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This is a fairly good movie. It provides a compelling dramatic struggle and captures the paranoia of an era. However, like many Hollywood movies, it strives more to create a dramatic story than an accurate one.

This movie was originally to be based on the life of blacklisted writer/director Abraham Polonsky (Force of Evil, Body and Soul). Polonsky was working in France at the time of the HUAC hearings and a friend called to tell him not to come back or he'd be called to testify. He deliberately came back for the express purpose of telling HUAC where they could stick it. This is a good story as an anecdote, but not a great story for a movie.

The one place in which this movie (and many other movies) softens the history is by making the protagonist politically neutral. It is certainly true that many people accused were not communists or had only attended a meeting out of curiosity, but this is not true for everybody. Many of these people were devout socialists. As Polonsky has said on occasion "During the Great Depression, anybody with a brain considered Communism. The Capitalist system was BROKE. Communism looked like a smart bet." While many of these people reconsidered as the nation returned to prosperity, a large number did not.

Most of the famous Hollywood Ten were still believers in socialism when they were blacklisted. There is no evidence that any of them were spies for the Soviet Union-- many of them had already learned that the USSR was not the socialist paradise they dreamed of-- but they did believe in the writings of Mark and Engels. It is also true that they placed socialist themes in their films. They created gangsters who only cared about money, families screwed over by greedy real estate brokers and poor saps who put it all in the stock market.

However, none of this was illegal. They had every right to believe in whatever politics they chose to. They had every right to create these films-- and their movies seemed to have a resonance with the audience. They're lives and careers were destroyed because they held political beliefs that some viewed as threatening.

I also want to point out that Elia Kazan was not the model for this film. Elia Kazan has been repeatedly condemned by Polonsky and others who were blacklisted. He chose to name names and to allow the HUAC to bully him. I don't condemn him for this like other people. As this movie shows, so much was on the line for people who HUAC sets their sights on. Kazan cracked. He failed to be a hero, when the time came. This doesn't mark him a coward, merely something less than a hero. "On the Waterfront," while not a direct explanation of his actions, is an excellent look at his state of mind around that time.

While yes, I have not spent much time reviewing this movie, I felt it necessary to set the record straight about history.

Robert DeNiro plays David Merrill, a movie director who is 'Zanuck's wonder boy' at Fox as the movie opens. He's been in Europe for awhile so does not know the full impact the HUAC has been exerting on actors in Hollywood. Zanuck asks David to 'purge himself' so instructs him to meet with a man who has a lot of questions for him, all having to do with people he might or might not know (real actors names are mentioned in this scene) and DeNiro complies, but only to a point, because his best friend Bunny Baxter (George Wendt) is the last name on the 'list.' David can't deal with any of it anymore and storms out of the meeting.

Eventually he finds out the hard way that because he is being uncooperative, he is being portrayed as a Communist sympathizer and cannot get anymore work as a director in movies so he moves to New York to try to get work in the theatre.

Movie has a strange feel to it. There is something underlying in almost every scene, a strange current that flows through the movie because so much of this is about what is unsaid, what is damaging and what is the right thing to do. Husbands betray wives, best friends name best friends, and no one knows how to destroy this thing that has invaded them.

DeNiro, Annette Bening, George Wendt and Chris Cooper are riveting. Sam Wanamaker, Martin Scorsese, Tom Sizemore and Ben Piazza are very good in small roles. Patricia Wettig goes slightly over the top as an actress whose child was taken from her.

Not fun, but worth seeing, and for fans of old cars, DeNiro drives around in the most beautiful white convertible you've ever seen. Wish I knew what type of car it is! 8/10.

Director David Merrill (Robert De Niro) returns from filming in France to find the country over-run by the Red Scare. People are all taking loyalty oaths. The House Committee on Un-American Activities is hunting for Communists. Bunny Baxter (George Wendt) is his writer best friend. Actress friend Dorothy Nolan (Patricia Wettig) is struggling after her husband named names. David's married to Ruth (Annette Bening) with a young son. Friendships and marriages are breaking apart as tension rises. With his work on the line, Merrill is also pushed to name names as others acquiesce.

It's a sincere telling of a fictional Red Scare story with some of the real players in the real history of the Un-American Activities Committee. It's very sincere but not the most thrilling drama. The actors are first rate. Despite the good work, there are no surprises and nothing too dramatic. It feels more or less melodramatic. This is one movie where a based on true story would be useful.

The film Guilty by Suspicion showed the effects of the Hollywood blacklist in true-to-life form. Not only did it deal with how friendships and families were affected during this period, but it also showed how other American's, such as teachers, were also blacklisted. Blacklisting was not only a Hollywood occurrence.

