FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Loretta Ramos Terry
September 15, 2005 (212) 621-6785 (310) 786-1042
The Museum of Television & Radio
Presents
Good
Night, and Good Luck:
Murrow
from McCarthy to
September 21 to October 23 in
October 7 to November 6 in
New York, NY and
Los Angeles, CA—In conjunction with
the release of Good Night, and Good Luck.—George
Clooney’s theatrical film about the confrontations between iconic CBS newsman
Edward R. Murrow and the Communist-baiting junior senator from Wisconsin,
Joseph R. McCarthy—The Museum of
Television & Radio presents Murrow’s original See It Now television programs that inspired the film, captivated
the nation during the jittery “duck-and-cover” days of the 1950s, and helped
legitimize television as a medium and an
essential source of information for Americans.
To give viewers a look at the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings themselves, The
Museum will also be screening Emile Antoine’s 1964 documentary Point of Order, which distills almost
200 hours of the gavel-to-gavel television coverage of the hearings. And, as a bonus, the Museum presents a look at
Murrow’s lighter side, with highlights of his Person to Person interviews with Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando,
Frank Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, and Humphrey Bogart.
Good Night, and Good Luck: Murrow from
McCarthy to Monroe will screen in
Murrow’s famous March 9, 1954, See It Now exposed McCarthy’s tactics and helped trigger the senator’s downfall. Twenty-eight days later, CBS aired McCarthy’s belligerent response. See It Now was produced by Murrow and Fred Friendly (portrayed by Clooney in the film).
(53 minutes)
Murrow used his CBS platform to draw attention to three Americans whose lives had been damaged by McCarthy-esque scare tactics: Air Force Reserve Lt. Milo Radulovich, thrown out of the service; Annie Lee Moss, a low-level Pentagon clerk, subpoenaed by McCarthy’s subcommittee based on an informant’s tip that she was a dues-paying Communist; and Robert Oppenheimer, the celebrated physicist whose security clearance had been revoked by the Atomic Energy Commission. (compilation, 95 minutes)
Person to Person featured Murrow in the CBS studio tossing softball questions at celebrities as they led viewers on a tour of their home. This package comprises one full program from 1956, with Frank Sinatra and Joseph Welch (the attorney who defended the Army against McCarthy), plus full segments with Marlon Brando (1955), Marilyn Monroe (1955), and Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart (1954). (71 minutes)
Emile de Antonio’s 1964 documentary (first aired on television in 1973) distills almost two hundred hours of television coverage of the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, called to probe McCarthy’s charges that the Army was harboring communists. Most famous moment: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the Army, scolding McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” (95 minutes)
Admission to Good
Night, and Good Luck: Murrow from McCarthy to
The Museum of Television & Radio, with locations in
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The Museum of Television & Radio in New York,
located at 25 West 52 Street in Manhattan, is open Tuesdays through Sundays
from noon to 6:00 p.m. and until 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays. The Museum of
Television & Radio in