Robert De Niro is a highly successful screenwriter and director in Hollywood of the early 1950s. Twelve years earlier, during the Great Depression, he attended meetings of communists in the homes of some friends. Now anti-communism is sweeping the country in the wake of the Rosenbergs and De Niro, along with many of his friends, becomes a person of interest to the FBI and to a congressional committee that wants him to "name names", as they used to say.
Some of his friends who are still communist sympathizers flee to England. The rest are mostly terrified. De Niro's lawyer friend, Sam Wanamaker, urges him to spill the beans because, what the heck, it's all going to blow over some day and why should he ruin his life? But De Niro thinks he's above it all, too well-known and too much of a money maker for the studio. He's wrong. Daryl F. Zanuck wants him to continue working but only if he gives up his friends. (Real names are sometimes used, and historical situations simulated.) He loses his livelihood, his car, his house, his friends, and his intransigence drives away his estranged wife. Broke, he leaves Hollywood for New York but his theater friends won't touch him. Back to Hollywood on a Greyhound bus, where he finds a job directing a picture for Monogram, but he's fired before he can finish it.
De Niro is subpoenaed and appears before the congressional committee whose loud-mouthed members browbeat him until he's removed from the room. The ending is ambiguous.
It would be easy to dismiss this as some sort of America-bashing on the part of the movie makers, and in a way it is, since it's a reasonably accurate portrayal of a particularly shameful incident in American history. There were of course communists and socialists around in Hollywood, but the hysteria that accompanied this conviction caused more damage than the disease itself.
A thought experiment suggests itself. As I write this, many Americans support a social and political movement called the Tea Party. Imagine if, fifteen or twenty years from now, the political climate had shifted dramatically and Tea Party sentiments were widely viewed as treasonable. All of a sudden a lot of people who were caught up in these rallies and picnics are persecuted by the FBI and, if defiant, get to spend some time in jail. It could happen. It happened to casual supporters of workers' causes during the depression, the kind of people that De Niro's character represents. Sociologists call these waves of collective hysteria "moral panics." They're not uncommon. We've had witches, Satanists, pre-school child molesters, Illuminati, Masons, and so forth. Common sense gets lost along the way.
De Niro is fine, as usual. He looks the part of the free thinker. He wears loose and sloppy clothes and has long, tousled hair. The period decor is accurate. And some of the incidents, such as De Niro's court appearance, look overdrawn and yet are very closely modeled on some film clips of the real congressional committee's conduct. "Typical communist response. Step away from the table." So why isn't it more successful? Partly because the plot is so mechanical. One thing leads predictably to another. The audience is always far ahead of De Niro's character. We all know pride goeth before a fall, and that he's going to wind up in somebody's "Fix It Shop" on a side street in New York before he bounces back after an infusion of some moral roborant and that he will wind up with his wife again. It's like watching a long and preachy After School Special.
Perhaps one of the worst things a message movie can do is overdramatize the problem. "Guilty by Suspicion" shows us an actress whose life was ruined by the movement committing suicide. Then we get to see the mourners at the funeral. It's too much. We don't need the death. It interferes with our suspension of disbelief. Or -- if you insist on killing someone in an attempt to increase the audience's involvement -- you'd better do it well, and this suicide is sketchy as hell. We've hardly met the woman. We can be grateful that De Niro doesn't pause on the stage and come out with a soliloquy along the lines of, "I can't give up my friends because it would be an immoral act...." The worst he says is, "Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life dreaming what I could have been?" (Most of us do, Bobby.) That doesn't rob the film of its irony. One of the reasons the committee wants to nail De Niro is that he attended a demonstration that urged an end to nuclear weapons, which happened to be one of Ronald Reagan's announced goals towards the end of his administration.
Some of his friends who are still communist sympathizers flee to England. The rest are mostly terrified. De Niro's lawyer friend, Sam Wanamaker, urges him to spill the beans because, what the heck, it's all going to blow over some day and why should he ruin his life? But De Niro thinks he's above it all, too well-known and too much of a money maker for the studio. He's wrong. Daryl F. Zanuck wants him to continue working but only if he gives up his friends. (Real names are sometimes used, and historical situations simulated.) He loses his livelihood, his car, his house, his friends, and his intransigence drives away his estranged wife. Broke, he leaves Hollywood for New York but his theater friends won't touch him. Back to Hollywood on a Greyhound bus, where he finds a job directing a picture for Monogram, but he's fired before he can finish it.
De Niro is subpoenaed and appears before the congressional committee whose loud-mouthed members browbeat him until he's removed from the room. The ending is ambiguous.
It would be easy to dismiss this as some sort of America-bashing on the part of the movie makers, and in a way it is, since it's a reasonably accurate portrayal of a particularly shameful incident in American history. There were of course communists and socialists around in Hollywood, but the hysteria that accompanied this conviction caused more damage than the disease itself.
A thought experiment suggests itself. As I write this, many Americans support a social and political movement called the Tea Party. Imagine if, fifteen or twenty years from now, the political climate had shifted dramatically and Tea Party sentiments were widely viewed as treasonable. All of a sudden a lot of people who were caught up in these rallies and picnics are persecuted by the FBI and, if defiant, get to spend some time in jail. It could happen. It happened to casual supporters of workers' causes during the depression, the kind of people that De Niro's character represents. Sociologists call these waves of collective hysteria "moral panics." They're not uncommon. We've had witches, Satanists, pre-school child molesters, Illuminati, Masons, and so forth. Common sense gets lost along the way.
De Niro is fine, as usual. He looks the part of the free thinker. He wears loose and sloppy clothes and has long, tousled hair. The period decor is accurate. And some of the incidents, such as De Niro's court appearance, look overdrawn and yet are very closely modeled on some film clips of the real congressional committee's conduct. "Typical communist response. Step away from the table." So why isn't it more successful? Partly because the plot is so mechanical. One thing leads predictably to another. The audience is always far ahead of De Niro's character. We all know pride goeth before a fall, and that he's going to wind up in somebody's "Fix It Shop" on a side street in New York before he bounces back after an infusion of some moral roborant and that he will wind up with his wife again. It's like watching a long and preachy After School Special.
Perhaps one of the worst things a message movie can do is overdramatize the problem. "Guilty by Suspicion" shows us an actress whose life was ruined by the movement committing suicide. Then we get to see the mourners at the funeral. It's too much. We don't need the death. It interferes with our suspension of disbelief. Or -- if you insist on killing someone in an attempt to increase the audience's involvement -- you'd better do it well, and this suicide is sketchy as hell. We've hardly met the woman. We can be grateful that De Niro doesn't pause on the stage and come out with a soliloquy along the lines of, "I can't give up my friends because it would be an immoral act...." The worst he says is, "Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life dreaming what I could have been?" (Most of us do, Bobby.) That doesn't rob the film of its irony. One of the reasons the committee wants to nail De Niro is that he attended a demonstration that urged an end to nuclear weapons, which happened to be one of Ronald Reagan's announced goals towards the end of his administration.