Good Night, and Good Luck

1. Good Night, and Good Luck By Guy Ciancia and Charles Thweatt

2. Film Information • Directed by George Clooney • Written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov • Release Date: October 14, 2005

3. Plot Summary • In the early 1950's, the threat of Communism created a paranoia in the United States known as the red scare. Exploiting those fears was a Senator named Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. CBS reporter Edward Murrow and his producer Fred Friendly decided to take a stand and challenge McCarthy and expose him for the fear monger he was. Their brave actions took a great toll on both men, but they helped to bring down one of the most controversial senators in United States history.

5. The New York Times A critic from the New York Times describes “The free press may be the oxygen of a democratic society, but it is always clouded by particles and pollutants, from the vanity or cowardice of individual journalists to the impersonal pressures of state power and the profit motive.” - A.O. Scott That is true in today’s society because like McCarthy, some politicians tell the American people that the government is taking over the country and that the system is broken and needs to be changed.

7. USA Today “At a time when even President Eisenhower never stood up to McCarthy’s reckless smears, Murrow took off his gloves and exposed the junior Senator from Wisconsin’s tactics after Milo Radulovich was dismissed from the Army Air Corps following shaky accusations of communist sympathies. It was the beginning of the end.” -Mike Clark Eisenhower had the power to stop McCarthy; from my point of view, I think he didn’t want to speak out against him because he too would be labeled as a communist. Murrow had the right to speak out against Senator McCarthy because in the first amendment you have the freedom of the press. He stood up against McCarthy for his beliefs.

9. The Washington Post “Some may quibble with the politics or the narrow focus, Clooney forgets all about the Cold War, but within its own boundaries, the movie is powerfully convincing.” -Stephen Hunter The Soviet Union is a threat to the United States this I know, but let us not forget that we have a more pressing matter at hand here that needs to be taken seriously. The Red Scare was McCarthy’s way of scaring the living daylights out of the American people by using fear as his way of abusing his power and targeting ordinary Americans believed to be tied with communist ideals and exploiting them as a threat to American values.

11. The New Yorker “This is an elegant and stirring entertainment about the hard-drinking, hard-smoking reporters of See It Now, the show that Murrow and the producer Fred Friendly put together every week a group of men and women who marshaled their courage and their skills to overcome a noxious atmosphere of intimidation.” -David Denby Investigative reporting has changed since the 50s’ and the news that we see today is changing minute by minute and it is not as interesting as it was then as it is now. If you want to see the news in a more provocative point of view watch the PBS News Hour.