Guilty by Suspicion

Plot summary

David Merrill (De Niro), a director in 1950s Hollywood, returns from abroad to find that a rising tide of McCarthyism and the Red Scare has led to his not being allowed to work in films. He will only be allowed to direct once he implicates colleagues as Communist agents. He must decide whether to turn informant, or to stick to principle at the cost of his life's work.

Cast

Reception

The film opened to good reviews and earned praise for Robert De Niro's performance. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote that the film "teaches a lesson we are always in danger of forgetting: that the greatest service we can do our country is to be true to our conscience."

Controversy

Before the film was released, a fight broke out over the film's script clean up which happened between director Irwin Winkler and former blacklisted writer Abraham Polonsky: through others, Polonsky learned Winkler changed the political convictions of the De Niro character. He was resentful of the change over. In the rewrite, the David Merrill character was changed from a Communist Party member to a relatively apolitical liberal. Winkler based his conception of Merrill on blacklisted director John Berry, who would come back to Hollywood film though it took time to get off the blacklist. Polonsky was so offended that director Irwin Winkler changed the main character that he not only had his name taken off of the picture, he also refused an executive producer credit that would have earned him a substantial fee.