which one will win out. We should question whether we’re watching the objective “God’s eye” truth or the subjective invention of our characters. And we should be made to consider how the way each of us sees the world may differ completely from the rest of humanity.

This show is a fresh take on such multi-perspective greats as Rashomon, Fight Club, Amores Perros, Traffic, The Handmaid’s Tale and more.

QUESTION: Who are we to tell this story?

ANSWER: We're the ones who know it the best. We have exclusive access to the story, a comprehensive knowledge base, and a network of leading scholars to advise us.

Executive Producer and Creator Ben Kahn the grandson of Albert and Riette Kahn and oversees the rights to the book The Matusow Affair, Albert's inside account of this national scandal that erupted when he and Harvey Matusow revealed Harvey's lies.  Ben has been passionate about sharing this story since well before the beginning of his career in the film industry two decades ago, and he believes that the national moment is ripe for its telling. He’s assembled a collection of family and collaborators in executing this deck.

This team has fostered relationships with archives across the United States and in Britain, interviewed experts, and amassed a comprehensive library of FBI files, personal correspondence, news clippings, photographs, and never-heard-before audio recordings of conversations between the main characters.  Out of these materials, Ben has distilled a narrative ripe with historical drama. The library of materials he has collected also serves as a well of inspiration for new characters, story lines for FOOL THEM ONCE, and also as a critically important resource for fact-checking the historical accuracy of the series.

All of these assets have been compiled in support of a pitch bible, including summary character sketches, plot point outlines, vision statements, a video teaser that showcases the archival materials in our collection, and a video of the McCarthy Era's current cultural relevance as examined in today's news.

His goal is to partner with a production entity, to refine and craft the deck and network pitch.

There's no doubting the timeliness and importance of this project. Echoes of the McCarthy Era have grown louder as parallels between that era and this one continue to emerge. Contentious debates over domestic immigration and international terrorism during the recent presidential election have fostered the return of fear mongering and polarization. A highly editorialized press and political pundits on both sides of the aisle wrestle for headlines daily. America has elected Roy Cohn's protégé, Donald Trump, to the White House. We now find ourselves in a renewed conversation over the ideals that define the soul of our nation. FOOL THEM ONCE is an important part of that debate. It offers us a crucial chance for reflection as our country risks repeating many of these same destructive battles we endured in times past.

A WORD FROM BEN KAHN / CREATOR’S STATEMENT

This tale was woven into the fabric of my family just over 60 years ago. I've lived with it for as long as I've understood myself to be a filmmaker. Though I may be two generations removed from the events of the 1950's, their effects still cling to my soul and that of my family. Albert E. Kahn was my grandfather; I grew up with this tale as lore. He was a hero of historical note. He was a crusader of singular vision. He was gifted with a unique warmth. He was devastatingly funny. He was incorrigible and unsufferable. He was manic and manipulative. He was three different fathers to three different boys, all under the same roof.

Thanks to this complex portrait of Albert, largely formed during the events of FOOL THEM ONCE, I am eternally fascinated with the ways in which waging battle can blind us as much as it can gift us sight, no matter the cause or side. So much is true for each individual connected to this story, as it is true for all of us who proceed them. Indeed, the scars and badges my family still bear from these trials have shaped our individual senses of righteousness and duty. The Kahns are not special this way; the same divergent reverberations from conflict have been felt by families and generations across the country and beyond. We are all proof that few futures are free of the past. Though Albert passed away many years ago, as a family we still openly contemplate the importance of those times and their searing relevance to today's changing world.

It is my hope that FOOL THEM ONCE will offer us all the same chance for reflection and inform the ways we choose to step into the next era. Oh -- and be good tv.