Point of Order! (1964)

This historical political documentary of the Senate subcommittee Communist witch hunt in 1954 is taken from television kinescopes. Led by the demagogue Senator Joseph McCarthy and his slimy underling attorney Roy Cohn, the 36 day long hearings gripped the nation and fanned the flames of paranoia. "Are you now or were you ever a member of the Communist Party?" was the question asked of artists, writers, actors. Those who fan afoul of the committee were placed on the infamous "blacklist." Careers and lives were ruined by the rumor, gossip, innuendo and panic where guilt by association meant loss of livelihood in a period known in the United States as the red scare. McCarthy's monotonous haranguing accused people of being "card carrying Communist" in one of the more intolerant periods in American history. This feature was well received at the New York Film Festival.