Written and directed by Irwin Winkler in his directorial debut, the film stars Robert De Niro, Annette Bening, and George Wendt.

[3] David Merrill, a successful director in 1950s Hollywood, returns from film-location scouting abroad to find that a rising tide of McCarthyism and the Red Scare is creating havoc among his colleagues in the film industry.

His friend, Larry Nolan, is forced to name the many people in Hollywood possibly associated with the communist movement to the FBI and Congressional Oversight Committee.

Merrill is asked by a Hollywood legal consultant, Felix Graff, to cooperate with FBI agents and cite four names, including screenwriter and childhood friend Bunny Baxter, as communists to Congress.

When she discovers that Merrill could not offer her a job on Broadway since his own dealings with NY producers had failed, Dorothy becomes distraught and drives her car off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean.

That has put him in the position of perjury, and the inquiry board has threatened extensive jail time unless he also names Hollywood associates as communists.