Those interested in communism in Hollywood will find the screenplay exciting and interesting, as there are hints of actual transcripts from the House Committee on Un-American Activities scattered throughout the movie. I've watched it at least three times, and I never get bored, I just pick up more and more of the realities of this time period.

The movie is not meant to be used as a way to research this time period. It is a statement movie. It is a statement about the evilness of the red scare. It is not pro-communist, but it is pro American freedom of expression.

Guilty by Suspicion is a great educational movie that is supported by a great cast, and great subplots!

It's almost impossible to write any kind of objective film about the blacklist, the wounds of it run deep in show business. Guilty By Suspicion has no pretense to objectivity, neither does that John Wayne epic Big Jim McLain which was favorable to the House Un American Activities Committee.

Those who gave testimony at HUAC did so for a variety of motives. Some like Adolphe Menjou wanted the blacklist for everyone to the left of Herbert Hoover. Some like Robert Taylor felt they were doing a patriotic service. Some under the threat of not being able to work as artists in their chosen profession named names before HUAC. A very select few said stick it in your ear.

If there any guilty parties it's not the artists whatever their political persuasion. It was the studio bosses and one of them, Darryl F. Zanuck is played here by Ben Piazza, who gave in without exception to HUAC and cooperated in the blacklist, who pitted the people of various political persuasions against each other. Sad to say that's not really demonstrated here in Guilty By Suspicion.

The members of HUAC were 95% on the political right of both parties. The Democrats were mostly southerners and the Republicans were on the right in their party. The liberals of either party had more constructive ways to spend their time in Congess.

Guilty By Suspicion tells the story of Robert DeNiro as a fictional film director who gets blacklisted because of secret hearing testimony given by Chris Cooper. His struggle to find work turns positively Kafkaesque until he agrees to go before the committee.

DeNiro strikes all the right notes in his performance and is aided and abetted by the performance of Annette Bening as his estranged wife. Acting honors however go to Patricia Wettig who plays a distraught blacklisted actress with a drinking problem to start with.

Guilty By Suspicion is not the ultimate telling of the blacklist's story, but it's still pretty good and does get a feel for the times the story is set in.

Some Americans today may never have heard of Senator Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism. McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term refers to U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting from the late 1940s through the 1950s. It was characterized by heightened political repression and a campaign spreading fear of communist influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents. After the mid-1950s, McCarthyism began to decline, mainly due to the gradual loss of public popularity and opposition from the U.S. Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Warren Court made a series of rulings that helped bring an end to McCarthyism.

The movie "Guilty by Suspicion" takes place in Hollywood during the height of the Second Red Scare. The movie focuses on David Merrill (Robert De Niro) though he is indicative of many Hollywood personnel affected by the Communist witch hunting.

David, by all indications, was a gainfully employed movie director that was in constant demand. He would have been able to stay gainfully employed so long as he told the F.B.I. what they wanted to hear. And they wanted to hear that certain friends of David's were Communists. David, valuing friendship over finances, opted to keep quiet about any of his friends activities. For that, David was put on the Hollywood blacklist.

"Guilty by Suspicion" is a weighty movie. We get an up close and personal look at what McCarthyism was doing to people's lives. Now I know that some of you may be saying, "Who cares? It was Hollywood." To that I would say that the Constitution never put zoning restrictions on who it applied to. The Constitution didn't have a Hollywood exemption in it and the U.S. government was trampling all over people's Constitutional rights. If they didn't have enemies within the U.S. they were certainly making them.

Guilty By Suspicion is a movie about the very interesting subject of blacklisting during the McCarthy era. Robert De Niro is phenomenal as always as the innocent film director accused of communism. The look and feel of the movie is great and recreates 1950s hollywood superbly. The last 10 minutes are a showstopper and ends the movie on a strong note.

Beginning with harmless errors, there were several anachronisms - the film is set in 1951-52, but the Roseberg execution and 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' occurred in 1953. Not that the anachronisms are at all relevant, they are intended merely to put the viewer in the frame of mind of the 50's and serve that purpose admirably. I agree with the previous poster's commentary as to the one-sided nature of the plot's theme. In addition, the film moves predictably and at a consistent and dull tempo, boring the viewer. However for the more educated viewer, visually the film is very well done. The lighting, spacing, and angles of Robert De Niro relative to other characters and objects give the intended sense of alienation.. Along with the interesting editing, that was enough to keep me watching this film until the end.

Movie about the House Committee on Un-American Activities and their attack on supposed communism in Hollywood. It takes place in 1951 and director David Merrill (Robert DeNiro) returns from France to find Hollywood and his friends living in terror of being called to testify in front of the committee. If you didn't name names your career was officially over and you were (unofficially) suspected of being a communist. Merrill refuses to name anybody and his life becomes a nightmare. It also affects his ex-wife Ruth (Annette Bening) and friend Bunny Baxter (George Wendt).

