Without narration, this documentary presents audio-visual excerpts from the famous Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. The televised hearings were significant in that they brought to light the mean-spirited, and unfounded, accusations of an American demagogue, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, a man who claimed that certain individuals, both in the U.S. Army and elsewhere in American government, were Communist spies.What is glaringly obvious, from this documentary, is that McCarthy had no evidence. He and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, accused, implicated, vilified, and pointed fingers. And the political climate in the 1950s was such that even these accusations were enough to destroy the careers and lives of many individuals. McCarthy, an ambitious politician, used fear as a weapon, which contributed to unwarranted suspicion during the Cold War.The hearings are theatrical, Shakespearean drama, in part. Several times, impassioned speeches are made. At other times, the proceedings are laughably petty, like when the committee examines a photograph of Army Private David Schine (pronounced Shine). The subtext during this segment is that David Schine and Roy Cohn had some sort of homosexual relationship, an ironic development, given that Cohn and McCarthy, as political Conservatives, would be just as hostile to homosexuals as to Communists.One might think that "Point Of Order" would be dry and boring. But the political atmosphere was so charged, so on-edge, that the viewer can easily discern the tension, the fear, and the anxiety of people who had no idea how these events would play out.McCarthy probably thought these hearings would be a stepping stone en route to the White House. Instead, the camera, as hero, revealed to the American people that McCarthy was a fear monger. Television was his downfall. And the overall message of "Point Of Order" is that enhanced communications technology, in this case television, can be used to thwart the plans of would-be dictators and tyrants.Today, money has corrupted television. But communications technology continues to evolve, and the internet now functions as a medium that shines lights into dark corners, as television did fifty years ago.

Documentarian Emile De Antonio dug aging ABC TV film footage of the 1954 Army McCarthy Hearings from a warehouse. Kinescopes are created by recording live images from a TV monitor. Early TV heritage is preserved on this primitive film. De Antonio simply edited the film. The 93minute Point of Order was released in 1963. It is the watch phrase of an ambitious and drunken Joe McCarthy, bound for glory. Seeing these creaky black and white kinescopes from 1954, summons memories of American Politics back then. I was nine then, but the drama of the hearings would have been apparent to a six year old. Americans were innocents then about TV.It was the last year the GOP held control of both houses of Congress. The Army McCarthy hearings signaled the decline of the the Congressional GOP for the next four decades. Looking back the groundwork for undoing Joe McCarthy was laid before the hearings even began.Karl Mundt of S. Dakota (Rep) Chaired the Hearings in front of the Armed Services Committee. Joe and Chief Counsel Roy Cohn could abuse or amuse, at will, in Joe's subcommittee. But Eisenhower, the Press, Joe's own party, were colluding to stage the Hearings on a level playing field.ABC ran the McCarthy hearings live mornings and afternoons when the networks were dark and they had no programming to show. The TV network founded by Leonard Goldenson from the ashes of the NBC Blue Radio network, was the smallest of them.There were no commercials. The broadcast was run on a sustaining basis, without ads.CBS and NBC joined ABC the next day. The Hearings were gathering a substantial audience. The daily Army Hearings quickly became the first riveting live news event of the TV age.In 1954, there was almost no live TV news. Only two network newscasts, John Cameron Swayze's Camel Caravan on NBC and Douglas Edwards and the News on CBS ran for only 15 minutes.Joseph Welch, the Army Counsel, a Boston trial lawyer, cast himself as the fair-haired country boy of the Hearings. Welch wasn't going to play the rube though. Roy Cohn and Joe McCarthy would be the foils of this TV show.McCarthy would drone on in a deadening monolithic style, a manner whose subtext Welch quickly read. The Boston Barrister focused his disarming persona on the soft underbelly of the McCarthy style with devastating effect.Welch showed he could readily switch from hayseed to moralist on a dime. The lawyer had watched Henry Fonda's Abe Lincoln in John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln too many times. Welch's homespun, Abe-like discourse would dominate the Hearings.Despite Welch's seeming lack of charisma, he was as spellbinding a figure on 1954 television as any pro working in the medium of Milton Berle, Bishop Sheen and Buffalo Bob Smith. Used to conducting hearings in the drab public affairs nether world of the newspaper-driven fifties, McCarthy didn't catch on to the Welch Style, understand it or try to adapt to it. Joseph Welch was eating McCarthy and Cohn alive any time he felt like it. Senators Scoop Jackson, Karl Mundt and others were at a loss for words amidst the dramatics of those 36 days. Only Missouri democrat Stuart Symington was able to capture some of the method of the balding Boston lawyer in the last sessions.When events presented themselves, Welch would virtually take over the Hearings, outwitting committee members, witnesses, undoing or green-lighting exhibit presentations, thwarting and disturbing the tired theatrics of McCarthy and Cohn. Point of Order is a dazzling TV spectacular with a single spellbinder at its center, a master of a medium he had no experience of.As the Hearings ground to a close, Cohn and McCarthy were resigned to their tragedy. Each exchange with Welch found the two men's noses bloodied once again. Joe and Roy belatedly recognized themselves as bit players in Welch's Great Political Soap Opera. The Two knew toward the end they were powerless to prevent impending doom. You could see the despair etched in their faces.The old tapes are now History. Welch seems an unlikely choice as Counsel for a stodgy Army. McCarthy and Cohn, charged with explaining why Private David Schine should be permanently furloughed from the Army to work with the Communist-Hunting McCarthy, were drunk with power. But it seems like a nobrainer that the Army should win. Fear of the Communist Menace turned common sense on its head during the four years Joe McCarthy rose and spectacularly fell. Maybe it is more like now than many today are willing to admit.The next year, two playwrights captured the essence of Counselor Welch in a new play. A Welch-like Clarence Darrow character was pitted against an orator and moralist modeled on William Jennings Bryan in Inherit the Wind, based on the 1927 Scopes Trial. The Darrow Spencer Tracy portrayed in the 1960 movie would incorporate both aspects of the Welch personaIn 1956 the first half hour nightly newscast with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley premiered on NBC and became a roaring success. In 1957 Joe McCarthy died of acute cirrhosis. Cohn would become a successful lawyer himself. He died of AIDs in the late eighties. McCarthy's other subcommittee counsel Bobby Kennedy and his brother Jack would learn from Welch. The brothers and their rogue father Joe Kennedy had been disciples of McCarthy the Witch Hunter. They were likely dismayed at the outcome of the Hearings but impressed by the Welch Performance. The Kennedys would find ways to bottle his magic and transform American Politics, Culture and Public Affairs after 1960. You could argue that the genie-in-a-bottle Welch uncorked in those grainy TV hearings long ago transformed American life.

