Customer Reviews

Point of Order [VHS]

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This film, along with "Hollywood On Trial" is among the very best records of what the great American playwright Lillian Hellman called "Scoundrel Time." It shows us not only the face of one demagogue, but of the times which made him. Our nation is fortunate that Joe Welch was there to confront the Junior Senator and that TV was live and showed the face of unrestrained power in the Congress.

One piece is missing, and should be known. I heard Joe Welch's aide interviewed several years ago about the "big moment" when Welch confronted McCarthy. The background was that the Junior Senator's people had met with Welch's people before the hearings. Welch knew of the "doings" with Roy Cohen and G. David Schine and McCarthy knew about the young lawyer. They had agreed, it is said, that if Welch stayed away from the Cohen/gay issue, McCarthy would leave the young lawyer out of it. McCarthy, feeling powerful, is said to have gone back on the agreement and brought up the young lawyer. The "pixie" exchange is the tip of that iceberg.

Should be seen by all Americans who value freedom and admire honesty.

There are kids growing up who know nothing about McCarthy andMcCarthyism. This film is right there as McCarthy tries to ruin livesand his methods are shown on national tv (in the first televised hearings) for what they are. Among other things, it makes one wish we had someone of the ability and integrity of Joseph Welch to handle some of the recent hearings that have left the public so disenchanted.

I lived through the army - McCarthy hearings as a child: we watched them on tv every day. My parents, who were conservative Republicans, were appalled at what they saw. This video contains excerpts of the hearings as we saw them. The whole country was able to view what was happening--doctored evidence, bullying, intimidation, and a reckless attack on anyone who had the temerity to disagree with him. People were convicted--in Congressional hearings rather than on trial by jury--by association, by hearsay and by innuendo. While there certainly were some Communist spies and sympathizers, many people whose careers were distroyed were in fact innocent. For the first time, we could all see this as it was happening (This was the first time such hearings were broadcast). There was no "liberal slant" in those broadcasts: McCarthy convicted himself by his own actions. My parents, who were no liberals, became convinced by what they saw that McCarthy himself was a true danger to this country.
This documentary is well worth watching. The danger McCarthy posed was real: democracy's defenders sometimes, out of fear, risk distroying the very thing they seek to protect.

Anyone who believes that this video is "slanted to the left" needs to have his or her head examined. This video is nothing more than excerpts from the Army-McCarthy Hearings which demonstrate the impact of the fear of communism -- the Red Scare -- at home. Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy -- McCarthyism -- was the ultimate result.

McCarthy's desire to find "communists," real or imagined, destroyed reputations and careers. It also angered his contemporaries, including members of his own party. President Harry Truman, a Democrat, said that McCarthy was the best weapon the communists had because McCarthy was dividing Americans against each other. Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican and Truman's successor, said, "I will not get into a pissing contest with that skunk." Yet trying to bring McCarthy and those who thought like him under control was very difficult. To have come out against McCarthy and those like him would have made McCarthy's attackers look "weak" against communism, which could hurt them politically. Even Eisenhower, despite his contempt for McCarthy, refused to denounce the senator publicly, in part because he feared the impact it could have upon the Republican Party.

"Point of Order" does more than simply show how McCarthyism, by not being brought under control, could place reputations in jeopardy and bring into question the loyalty of individuals and institutions, such as the U.S. Army. It also points to the danger of allowing suspicion, hatred, and fear go unchecked; failure to restrain such emotions opens the door to tyranny. The message presented in "Point of Order," therefore, was not just relevant to Americans in the early Cold War, but remains relevant to them in the post-Cold War era.

When I was a high school teacher, I used to show this film to my US History classes. The students always started out bored and ended astonished by this gripping real-life drama. It is still amazing that McCarthy, a liar and a fraud, was able to muster so much conservative support. And it is electrifying to see real people, not actors, play out this drama before our nation.

In a critique elsewhere among the Amazon reviews of this DVD, Fredrick P. Wilson references the Venona project, an intelligence operation that identified numerous Communist undercover agents in the Federal government. While it is true that several of the people Joseph McCarthy accused were also named in the Verona files (made public in 1995), many more were perfectly innocent, loyal Americans. Furthermore, McCarthy was never able to produce a single shred of credible evidence to prove his accusations, and not one person who appeared before his committee was ever convicted of Soviet espionage.

In other words, just because McCarthy may at times have been right, does not change (or justify) the fact that he was a bully, a demagogue, and an opportunist who ruined the lives of numerous innocent Americans, who did far more harm than he did good, who was a disgrace to the Senate and the country, and who in the long run helped the Soviets with his reckless accusations far more than he hindered them.

