Guilty by Suspicion

Robert De Niro plays a blacklisted movie director during the McCarthy era., Irwin Winkler’s drama is set in Hollywood’s ’50s anti-Communist witchhunts, starring Robert De Niro as a writer-director whose career is destroyed by the House Of Un-American Activities Committee. With Annette Bening, Sam Wanamaker (who left America during the witch hunts for exile in England) and Martin Scorsese., Robert De Niro plays a blacklisted movie director during the McCarthy era. Annette Bening. Baxter: George Wendt. Dorothy: Patricia Wettig. Graff: Sam Wanamaker. Nolan: Chris Cooper. Darryl Zanuck: Ben Piazza. Lesser: Martin Scorsese. Written and directed by Irwin Winkler., David Merrill is a 1950s film director whose obsession with his burgeoning career has estranged him from his wife Ruth and their son. When he returns from a trip to Paris, Merrill is surprised when told by his boss, Darryl F. Zanuck that he’s been summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which is investigating Communist ties to Hollywood., Drama about the anti-Communist witch-hunt in 1950s Hollywood, starring Robert De Niro as a writer-director whose career is destroyed by the House Of Un-American Activities Committee. With Annette Bening, George Wendt, Sam Wanamaker (who left America during the witch hunts for exile in England) and Martin Scorsese., Film director David Merrill returns from abroad to find a strange mood of paranoia among his colleagues. It’s the McCarthy era and they’re all under suspicion for ‘Un-American activities’. The spotlight falls on Merrill but he refuses to surrender his principles and finds himself blacklisted, and a target for FBI harassment., The directorial debut of producer Irwin Winkler, Guilty by Suspicion is a sobering account of one movie executive’s woes in dealing with the political fallout from the McCarthy Era Hollywood blacklist. Robert De Niro stars as David Merrill, a film director in the 1950s whose obsession with his burgeoning career has estranged him from his wife Ruth (Annette Bening) and their son. When he returns from a trip to Paris, Merrill is surprised when told by his boss, Darryl F. Zanuck (Ben Piazza) that he’s been summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which is investigating Communist ties to Hollywood. Although Merrill once attended a meeting years before, he’s not a Communist, and he refuses to help the committee wreck the career of his friend Bunny Baxter (George Wendt). Merrill becomes blacklisted, unable to find work even in menial positions or under assumed names as the editor of a B-movie or the director of a low-budget Western. Reconciled with his family, Merrill caves in and agrees to testify, but as he prepares to “name names,” his conscience plagues him.