Emile De Antonio assembled "Point of Order" from old TV kinescopes, taken during what have become known as the "Army-McCarthy" Hearings of 1954( the Hearings lasted 36 days and took up 187 hours of broadcast airtime).There is no narration and those with little knowledge of what these Hearings were about,may wonder what is going on.Here we have the Senate Permanent Sub Committee on Investigations(the PSI),chaired by Senator Karl Mundt,looking into the charge that Senator Joseph McCarthy and his staff-especially chief council Roy Cohn(Schine's close friend),had tried to use their influence to get the Army to grant "favours" to G.David Schine,a wealthy young man on the Committee staff, who had been drafted,and was a special friend of Cohn.The Army had brought these charges in response to Senator McCarthy's allegations of serious Army security risks-specifically at Fort Monmouth,New Jersey.McCarthy had been Chairman of this Committee, but stepped down,being replaced by Mundt for this investigation,as McCarthy was personally involved in the allegations.One important aspect of "Point of order"(the title taken from Mc Carthy's frequent interruptions-the phrase becoming a comedians joke-further undermining the Senator's reputation),is that the left wing De Antonio has edited it to show McCarthy in the worst light possible.There are a lot of omissions of material necessary to comprehend the charges and counter charges between the McCarthy camp and the Army(in the version I saw,David Schine's appearance at the Hearings was absent!)The Joe McCarthy we see here is a man who was beginning to disintegrate-years of controversy and pressure led to his increasing reliance on the alcohol which would eventually kill him.He was ill,suffering constant headaches and sinus problems,he looks bloated,and the serious gaffs he makes may be attributable to his heavy drinking and poor health.The most famous of these is his blurting out the name of attorney Fred Fisher as a member of the Lawyer's Guild(a communist front)-giving Fisher's boss,Army council Joseph Welch his chance to tear into McCarthy with his famous "Have you no sense of decency,sir?" speech.Many see this moment as the vital one-where McCarthy was shown up,exposed and humiliated on camera before the American people,leading on to the final blow which finished him soon after,his censure by the Senate.Whatever ones views on McCarthy,the exchange between wily old Joe Welch and Joe McCarthy-who rumbles on,seemingly oblivious to the damage he is doing to himself,is a riveting piece of real life drama.The final report of the Committee found that pressure had been put on the Army on Schine's behalf by Roy Cohn and others,with McCarthy's assistance(McCarthy,who couldn't have cared less about Schine,thought so highly of Cohn he allowed himself to be pulled down into disaster by him),but the Army chiefs had been guilty of pandering to it,and of obstructing the Fort Monmouth investigations.You will not find this out from "Point of Order",which ends with the scene of people filing out of the Committee room at the conclusion of the Hearings-McCarthy sitting at the table seemingly ignored and abandoned.The truth about McCarthy is that he was a complex,intelligent,personally kind and affable man,who loved the limelight and the bottle,had a volatile temper and did have frequent serious lapses of judgement-but he was not the one dimensional ogre who persecuted "innocent" people by calling them "communists" of historical myth.Time has largely vindicated McCarthy and the anti-communist investigators,with the opening of the U.S.and Soviet archives,which detail the enormous levels of infiltration by Moscow's agents into crucial positions in the U.S.That McCarthy and his allies were more correct than wrong has yet to change the "red-baiting" myth,and salvage the reputation of the most famous "Witch-hunter" of them all.Emile De Antonio's film remains the most accessible picture of McCarthy-and he's at his worst,serving to perpetuate the image of "Tail Gunner Joe" as an irresponsible overbearing villain.

The best thing about this documentary is that there is no narration, there is no commentary; clips of the Army-McCarthy hearings that finally brought an end to Joseph McCarthy and his era of bully politics that destroyed so many American lives. There are arguments both pro and con re: McCarthy and his basic premise (that Communists had infiltrated Hollywood and the American government, indeed, all the way to the Executive Branch). He may have had a valid point at one time or another, but it quickly became overshadowed by his ego and insatiable appetite for power. Sound like anyone we've seen recently in Washington? I recommend viewing this riveting film as it is not partisan - it is McCarthy in all his egomaniacal ranting and raving against those who stood by their personal beliefs and held firm in their convictions that the Constitution of the United States of America would forever be their guide.