My reason for giving this film a 4 is for some problems with the acting as well as the contrived ending necessitated by the untimely death of Robert Walker.
My complaints about the actual subject matter of the film are minimal, as, despite some revisionist history, there apparently was some Communist infiltration of parts of the US government (particularly the State Department)--as shown by the release of records from the Soviet archives in the 1990s. Was it as bad a problem as the film shows--perhaps not. And, did justifiable concerns about this justify trampling the First Amendment right to free speech--of course not. But it was a serious problem and it was a very scary time in the world--with two nuclear powers nearing a deadly showdown. And, while there was a 'Red Scare' (with some terrible abuses of civil rights), there actually was a reason to be scared. So it's natural that a film would dramatize this struggle.
Sadly, despite the timeliness of the movie, they sure didn't do a particularly good job of it. Instead of the film being informative or entertaining, it came off as silly and contrived. My first biggest complaint was with Helen Hayes. For a while, I liked her playing of this role. She was sweet and believable...to a point. But, late in the film, she began overacting horribly and I felt embarrassed watching her. I'm not sure how much of this was due to the poor writing or her acting...or both. Unlike Robert Walker and Van Heflin (who both were quite good), she did NOT underplay her role in the least! Dean Jagger, for his part, overacted a bit as well--but nearly to the level that Hayes reached.
Another problem was the result of the film makers trying to work past the fact that Walker had died towards the very end of the production. I think it would have been better to scrap the scenes he made and re-shoot them with another actor. Instead, they changed about the script, used a double in a darkened room scene and substituted a shot from Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" for his final scene--and had his voice indifferently dubbed. If you aren't looking for this, the ending will confuse you as it makes little sense. If you are, it's pretty obvious what they did--it shows.
Overall, the film comes off as a bit hysterical, disjoint and confusing. What could have been an interesting idea for a film just comes off as cheap propaganda in the end--though it could have had something to say had it been done better.
My complaints about the actual subject matter of the film are minimal, as, despite some revisionist history, there apparently was some Communist infiltration of parts of the US government (particularly the State Department)--as shown by the release of records from the Soviet archives in the 1990s. Was it as bad a problem as the film shows--perhaps not. And, did justifiable concerns about this justify trampling the First Amendment right to free speech--of course not. But it was a serious problem and it was a very scary time in the world--with two nuclear powers nearing a deadly showdown. And, while there was a 'Red Scare' (with some terrible abuses of civil rights), there actually was a reason to be scared. So it's natural that a film would dramatize this struggle.
Sadly, despite the timeliness of the movie, they sure didn't do a particularly good job of it. Instead of the film being informative or entertaining, it came off as silly and contrived. My first biggest complaint was with Helen Hayes. For a while, I liked her playing of this role. She was sweet and believable...to a point. But, late in the film, she began overacting horribly and I felt embarrassed watching her. I'm not sure how much of this was due to the poor writing or her acting...or both. Unlike Robert Walker and Van Heflin (who both were quite good), she did NOT underplay her role in the least! Dean Jagger, for his part, overacted a bit as well--but nearly to the level that Hayes reached.
Another problem was the result of the film makers trying to work past the fact that Walker had died towards the very end of the production. I think it would have been better to scrap the scenes he made and re-shoot them with another actor. Instead, they changed about the script, used a double in a darkened room scene and substituted a shot from Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" for his final scene--and had his voice indifferently dubbed. If you aren't looking for this, the ending will confuse you as it makes little sense. If you are, it's pretty obvious what they did--it shows.
Overall, the film comes off as a bit hysterical, disjoint and confusing. What could have been an interesting idea for a film just comes off as cheap propaganda in the end--though it could have had something to say had it been done better.