Guilty by Suspicion (1991)

Irwin Winkler's 1991 film 'Guilty of Suspicion' has the camera aim a bead of a time that sapped the pillars of the US Constitution. Lillian Hellman called it 'a scoundrel time', and a dishonest and unscrupulous time it was. The House of Unamerican Activities shot grapeshot of accusations of Communist infiltration in Hollywood. 'Trumbo' evokes the ambiance of fear a year or two ago. Dalton Trumbo called those who named names before HUAC, in order to save their skins, to be stamped approved for work/ He called them toad meat eaters. And he was right. 'Guilty of Suspicion' stars Robert De Niro as David Merrill, a highly talented and successful director who after a time in France returns to a Hollywood that he no longer recognizes. The film opens with a brutal session of HUAC. Larry Nolan (Chris Cooper_ pleads for his decency, not to name names. He does, weak reed that he is. As such, he denounces his wife Dorothy (Patricia Wettig) and has her branded an unfit mother. Ultimately, loss of income and work, denied the maternal love of her child, she drinks too much, drifts and kills herself in a car accident. But her husband who burns his books to cleanse his radical conscience, finds work and fulfillment as a result of his betrayal of his friends. Merrill is a fair haired boy of Darryl Zanack. His patron tantalizingly dangle a juicy script only if he satisfies the unsound morality of selling friends for 30 pieces of silver to denounce Communism and serve the corrupt demands of HUAC. (And the studios long have acquiesced to HUAC's demands, double downed by the witch hunters of McCarthy and his minions: the creation of a time of fear and betrayal that drove down deep into the US society and American psyche.) Winkler's script was created by Abe Polansky, a banded Hollywood 10 writer, who knew first hand what he was writing. Originally Merrill was cast as a Communist, but Winkler turned him into a 'liberal', who like the Communists suffered as well. Polansky pulled his name but not his contribution to this sober straight forward film. A touch of realism is the presence of Sam Wanamaker, who fled the uS for England; there he turned his energies to infuse British theater with a creative energy. In 'Guilty by Suspicion' he plays a lawyer who persuades reluctant or hesitant witnesses to swallow his conscience and conquer his fear and confess Party membership and nail names of friends to the door of HUAC. De Niro is a sober actor who although sure of himself, wavers a moment after a time without work, loss of house and sports car and incessant badgering by the FBI, and even if he finds work in a Western reminiscent of 'High Noon', he's fired because the Monogram wont buy the bullet by hiring a blacklisted director. Ultimately appearing before HUAC, badgered by the drillmaster of the Committee's counsel and hectored by the cigar smoking chair Wood, Merrill will only talk of himself but wont names names. Try as he might to teach the Committee of defending the Constitution, he is shouted down, to the sharp sound of the gavel, denounced for contempt he is removed and might be cited for contempt of Congress, a threat that carries a prison sentence. Nonetheless his stand stiffens the moral back bone of his long time friend Bunny Baxter (George Wendt); Bunny ready to make his peace and fold to the Committee's demands, wont and he, too, will find himself in internal exile, without work and no friends who think him a social leper. The version I saw was grainy, which somehow heightens the use of black and white. The camera doesn't fade, but is focused squarely on the actors. It focuses squarely on the actors as the narrative works itself out. The cast is well chosen, and the narrative moves along by the artful selection of the music. Oh, Martin Scorsese has a cameo as a Communist film maker who advises De Niro to follow him to Europe where he can live and work. (Even the arch conservative Churchill said, 'in England, we don't believe in blacklists._ The toll in lives was widespread and affected every segment of America, and the horror turns up even in the 21 century in other forms but as noxious and vindictive without fault.

