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The picture's closing epilogue states: "Thousands of lives were shattered, and hundreds of careers destroyed by what came to be known as the Hollywood Blacklist. People like David and Ruth Merrill faced terms in prison, suffered the loss of friends and possessions, and were denied the right to earn a living. They were forced to live this way for almost twenty years. It was not until 1970, that these men and women were vindicated for standing up, at the greatest personal cost, for their beliefs."
Martin Scorsese portrays a fictional director called "Joe Lesser". This character is based on Director Joseph Losey, who left Hollywood in the 1950s, rather than face the HUAC examinations.
Blacklisted Writer and Director Abraham Polonsky wrote the original screenplay for the film. When Irwin Winkler decided to re-write the script by changing De Niro's character from a Communist to a more generic Liberal, Polonsky had his name removed from the film's credits. "I wanted it to be about Communists, because that's the way it really happened. They didn't need another story about a man who was falsely accused", he said in an interview in the New York Times.
David Merrill's (Robert De Niro's) climactic courtroom speech is an almost verbatim lift of a speech made by lawyer Joseph N. Welch in a McCarthy hearing in the 1950s.
Abraham Polonsky, a victim of the blacklist, was so offended that Irwin Winkler changed the main character from a Communist Party member to a Liberal, that he not only had his name taken off of the movie, he also refused an Executive Producer credit that would have earned him a substantial fee. Polonsky was very vocal in the press about his anger with Winkler, and his disapproval over the resulting movie.
According to the article "McCarthyism Made Simple" by Jonathan Rosenbaum published in "The Chicago Reader", this picture was "the first Hollywood feature devoted in its entirety to the film industry blacklist." The earlier Martin Ritt-directed film The Front (1976) dealt with television.
Martin Scorsese: As Director Joe Lesser, who was based on real-life film Director Joseph Losey, who spent the rest of his career in the UK after being blacklisted.