Talk:Point of Order (film)

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Robert Duncan and Emile de Antonio[edit]

The sentence below was removed, but I believe it is absolutely worth noting:

"It is of note that both Duncan and de Antonio were politically leftists or Marxists, which were the primary targets of McCarthy in the 1950s."

I find it very interesting to know the political background of the people who chose what footage would be included in the 93 minutes, which represents less than 1% of the total footage available.

I notice a disturbing trend for editors to overstep their role and almost arbitrarily exclude information that could very well be meaningful to someone else. What's the point of deleting small additions to articles, particularly to articles that are already brief? Are we trying to save space?--we have endless amounts of it here. Are we trying to save a little time?--I'd rather spend the extra minute looking over additional material and decide for myself what is relevant. Contributions from a wide variety of sources is a big part of the power of Wikipedia and editors are doing everyone a disservice by lopping off information they personally deem to somehow be unworthy. Wikipikiliki 08:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm the one who removed that sentence (twice, I think), but I'm willing to admit now that I shouldn't have done so. My motivation at the time was that including that note suggests that the film is biased against McCarthy, and having recently seen it, I can't imagine it being more even-handed towards him. It shows him in a remarkably positive light, IMO. But, like the young 'uns say, "my bad." KarlBunker 11:33, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have made significant revisions to this page and wanted to weigh in on the topic of Robert Duncan. Although it is true that de Antonio did use an editor named Robert Duncan on this film, he was not the same person as the poet Robert Duncan, who was living in California at the time Point of Order was made. I have removed the reference to Robert Duncan because the IMDB page does not mention the poet Robert Duncan; it is unfortunately just a case of two men with similar names briefly overlapping in time. Emil.hoelter 15:50, 26 February, 2013 —Preceding undated comment added 21:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Synopsis: "The film ends with…"[edit]

The final sequence of the film is characterized thus:

"Although this is the finale of the film, this exchange actually occurred in the middle of the hearings."

This is incorrect. The hearings were convened on 16 Mar 1954 and adjourned on 17 Jun 1954. The exchange in question, in which McCarthy claimed a "smear," took place on 14 Jun 1954, just three days before the hearings' conclusion—not "in the middle." The transcript of the actual hearing sequence regarding the "smear" is available via the Senate transcript.^[1]

I suggest omitting the above-quoted line because it is a non-example of how the documentary film doesn't follow the actual chronology of the hearings.^[2] I will remove the erroneous line unless I receive an argument that convinces me otherwise.

M. David Hughes (talk) 09:57, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Special Senate Investigation, Part 64, pp 2706–2707.
^ Kepley, "The Order of Point of Order."

[1] Special Senate Investigation, Part 64, pp 2706–2707.

[2] Kepley, "The Order of Point of Order."

[1]

[2]