Movies - Point of Order

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Point of Order! is a 1964 documentary film about the Senate Army-McCarthy Hearings of 1954. The hearings were broadcast live on television in their entirety and also recorded via kinescope. Made without narration, the film was compiled from the kinescope recordings and reduced to 93 minutes out of 187 hours.

The Army-McCarthy Hearings came about when the Army accused Senator McCarthy of improperly pressuring the Army for special privileges for Private G. David Schine, formerly of McCarthy's investigative staff. McCarthy counter-charged that the Army was holding Schine hostage to keep him from searching for Communists in the Army.

The film ends with a scene that stands as a metaphor for McCarthy's rapidly crumbling influence on the nation. It shows a heated exchange between Democratic Senator Stuart Symington and McCarthy that occurred near the end of the hearings and late in the afternoon, when the hearings were about to adjourn for the day. Symington sharply questions the handling of McCarthy's secret files by his staff. McCarthy calls this a "smear" against the men on his staff, and as Symington starts to leave, McCarthy accuses him of using "the same tactics that the Communist Party has used for too long." Symington returns to the microphone and says: "Apparently every time anybody says anything against anybody working for Senator McCarthy, he is declaring them and accusing them of being Communists!" Symington leaves and the hearings adjourn. McCarthy continues his passionate but repetitious defense of his staff and his attack on Symington, speaking to an increasingly empty chamber.

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