The film shows a signal moment in our nation's history, when television became the dominant force in American politics. McCarthy's Red-baiting histrionics played well as newspaper headlines and quotes. But when the unblinking eye of television showed him in the flesh, slinging mud in all directions, calling anyone who dared to disagree with him a liar or a fraud or a phony or a Communist sympathizer, he was finished. McCarthy wasn't laid low by Joseph Welsh or Ed Murrow; he was destroyed by TV itself.

I deduct one star from my rating because of the film's somewhat deceptive ending, which uses editing to make it appear as though the hearing room empties while McCarthy continues to rant. In truth the hearings did not end this way, and this sequence plays like a steal from climax of "Inherit the Wind."

POINT OF ORDER is an absolutely fascinating and unbiased filmed record of the long delayed downfall of Joe McCarthy, inarguably one of this country's most infamous modern villains. Director Emile De Antonio licensed over 200 hours of footage from CBS-TV of the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings, which had been originally broadcast live to millions of spellbound viewers, and judiciously edited/condensed the dramatic events into 97 stunning minutes. Its an incredible and important historical document that absolutely must be seen by anyone who wants to fully understand exactly why McCarthy was such a notorious figure.

De Antonio refused to impose any narration to the film as he felt it was important to simply present the original provided camera coverage in as politically neutral a way as possible, without any editorializing whatsoever. Indeed, no voiceover is needed at all to enhance the powerful drama of watching McCarthy, an abrasively loud and sarcastic demagogue and rabble rouser, slowly transform into a ruined, disgraced alcoholic left alone to babble to himself. Although his repulsive witch hunting campaign had been allowed to thrive for far too long, it must be said that justice against this truly immoral man finally triumphed.

POINT OF ORDER is one of the greatest documentaries ever made and this DVD gives it a fine presentation. New Yorker's discs have often (and justifiably) been attacked for substandard quality but this release is undeniably excellent, with surprising visual clarity considering the kinescope origins of the footage. De Antonio's audio commentary (taken from a variety of recorded sources) provides information regarding the making of the film, as well as offering a comprehensive overview of the era. Anybody with an interest in U.S. history should add this now-classic film to his or her DVD collection.

There are three reasons this movie is so good. The first is that it shows some of the methods that McCarthy used to interrogate his victims. I also found it funny that, when asked about things that had nthing to do with it, McCarthy would start spouting long speeches about Communism . The second is that it SHOWS people. You can really get a sense of what these people were like. You can see Roy Cohn right there in person, pouting like a 5-year-old kid. You can see some of the heads of the Committee, and see their obvious hatred of McCarthy and Cohn. You can see McCarthy, in all his ugliness, with that looong waaaay of speeeaking. You can actually get a picture of these people, and see how they work, and form your own opinions about them, instead of reading someone else's in a book. The third reason is that it just shows the hearings. If this movie were made today, you'd have all these "historians" talking in serious tones about the hearings. Here, the hearings speak for themselves. The people are not interupted, and no expert on McCarthyism appears to discuss what just went on. I think that is priceless My personal favorite: Welch, who, while very funny, managed to outsmart McCarthy various times. Also enjoyed their famous confrontation.

I first saw this film in 1964 and it is as relevant today as it was then. We must never forget the dangers that are inherent in government power that is uncontrolled and reckless. The last scene in the film is a stunning denouncement of demagoguery and the scene where Mr. Welch confronts McCarthy with the words "At long last Sir, have you no decency" is devastating. This film is particularly important as it relates to the sexual McCarthyism that recently occurred in the investigation of the President and his staff by the OIC. We must never forget that abuse of power is one of the worst offenses that a government can launch against its people. This film will reinforce that idea among those of us who remember McCarthy and will teach those who are too young to remember. Every high school student in America should see this film.

The best thing about this film is that you don't have anyone telling you how you should feel about what you are seeing. The proceedings of the Army/McCarthy hearings are shown without comment. You are left to reach your own opinion about who was right and who was wrong. But you also can see the faces and hear the timbre of the voices -- you decide who was evasive, who avoided giving verifiable facts, who refused to answer questions, who was grandstanding.

The film does not give us a balanced picture of the two sides. But that is because the sides weren't balanced. McCarthy had finally met his match -- people who were tired of his tactics and refused to be bullied any longer. What this film really documents is the destruction of the most evil force in American political history, the beginning of the end the darkest days for freedom of thought and speech that we have yet endured. You see him crumbling. No comment necessary.