CNS Movie Review: Good Night, and Good Luck.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

By Harry Forbes
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- How many today really know the significance of TV newsman Edward R. Murrow? Very few, I suspect.

But "Good Night, and Good Luck." (Warner Independent) should educate a new generation about how the chain-smoking, stentorian host of early television's "See It Now" and "Person to Person" bravely took on Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin at the height of the 1950s "Red scare," a fear-filled campaign fueled by the senator's witch-hunting tactics. In a series of no-holds-barred broadcasts, Murrow brought about McCarthy's censure by the Senate.

Director George Clooney has shot this excellent film in evocative black and white as if to mirror the world that coast-to-coast audiences would have seen at the time. The setting is the CBS network newsroom, which is shown to be a male-dominated, smoke-filled environment, where -- apart from an occasional secretary -- women are scarce and their influence marginal.

A vocally (if not physically) spot-on David Strathairn plays Murrow, and there's first-class support from Clooney himself as his co-producer, Fred Friendly; Grant Heslov (who, with Clooney, co-wrote the screenplay) as a young Don ("60 Minutes") Hewitt, then a director; Robert Downey Jr. as producer Joe Wershba; Patricia Clarkson as his staffer-wife, Shirley, though their marriage had to be secret (as per CBS policy on married couples); Jeff Daniels as head of the news division, "Sig" Mickelson; and Frank Langella as CBS President William Paley, portrayed as a benevolent despot who watches over his newsroom, bracing himself for corporate and political repercussions.

The pressure on CBS was so intense that besides signing loyalty oaths, the crew at one point is gathered and forewarned that if there's the slightest hint of impropriety in anyone's background, they must absent themselves from the project. One broadcaster, Don Hollenbeck (Ray Wise), is driven to suicide when attacked by a right-wing columnist.

After Murrow's historic broadcast, McCarthy launches a counterattack, labeling Murrow a communist sympathizer.

Clooney's tribute to a TV golden-age legend is well deserved, especially in this age of superficial, sound-bite reporting. Murrow's speech to an audience of TV executives, in which he decries the frivolity of the entertainment business at the expense of news, still resonates.

The events of 1953 and 1954 are streamlined, starting with Murrow's defense of Milo Radulovich, the airman who was unjustly implicated as a communist because of family ties. Murrow's increasingly bold attacks on McCarthy are familiar to broadcast journalism students.

Clooney skillfully interweaves the footage with actual TV programs and commercials of the time. The real McCarthy is featured prominently through old kinescopes. Similarly, another seamlessly integrated episode has Murrow/Strathairn "interviewing" the real Liberace on "Person to Person."

Jazz singer Dianne Reeves appears in several sequences -- ostensibly, a studio singer in the building doing standards in the "cool" jazz manner of the 1950s -- which help punctuate (and lighten) the drama.

A little more context for the events depicted in the film would not have been out of place, but the film is absorbing viewing nonetheless.

The film contains a couple of instances of profanity, a suicide and much tobacco use. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II -- adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG -- parental guidance suggested.

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Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

END

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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