Tail Gunner Joe

*Tail Gunner Joe*
Tail Gunner Joe
Genre	Biography; Drama
Written by	Lane Slate
Directed by	Jud Taylor
Starring	Peter Boyle; Burgess Meredith; Patricia Neal; John Forsythe; Ned Beatty
Music by	Billy May
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Producer	George Eckstein
Cinematography	Ric Waite
Editor	Bernard J. Small
Running time	145 min
Production company	Universal Television
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	February 6, 1977

Tail Gunner Joe is a 1977 television movie dramatizing the life of U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, a Wisconsin Republican who claimed knowledge of communist infiltration of the U.S. government during the 1950s. The film was broadcast on NBC. It was nominated for six Emmy awards and won two: best writing and best supporting actor for Burgess Meredith's portrayal of attorney Joseph N. Welch. It starred Peter Boyle (as McCarthy) and John Forsythe. Robert F. Simon appeared as journalist Drew Pearson.

The nickname 'Tail Gunner Joe' is a derisive term for the Senator that originated from his false claim to have been a tail gunner on American bombers during World War II.^[1]

Cast

Peter Boyle as Senator Joseph McCarthy
Burgess Meredith as Joseph N. Welch
John Forsythe as Paul Cunningham
Jean Stapleton as Mrs. DeCamp
Robert F. Simon as Drew Pearson
Robert Symonds as President Truman
Andrew Duggan as President Eisenhower
Wesley Addy as Middleton
Addison Powell as General George C. Marshall
William Schallert as General Zwicker
Ned Beatty as Sylvester
Henry Jones as Armitage
George Wyner as Roy Cohn
Philip Abbott as Senator Scott W. Lucas
Patricia Neal as Senator Margaret Chase Smith
Howard Hesseman as Lt. Ted Cantwell
John Carradine as Wisconsin farmer

Reception

John Carmody wrote in The Washington Post:

The story makes the unassailable point that McCarthy, who chased Communists around for years without every [sic] actually catching one, wouldn't have been "successful" if the media and a lot of politicians, including President Truman and Eisenhower, hadn't tolerated him.
There is a certain hand-wringing quality to some of the narration Sunday night (scriptwriters long to be on the side of the angels, too) and there is a little side-stepping when it comes to explaining the sources of McCarthy's political strengths, such as they were.^[2]

From a review by ModCinema:

Tail Gunner Joe is in its own way as biased and unfair as any of Joe McCarthy's diatribes but this made-for-TV movie works as a brisk, entertaining recollection of an era in which "guilt by association" was a byword. As Joe McCarthy, Peter Boyle's performance is so convincing that it borders on the supernatural.^[3]

References

^ Garraty, John (1989). 1,001 Things Everyone Should Know About American History. New York: Doubleday. p. 24. ISBN 0-385-24432-0.
^ Carmody, John (February 5, 1977). "'Tail Gunner Joe': A Look Back in Anger". The Washington Post.
^ "TAIL GUNNER JOE (TV) (1977 USA)". ModCinema.com. Retrieved 27 January 2021.

External links

Tail Gunner Joe at IMDb
Tail Gunner Joe at AllMovie
Tail Gunner Joe at the TCM Movie Database

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[1] Garraty, John (1989). 1,001 Things Everyone Should Know About American History. New York: Doubleday. p. 24. ISBN 0-385-24432-0.

[2] Carmody, John (February 5, 1977). "'Tail Gunner Joe': A Look Back in Anger". The Washington Post.

[3] "TAIL GUNNER JOE (TV) (1977 USA)". ModCinema.com. Retrieved 27 January 2021.

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