Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Inadvands Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Howard Schumann In 1954, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations under the temporary chairmanship of Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota, held hearings to investigate conflicting accusations between the U.S. Army and Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. Televised live by ABC without analysis or narration, the hearings lasted 36 days and generated dramatic confrontations between Senator McCarthy and Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, and especially the Army's counsel, Joseph N. Welch of Boston. The Army had charged that McCarthy and his staff, especially chief council Roy Cohn, had used undue influence to try and obtain special favors for Private G. David Schine, a member of his committee and friend of Cohn.McCarthy counter charged that the Army's charges were a smoke screen designed to thwart McCarthy's investigation of alleged subversives at the Army base at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. The dramatic highlights of the hearings, the first government hearings to be televised live, are captured in Emile de Antonio's documentary Point of Order. While a one and a half hour film cannot do justice to a hearing that lasted more than two hundred hours, what is captured is great political theater that should be required viewing for anyone who does not fully understand the danger of an unprincipled demagogue.The key moment of the hearing, of course, was the final confrontation between Welch and McCarthy over whether or not a young attorney on Welch's staff, Fred Fisher, was a member of The Lawyer's Guild, an organization that had been labeled as a Communist front.The moment came and went and the hearings continued, yet it was patently clear for anyone with their eyes open, that McCarthy had been severely wounded by the exchange with Welch. He was destroyed not by threats or bombast but by a gentle man with a rapier wit and an active conscience who was not afraid to stand up to a bully when other shrank away. It was a moment of truth that stands as one of the seminal moments in American politics of the 20th Century.

Lechuguilla Without narration, this documentary presents audio-visual excerpts from the famous Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. The televised hearings were significant in that they brought to light the mean-spirited, and unfounded, accusations of an American demagogue, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, a man who claimed that certain individuals, both in the U.S. Army and elsewhere in American government, were Communist spies.What is glaringly obvious, from this documentary, is that McCarthy had no evidence. He and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, accused, implicated, vilified, and pointed fingers. And the political climate in the 1950s was such that even these accusations were enough to destroy the careers and lives of many individuals. McCarthy, an ambitious politician, used fear as a weapon, which contributed to unwarranted suspicion during the Cold War.The hearings are theatrical, Shakespearean drama, in part. Several times, impassioned speeches are made. At other times, the proceedings are laughably petty, like when the committee examines a photograph of Army Private David Schine (pronounced Shine). The subtext during this segment is that David Schine and Roy Cohn had some sort of homosexual relationship, an ironic development, given that Cohn and McCarthy, as political Conservatives, would be just as hostile to homosexuals as to Communists.One might think that "Point Of Order" would be dry and boring. But the political atmosphere was so charged, so on-edge, that the viewer can easily discern the tension, the fear, and the anxiety of people who had no idea how these events would play out.McCarthy probably thought these hearings would be a stepping stone en route to the White House. Instead, the camera, as hero, revealed to the American people that McCarthy was a fear monger. Television was his downfall. And the overall message of "Point Of Order" is that enhanced communications technology, in this case television, can be used to thwart the plans of would-be dictators and tyrants.Today, money has corrupted television. But communications technology continues to evolve, and the internet now functions as a medium that shines lights into dark corners, as television did fifty years ago.

Cletus Wilbury "Have you ever heard of the Venona Project?" Yes, i have. Have you ever actually compared those named by Venona with those accused by McCarthy, or did you accept what many authors write without double checking? I've been attempting to do just that.I know, I've read many articles saying "are showing that McCarthy was right in nearly all his accusations.", but I'm looking for specifics.I'm using a "List_of_Americans_in_the_Venona_papers" (from that on-line encyclopedia this thing doesn't like the name of) If someone wants to add or subtract from that list, i welcome it. I see Lattimore mentioned on some sites, but he wasn't identified by Venona.Looking at lists put together by McCarthy supporter websites there are two who were accused by McCarthy also identified by Venona, Mary Jane Keeney (accused of being a Communist by McCarthy in 1950; Venona and other evidence indicates Soviet espionage activity) and Lauchlin Currie (Briefly mentioned by McCarthy in 1951). A third, Annie Lee Moss, implicated by other evidence (Later evidence indicates her name was on CPUSA membership list.) Some of the names listed (such as the Rosenbergs) were identified by Venona, but weren't among those who McCarthy identified.Some names on the accused list people might recognize as left-wingers, but they were not identified by Venona, but sources i found said there is no evidence they were communists: Edward Murrow, John Garfield, Charlie Chaplin. Arthur Miller, i guess you could count him as one of McCarthy great finds, as he admitted in his autobiography of going to a few meetings. But he wasn't named as a spy by Venona.The book by Arthur Herman "Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator" is mentioned by McCarthy supporters. Reviews of that book indicate it is a balanced history, hardly exonerating McCarthy. One reviewer writes "Rather than trying to rehabilitate McCarthy, Herman is at pains to demonstrate McCarthy's mendacity, sloppiness in making allegations and his many other flaws on nearly every page."I'd like to provide links, but not allowed here i guess.

