Synopsis The directorial debut of producer Irwin Winkler, Guilty by Suspicion is a sobering account of one movie executive's woes in dealing with the political fallout from the McCarthy Era Hollywood blacklist. Robert De Niro stars as David Merrill, a film director in.Guilty By Suspicion: Guilty By Suspicion. Not so fast, my friend. We need to check your ID. This section contains mature content and you need to be at least 1. Guilty By Suspicion Movie Review (1. Which should come first, your friend or your country? Honest people find they can take first one side and then the other - depending somewhat on which friend, and which country. But for the people who were caught in the Hollywood witch- hunt, beginning in the late 1. Advertisement. The House Un- American Activities Committee, convinced that Hollywood was a hotbed of subversion, held hearings into the alleged communist connections of many directors, writers and actors. Many of them had been members of the Communist Party or its front groups, especially in the late 1. Stalin's Russia was seen as an ally against fascism. Most of those who testified before HUAC admitted their own political activities (for that matter, membership in any political party was perfectly legal, then as now, protected by the Bill of Rights). But HUAC wanted more than personal confessions. They wanted their witnesses to . Since this was hearsay evidence and the committee usually knew the names anyway, this process did not really further the campaign against subversion. It was a brutal process by which one group was offered public shame and humiliation at the hands of another. The HUAC members, drunk with the power they had over the rich and famous, gloried in the publicity they got by quizzing big stars (John Garfield), playwrights (Arthur Miller, Lillian Hellman) and screenwriters (Dalton Trumbo). The Hollywood studios fell right in line, blacklisting those people who would not . But red- baiting gave it such publicity and clout that before long a senator named Mc.
Carthy saw the possibilities, and moved from Hollywood to the really big targets, waving a sheet of paper in the air and claiming it held the names of 5. History has vindicated those who refused to betray their principles, but how would any of us have responded at the time - when to defy the committee meant virtual unemployment in show business? The movie tells the story of a fictional director named David Merrill, played by Robert De Niro as a man who is not a fanatic or hero, but balks at betraying his friends before a group he has no respect for. As the film opens, Merrill has come back from Europe for a conference with Darryl F. Zanuck (Ben Piazza), head of 2. Century- Fox. He has heard things about the hearings, but thinks he won't be involved, because he's no subversive. Sure, he went to a couple of party meetings back in the 1. Hollywood to embrace anti- fascist groups, but the party threw him out, . The studio suggests he see a lawyer named Graff (played by Sam Wanamaker, himself a blacklist victim). The lawyer explains how everything can be handled behind closed doors. All he has to do is name some names, to . Merrill can't do that. He can't betray a friend that way. And so the Fox project is canceled, and he drifts into a nightmare world where nobody will tell him exactly what the rules are, but he cannot find a job anywhere. Merrill has been estranged from his wife (Annette Bening), but now, broke and needing encouragement, he moves back in with her and their son, sleeping on the couch. He makes a trip to New York, where old Broadway friends shun him when they discover he's blacklisted. He has to listen as Bunny, broken and in tears, confesses that now the committee wants him to name Merrill. And he is the witness to a suicide as a once- famous actress (Patricia Wettig) drives her car over a cliff, distraught by the blacklist. Work, when it comes, is furtive. Another blacklisted director (Martin Scorsese) has decided to leave the country, and wants Merrill to finish editing his film. A sleazy B- movie producer hires Merrill under a pseudonym to direct a Western, then fires him when the secret is discovered. The directorial debut of producer Irwin Winkler, Guilty by Suspicion is a sobering account of one movie executive's woes in dealing with the political fallout from the McCarthy Era Hollywood blacklist. Robert De Niro stars as David Merrill, a film director in the 1950s. Only the cowboy hero sticks up for him. He still cannot see himself as a fighter: . I'm tired of not working. The filmmaker, Irwin Winkler, making his directing debut, has been an important producer for years (his credits, often with partner Robert Chartoff, include the . He has a matter- of- fact approach to the business that feels much more authentic than the glitzy showbiz tinsel Hollywood usually dishes up. Notice, for example, the cool professionalism with which the two directors (played by De Niro and Scorsese) discuss how a sequence will be edited. Or the carefully measured dialogue with which the Zanuck character lays out the choices: Here is a man who has no regard for the blacklist, but also no desire to commit professional suicide. But it teaches a lesson we are always in danger of forgetting: that the greatest service we can do our country is to be true to our conscience.
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