WUSA

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TOMATOMETER

Total Count: N/A

37%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 99

Super Reviewer

Movie Info

Paul Newman served as co-producer of this allegorical drama and stars as Rheinhardt, a opportunistic drifter who ends up in New Orleans and hits up his old friend Farley (Laurence Harvey), a con man-turned-phony preacher, for a job. Farley is able to get Rheinhardt hired on as an announcer at a local radio station, WUSA, but the station is a right-wing propaganda mill that devotes its air time to venomous tirades against political and social progress. Rheinhardt is happy to be making decent money, and he makes the friendly acquaintance of a local working girl, Geraldine (Joanne Woodward), so he refuses to look his gift horse in the mouth. However, when he finds out that WUSA is actually involved in shadowy political actions, he is at a loss for what to do, especially after a naïve and troubled social worker (Anthony Perkins) is tricked into starting a race riot. Robert Stone wrote the screenplay, adapted from his novel A Hall of Mirrors.

Rating:

PG-13
Genre:

Classics, Drama
Directed By:

Stuart Rosenberg
Written By:

Robert Stone
On Disc/Streaming:

Nov 13, 2014
Runtime:

115 minutes
Studio:

Paramount Pictures

Cast

Paul Newman
as Rheinhardt

Joanne Woodward
as Geraldine

Anthony Perkins
as Rainey

Laurence Harvey
as Farley

Pat Hingle
as Bingamon

Cloris Leachman
as Philomene

Michael Anderson Jr.
as Marvin

Don Gordon
as Bogdanovich

Michael Anderson Jr.
as Marvin

Leigh French
as Girl

Moses Gunn
as Clotho

Bruce Cabot
as King Wolyoe

B.J. Mason
as Roosevelt Berry

Robert Quarry
as Noonan

Wayne Rogers
as Calvin Minter

Hal Baylor
as Shorty

Jim Boles
as Hot Dog Vendor

Diane Ladd
as Barmaid at Railroad Station

Sahdji
as Hollywood

Skip Young
as Jimmy Snipe

Geoffrey Edwards
as Irving

Louis Gossett Jr.

Clifton James
as Speed

Tol Avery
as Senator

Paul Hampton
as Rusty Fargo

Jerry Catron
as Sidewinder Bates

Geraldine West
as Matron

Lucille Benson
as Matron

Preservation Hall Jazz Band
as Themselves

Susan Batson
as Teenaged Girl

Zara Cully
as White-Haired Woman

David Huddleston
as Heavy Man

View All

Critic Reviews for WUSA

All Critics (3) | DVD (2)

It's too bad that the execution of this Paul Newman starring film is so poor for it raises some interesting social and political issues

May 31, 2011 | Rating: C | Full Review…

Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com
...serves as a nostalgia-inducing oddity, a kind of scrapbook of American sensibility at the end of the 1960s, a time when there really were people ... who believed we were on the brink of revolution

Mar 4, 2011 | Rating: 83/100 | Full Review…

Philip Martin
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
... the film hammers home its politics with blunt force yet leaves the conspiracy drama vague, more symbolic gesture of outrage than convincing plot.

Feb 13, 2011 | Full Review…

Sean Axmaker
Parallax View