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.
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.