This is an important film that never should be allowed to fall out of conscience. It is the sordid and bitter tragedy of the political persecution against writers, directors and actors of Hollywood around 1950 with devastating effects on American cinema - it never became the same again, after reaching its highest levels of artistry and quality in the 1940s. The protagonist David Merrill here is fictitious, but his fate was shared by a vast number of his colleagues, like Jules Dassin, William Dieterle, Abraham Polonsky, Charles Chaplin, Joseph Losey and many others, some never being able to come back, others making masterpieces in other countries, like France and England. The story here builds up towards the final interrogation by the committee in the end, which reaches nothing but a tumultuous quarrel of outrage and unacceptable bullying by those responsible, who are called heroes of America, one of them being Nixon, all of them being politicians. The whole spectrum of victims are exposed, like Larry Nolan, played by Chris Cooper who is forced to act against his conscience with the ruin of his family as a consequence, his wife Dorothy, a film star, being admirably played by Patricia Wettig, the perhaps most important role in the drama, illustrating the full inhumanity, Sam Wanamaker plays the lawyer who tries to find a way out without succeeding, Ben Piazza as Darryl F. Zanuck skillfully circumnavigating the dirty business of politics but without being able to evade shipwrecks, and Martin Scorsese as the director who voluntarily chooses exile to continue filming in England, possibly a portrait of Jules Dassin. The drama is deeply upsetting, this is no comedy but the most unnecessary of all tragedies in Hollywood and the one that definitely wrecked the good name of the whole film business, which up to 1950 had been flamboyantly glorious. How sad. And how important for films like this one to be made, to tell the truth after all.

In 1947 the House Committee on Un-American Activities began an investigation into Communism in Hollywood. Shortly after this director David Merrill returns from filming abroad. It is not long before he is targeted for having attended "a few meetings" a few years ago. The approach is softly, softly with the committee just wanting Merrill to name some more names for them. When he refuses to help, he finds himself gradually cut out of studios and projects, with fewer and fewer people willing to take his calls.The period of history around which this film is set is an interesting one and one that is worth knowing about as part of the whole "learning from history" ideal. However this is not the same as the film itself being good because unfortunately it is not what I would have liked. It relies too heavily on the informative nature of the recreation of the period rather than developing an interesting script with realistic characters. It doesn't help that the film tries to be all very serious and respectful but does rather fail and ends up coming over all earnest and self important. The script also tries not to really upset anyone who didn't take the moral stance of the fictional Merrill by just focusing on him even though it would have been a lot more interesting if it had had outrage, bitterness and realism at its heart.Winkler directs without a great deal of style and his courtroom scene is average where it should have been the best scene of the film. De Niro works his material hard and makes for an engaging lead, however it is the lack of depth and complexity in his material that limits his performance. This is more or less true of the rest of the cast which, although starry, doesn't really provide anyone in particular with an opportunity to mark themselves out. Bening, Wendt, Wettig, Wanamaker, Sizemore, Scorsese, Cooper and others are good presences but not much more than that.Overall then an interesting film in so much as it informs about an important period of history. However it is all very earnest and safe and lost a lot of potential for me. The cast is starry but the material is middle-of-the-road and didn't give anyone the complexity and outrage that the subject deserved.

This film is Perhaps the most emotional and realistic teaching tool to communicate the effects that McCarthyism had on the personal lives of those who were implicated by the HUAC committee. The climactic trial scene stands as a monument to the abuse of power of demagogues and obscenity of political bullying. (The trial scene though is a composite of many of the McCarthy HUAC hearings and thus needs to be explained by the teacher.) The resemblences of major characters such as David Merill in the movie (David Merick in real life) are transparent enough to use as fact. Scorsesee and De Niro made a few non gangster movies that were significant and underrated . This is one of them (King of Comedy is another). The political tool of intimidation of Hollywood intellectual types depicted in this film is especially relevant today given the climate of Rush Limbaugh and his miinions. The acting, soundtrack, cinematography are all impeccable. Many of the small parts are played by character actors who will be recognizable to your students. The film also pays careful attention to the sights and sounds of Hollywood in the fifties. As far as the omnipresent issue of Hollywood vs History this film ranks as one of the most fidelitous to history. Use it.