Point of Order (film)

Point of Order! is a 1964 documentary film by Emile de Antonio, about the Senate Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954.

The Army–McCarthy hearings came about when the Army accused Senator Joseph McCarthy of improperly pressuring the Army for special privileges for Private G. David Schine, formerly of McCarthy's investigative staff. McCarthy counter-charged that the Army was holding Schine hostage to keep him from searching for Communists in the Army. The hearings were broadcast live on television in their entirety and also recorded via kinescope. This film was created from those kinescope recordings.

The film uses selections from the hearings to show the overall development of the trial, beginning with introductions from several main participants, such as Joseph N. Welch and McCarthy. Each participant is shown in a still image with a brief audio recording, except for McCarthy, who is introduced with longer footage of a speech he made during the hearings.

In a sequence titled "Charge and Countercharge", Senator Stuart Symington summarizes the principle charge and counter-charge of the case. This sequence includes questioning of Roy Cohn for allegedly threatening to "wreck the army" if David Schine were not made a general, a statement Cohn denies. The film follows with a scene in which the Army counsel questions the origin of a photograph of that shows Schine in a meeting with Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens; the photograph is shown to be cropped to suggest a closer relationship between Schine and Stevens, but McCarthy's counsel denies any knowledge of photographic alteration.

A sequence titled "The Accusation" shows McCarthy accusing a member of Welch's law firm of membership in the National Lawyer's Guild, which McCarthy and others accused of serving the interests of the Communist Party USA. The sequence includes a frequently quoted exchange from the hearings: Welch asks McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"