This movie has good intentions and it's great that anybody made a film dealing with the horrendous witch hunts in the 1950s--but this film just doesn't work. It's simplistic to a ridiculous degree--EVERYTHING is dumbed down so anyone can get it. Also the plot is obvious (I was always one step ahead of this) and the movie is overlong. However the movie looks just great and the music is wonderful. Acting really helps this one--DeNiro is a little subdued but still good; Bening is given the thankless ex-wife role but pulls it off; Wendt overdoes it at times but is basically pretty good and Patricia Wettig (as a friend who cracks under the strain) is WAY over the top to an embarrassing degree. Also it's amusing to see Martin Scorses in a small role as a director. Ultimately the film is too bland to really work--but the courtroom sequence at the end does provide real fireworks. Worth seeing if you know nothing about what happened in Hollywood back then. I can only give it a 5.

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.

This is a way to remember those actors who were part of the Hollywood darkest era of the blacklist.

The anti-Communist witch-hunts of the late 1940s will always be a dark chapter in American history, but this heavy-handed melodrama offers no insight into any of the causes or consequences. Robert De Niro (in a role any lesser actor could have played just as well) stars as a Hollywood film director declared persona non grata for his refusal to name names before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, but his blacklisting looks more like a blessing in disguise: curing his workaholic habits and reuniting him with his wife and son. The biggest problem with producer-turned-director Irwin Winkler's skin-deep screenplay is an unfortunate tendency toward soap opera histrionics, with most of the plot revolving around dramatic suicides, drunken tantrums, and one of De Niro's trademark rip-the-phone-off-the wall-and-throw-it-across-the-room scenes. The climactic hearing is just an excuse for some politically correct soapbox grandstanding, and of course there's a rolling moral before the end credits, always a tacit admission that a film has failed to communicate its message elsewhere.

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.

Kazan named LOTS of names at the HUAC hearings.

The screen-writer,, Mr. Abraham Polonsky, took his name off the credit list---he said,this was about 'communists', not lib's But,JERKS, like McCarthy,and BIGGER JERK, Roy Cohn;put all in the same category-'guilty by association'. We don't seem to learn much from history, do we? Mr. 'P', also,wrote, "Force of Evil", which was just on TCM 09/07/10. John Garfield starred-GREAT movie noir!---In real life,Mr. Garfield-Julius Garfinkel, also, refused to give up names. In Ida Lupino's biography, and the documentary by his daughter, there is quite an legitimate argument that this is true. He died of heart-attack at age 39. The speech given by Mr. DeNiro's character is almost verbatim of speech given by Lawrence Walsh before McCarthy. "At Long last, have you no decency...."

I thought the storyline was too slow to develop. First of all, the episode about how to deal with the main character's problems needs progress. I felt the story of this film lacked that. It felt like they were doing in the climax what they should have done in the beginning of the story. I felt like the film was in a rut from the beginning to the end as if it was struggling with the same thing and the similar episodes continued and the human drama never developed. Even so, I managed to watch this movie without getting tired of it, thanks to the actresses. The actress who played Robert De Niro's wife is my type, so I couldn't help but admire her. She is Annette Bening. I was disappointed that this actress hadn't played any leading roles other than Bugsy. This time she played a very good role and I was glad to see her a lot. I think the fact that this actress is so beautiful and gorgeous helps to support the image that her husband must be a very high status director. That's why I watched this movie to the end and I could understand the issues raised. I realized that the United States is a country where the super-rich have controlled to prevent a few of them from losing their privileges. But to go straight to the subject matter like this movie does is a boring one. It's a too social matter movie and if a naive person like me watches it, it's not fun at all. When dealing with this kind of theme, I wish they would twist the rules a little more, for example, make a movie about an ideal communist country. Is there possibility that they still won't let us make those kinds of movies?

Robert DeNiro will not give names to the House UnAmerican Activities committee. There goes his Hollywood career. His marriage to Ruth, Annette Bening, has already ended in divorce, so why not the rest of his life down the drain as well?

The film is very similar in nature to Woody Allen's "The Front" of the 1970s. If you've seen the latter, you know what the ending shall be. It's called principles above all.

Patricia Wettig gives a fine supporting performance as an actress turned in by her own husband with tragedy resulting.

Nice to see Martin Scorsese go in front of the cameras for this film. He is fleeing to England to escape testifying.

We get a wonderful sense of the 1950s in Hollywood. Marilyn Monroe is hot and so is this film.

