Point of Order! (1964)

i must have seen a different film!!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

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.

Apparently the DVD's as of 2012 are expensive to obtain. My used one ran 50 bucks. Anyway, this is a slice of history that riveted the nation in those early days of coast-to-coast TV. Reviewer Mike Rice does a good job of filling in the background, so there's no need to repeat it here. The documentary is an edited version of the 1954 senate hearings. On the whole, editing is to film footage what the eraser is to penciled composition. In short, astute editing can be used to create many, sometimes incompatible, effects. Now, I have no reason to believe editing was used here to skew any particular effect, but its potential for mischief is well to keep in mind.Maybe it's my seven decades of breathing, but I did have some trouble following the narrative, and could have used some helpful bridges (a voice-over or graphics) to flesh out better continuity, especially when the topic of the Hearings changes. But whatever the difficulty, the legal fencing between experts is fascinating to watch. Note, for example, how no one on either side responds with a simple yes or no.Naturally, most viewers approach the material with their own political pre-conceptions. I have mine, still I want to venture several observations not rooted, I believe, in my politics. Firstly, I don't recall seeing clips of McCarthy smiling before; here he at times appears almost affable, contrary to his usual sour image. Secondly, Welch is one eloquent attorney who really knows how to think on his feet. The usual brief clips of "Have you no sense of decency" only hint at those abilities. Then too, he's so unprepossessing looking you don't expect him to dominate the way he sometimes does. Lastly, I'd really like to know who concocted that phony letter from Hoover, along with the cropped photo. I may have missed something, but I don't believe those questions are resolved in the footage.Be that as it may, Point of Order is real life dramatics at its most fascinating and remains an important slice of post-war history, from which the junior senator from Wisconsin never really recovered.

The best thing about this documentary is that there is no narration, there is no commentary; clips of the Army-McCarthy hearings that finally brought an end to Joseph McCarthy and his era of bully politics that destroyed so many American lives. There are arguments both pro and con re: McCarthy and his basic premise (that Communists had infiltrated Hollywood and the American government, indeed, all the way to the Executive Branch). He may have had a valid point at one time or another, but it quickly became overshadowed by his ego and insatiable appetite for power. Sound like anyone we've seen recently in Washington? I recommend viewing this riveting film as it is not partisan - it is McCarthy in all his egomaniacal ranting and raving against those who stood by their personal beliefs and held firm in their convictions that the Constitution of the United States of America would forever be their guide.

This is a fascinating behind the scenes look at a hearing that lead to the censure of Senator McCarthy. Taken from clips of TV footage in 1954, it shows what kind of an evil person the senator truly was. What he did to many people during the Communist hunt of the late 40's and early 50's was no different to what Adolf Hitler was planning to do in World War 2. Its interesting that Point of Order(1964) was re-released during the whole Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinski trials and there are some things that parallel each other. Unfortuantely for many people whose families and lives were destroyed by the Senator, his being Censured came too little too late. Its funny to see McCarthy try to accuse members of the army of being Communist backers. Point of Order(1964) as with Luis Bunuel's Land Without Bread(1930) were two of the most important documentaires to be produced in the 20th Century. Robert F. Kennedy can be seen in the background while the hearing was going on.