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With the exception of myself and one other person, I have never met anybody who liked this movie (or even saw it for that matter) from Irwin Winkler. Some labeled it as a "boring TV movie of the week". I've never quite understood the dislike of it. It's a fascinating portrait of how Hollywood was affected by the McCarthy era, the court proceedings and blacklisting, and some fictionalizations of no doubt real events that occurred as many people's lives were destroyed.
Robert De Niro is in fine form here, and there are several memorable and rich supporting characters performed by the likes of Martin Scorese (who I think might have been doing a riff on Elia Kazan), Patricia Wettig, Sam Wanamaker, Chris Cooper and others. I really love the movie and thinks it's an excellent drama (the courtroom scenes are pretty powerful IMO). It's a shame people didn't give it a shot. Unfortunately it was given a shoddy DVD transfer in a full-screen version only, so I haven't revisited it since I saw it theatrically (I just can't watch those courtroom scenes get hacked up).
As for James Newton Howard's score, I don't believe I've ever discussed it with anyone or seen/heard it mentioned much. It's really a fine piece of work, mostly jazzy and indicative of the period, and it serves the film well. I highly recommend the soundtrack, especially for the end credit piece, a wonderful slow and sultry jazz melody that hasn't lost a bit of its beauty in the last 18 years.
Anybody familiar with this score and/or like it? I encourage you to check it out. Amazon has 17 used copies starting as low as $2.26.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=Guilty+by+Suspicion
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Always interested in JNH... his early work can be iffy. 'Man in the Moon' I found dull. 'Alive' I found beautiful to the extreme.
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I rather liked the film but I haven't seen it since 17th July 1991 on its brief UK cinema release. I only know the rather lovely end credits piece from the score, as Varese included it on a compilation and the actual score CD didn't really have enough JNH to make it worth picking up.
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The End Title cue is great, especially if you like Chinatown (or even the new release of Hard Contract). Slinky strings, great trumpet solo.
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This is one of the first scores I searched for when I started collecting extensively in 1996 thanks to that Varese compliation which had the great End Titles piece. There's a nice 15 min. of score selections on the album mixed with some great period jazz songs of that era. I don't know how much score is in the film, but I'm pretty sure that there was a little more that wasn't on the album. Great stuff indeed and if you can the album for a reasonable price, it's definitely a worthy grab. JNH's early stuff is definitely hit and miss, but Guilty By Suspicion is glimpse of what was to come in his development as a dramatic composer later on in 1991 with The Prince of Tides.
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How nice to see some love for this score! I didn't know the end credit theme was on a compilation disc, so that's great to hear that it got some more exposure. It's definitely the highlight of the score/soundtrack. Though as indicated there's only a few minutes of score on the album, it's totally worth it IMO. And we're talkin' under $5 with shippping here, folks. Take a chance.
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To my great surprise, I found this about five years ago, on LP, amongst the vegetables in the local greengrocer's. These things happen once in a while. Anyway, I got it, and actually forgot I had it until I saw this post. Just to re-iterate the majority opinion - it has got a superb End Titles piece, one of my faves from JNH.
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I saw the film when it was new, and then again only a few months ago actually. A decent film with a decent score.
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