'Guilty by Suspicion' is a much needed film about McCarthyism -probably the darkest era of modern US history, one marked by conscious attempts to terrorize and silence political dissenters. David Merrill (Robert De Niro) is a relatively successful director who returns to Hollywood from filming in France to find that his political loyalty has been called into question by the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Unlike many of his artist friends, he decides to stick to his principles and fight the sinister Committee to the end.

It is a testament to the film's historical boldness that even professional critics have often found it impossible to evaluate it without digging into their personal political bias. Many see Merrill as the prototype libertarian antihero fighting against repression, while most see him as worthy of the fate of a 'communist traitor'. The film makes it quite clear that Merrill -who is of course a fictitious character- is representative of the vast majority of individuals persecuted by HUAC, in that he was as communistic as your average 'Save the Whales' member. His unconventional decision to challenge the Committee comes not from an ideological need to defend his mildly dissenting politics, but from his antagonistic frustration against HUAC's Stalinist witch hunt tactics that ruined the lives of many during the early stages of the Cold War. Ultimately, the debate about Merrill's character is largely irrelevant because it is actually HUAC's and the FBI's shameful and repulsive character, rather than Merrill's eccentric heroics, that is the film's central theme. Students of US history will not fail to hear throughout the film echoes of Special Army Attorney Joseph N. Welch's frustrated remarks "at long last, Sir, have you no decency?", aimed against a bullying Senator Joe McCarthy shortly before the latter's conclusive political demise.

Impressive performances by Robert De Niro and Patricia Wettig (as Dorothy Nolan) carry the film, whose deficient script unfortunately fails to make the most of an interesting and important theme. Equally disappointing is the film's failure to recreate a convincing visual context of late 1940s Hollywood. It is worth noting, however, that the film's final 12 minutes contain an unparalleled cinematic depiction of HUAC's early hearings, which is worth experiencing. Overall a fine effort, 5.5 stars out of ten.

Irwin Winkler's "Guilty by Suspicion" looks at the Hollywood blacklist, with Robert DeNiro as a director targeted by HUAC. It's well known that the Hollywood bigwigs were only too happy to collaborate with HUAC. One of the most effective scenes is when they're watching TV and see a report on the Rosenbergs, and how HUAC thinks that any pain felt by the Rosenbergs' sons is a small price to pay for national security (sounds like something that al-Qaeda or ISIS would say, doesn't it?). As for the scene where someone writes down the license plate, I understand that they did that in real life.

This is one part of history that particularly needs to get remembered. When some right-wing ideologue calls for rooting out "the other" in the name of Americanism, it simply means that he wants to stay in power at all costs. It's worth noting that Franklin Roosevelt was negotiating with the Soviet Union to make sure that there would be no more wars once WWII was over, but he died and so Truman canceled those plans. Despite having negotiated the division of Europe with the USSR, Truman went along with the claims by McCarthy and Co. that the leftists helped the USSR take over Eastern Europe.

Definitely a movie that I recommend. This topic took on a new relevance in the so called War on Terrorism.

The stage curtains open ...

The 1950's in Hollywood wasn't quite so glamorous. Many were under the scrutinizing and accusing eye of the FBI. It was a restless time in American history, the time of the Hollywood Blacklist, the time of McCarthyism, the time when a communist could have been your very next door neighbor. It was also a time of resolve and of being true to oneself and your conscience.

Hollywood Director, David Merrill (Robert De Niro), fell under the FBI gaze because of a couple of meetings he once attended 12 years prior. He is prompted to go visit a lawyer before he can continue working on a movie. Unless David will turn against his friends and associates, naming them as communists, he must appear in court and face possible imprisonment as a communist himself. He refuses and suddenly, his life and the lives of everyone around him is thrown into chaos. He can't find work, his closest friends turn on him, and even his own son wonders if his Dad is a "red".

This was a very good depiction and comprehensive story of what it must have been like back in those days. De Niro, as usual, turned in a wonderful performance as a man who was willing to lose everything before he lost his dignity and integrity. He would rather stand up for what he believed to be right, than sell out his friends for something they didn't do.

I recommend this film. It is a bit dated, but it still holds up pretty well and is just as viable today as when it was first released 30 years ago. It isn't a tense film, not a thriller, but a steadily paced drama showcasing the human dilemma. As such, it does move rather slow in parts, but the final scene will have you riveted. This is a solid 7 stars out of 10.

De Niro stars as a hot movie director who finds out he cannot get work unless he names names to the House of Un-American activities Commitee. Will he, won't he.

Whilst this represents well the famously shameful period in US history and its obsession with communism, the film itself is rather slow and brings nothing new to the story. De Niro is strong in the lead with good support from Bening and Wendt, but despite its no doubt noble intent, it doesn't exactly set the World on fire. The Front is better.