mike robson Emile De Antonio assembled "Point of Order" from old TV kinescopes, taken during what have become known as the "Army-McCarthy" Hearings of 1954( the Hearings lasted 36 days and took up 187 hours of broadcast airtime).There is no narration and those with little knowledge of what these Hearings were about,may wonder what is going on.Here we have the Senate Permanent Sub Committee on Investigations(the PSI),chaired by Senator Karl Mundt,looking into the charge that Senator Joseph McCarthy and his staff-especially chief council Roy Cohn(Schine's close friend),had tried to use their influence to get the Army to grant "favours" to G.David Schine,a wealthy young man on the Committee staff, who had been drafted,and was a special friend of Cohn.The Army had brought these charges in response to Senator McCarthy's allegations of serious Army security risks-specifically at Fort Monmouth,New Jersey.McCarthy had been Chairman of this Committee, but stepped down,being replaced by Mundt for this investigation,as McCarthy was personally involved in the allegations.One important aspect of "Point of order"(the title taken from Mc Carthy's frequent interruptions-the phrase becoming a comedians joke-further undermining the Senator's reputation),is that the left wing De Antonio has edited it to show McCarthy in the worst light possible.There are a lot of omissions of material necessary to comprehend the charges and counter charges between the McCarthy camp and the Army(in the version I saw,David Schine's appearance at the Hearings was absent!)The Joe McCarthy we see here is a man who was beginning to disintegrate-years of controversy and pressure led to his increasing reliance on the alcohol which would eventually kill him.He was ill,suffering constant headaches and sinus problems,he looks bloated,and the serious gaffs he makes may be attributable to his heavy drinking and poor health.The most famous of these is his blurting out the name of attorney Fred Fisher as a member of the Lawyer's Guild(a communist front)-giving Fisher's boss,Army council Joseph Welch his chance to tear into McCarthy with his famous "Have you no sense of decency,sir?" speech.Many see this moment as the vital one-where McCarthy was shown up,exposed and humiliated on camera before the American people,leading on to the final blow which finished him soon after,his censure by the Senate.Whatever ones views on McCarthy,the exchange between wily old Joe Welch and Joe McCarthy-who rumbles on,seemingly oblivious to the damage he is doing to himself,is a riveting piece of real life drama.The final report of the Committee found that pressure had been put on the Army on Schine's behalf by Roy Cohn and others,with McCarthy's assistance(McCarthy,who couldn't have cared less about Schine,thought so highly of Cohn he allowed himself to be pulled down into disaster by him),but the Army chiefs had been guilty of pandering to it,and of obstructing the Fort Monmouth investigations.You will not find this out from "Point of Order",which ends with the scene of people filing out of the Committee room at the conclusion of the Hearings-McCarthy sitting at the table seemingly ignored and abandoned.The truth about McCarthy is that he was a complex,intelligent,personally kind and affable man,who loved the limelight and the bottle,had a volatile temper and did have frequent serious lapses of judgement-but he was not the one dimensional ogre who persecuted "innocent" people by calling them "communists" of historical myth.Time has largely vindicated McCarthy and the anti-communist investigators,with the opening of the U.S.and Soviet archives,which detail the enormous levels of infiltration by Moscow's agents into crucial positions in the U.S.That McCarthy and his allies were more correct than wrong has yet to change the "red-baiting" myth,and salvage the reputation of the most famous "Witch-hunter" of them all.Emile De Antonio's film remains the most accessible picture of McCarthy-and he's at his worst,serving to perpetuate the image of "Tail Gunner Joe" as an irresponsible overbearing villain.