Citizen Cohn (1992)

Actors: Tony Amen (actor), Lamont Arnold (actor), Steve Aronson (actor), Joe Don Baker (actor), Nigel Bentley (actor), Daniel Benzali (actor), Rik Billock (actor), Joseph Bologna (actor), Nikolai Bulganin (actor), Bernard Canepari (actor), Phillip Cook (actor), Gary Cooper (actor), Sam Coppola (actor), Brandon Danziger (actor), Chuck Aber (actor),

Plot: In the 50's, the ambitious and unscrupulous Jewish prosecutor Roy Marcus Cohn (James Woods) convinces Senator Joseph McCarthy to be his Chief Counselor in his hunting against communists. The arrogant Cohn destroys careers and lives and becomes a Jew hunting Jews and a gay hunting gays. In 1985, he dies of AIDS in a hospital in New York.

Keywords: 1950s, 1960s, 1980s, aids, army, army-mccarthy-hearings, ash-scattering, attorney-general, blacklisting, bribery
Genres: Drama,
Taglines: He was McCarthy's loyal partner. The Kennedys' worst enemy. The F.B.I.'s best friend. The country's greatest nightmare.

Quotes:

Walter Winchell: You hear what I hear? Kennedy's gonna name his brother Attorney General. Our friend J. Edgar says it's gonna be "Get Hoffa and get Cohn." Fuck the little cocksucker, and all the ships at sea.

Joseph N. Welch: Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you no sense of decency?

Joseph N. Welch: Until this moment, I never really gauged your recklessness, or your cruelty. Fred Fisher is beginning what looks to be a brilliant career with us. And when I asked him to come here and assist us, he told me in college he briefly belonged to the Lawyer's Guild, the organization to which you refer. I told him that, um, I just don't think I'm going to use you on this case, because it might go out on the networks, and that would just hurt like the dickens. So, Senator, I sent him back to Boston. Little did I dream that you would be so cruel, and so reckless as to do injury to this lad. It's true, he works for us. It's true that he will continue to work for us, and it's true I fear he will always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by YOU. Let us not assassinate this lad any further, Senator? You've done enough! Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you NO sense of DECENCY?

Roy Marcus Cohn: If you are a friend of Americas enemies, then you're an enemy too.

Dora Cohn: You're telling this boy how to live? You are?::Albert Cohn: That's the idea.::Dora Cohn: [firmly] Don't. He's MINE. This is one boy they're NEVER going to forget!

Roy Marcus Cohn: [screaming at nurse] You're the angel of death, but you're no fucking angel!

[Roy is fighting AIDS]::Roy Marcus Cohn: Slow down... stop... eating... me.

[the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg visits Roy in his deathbed]::Ethel Rosenberg: Here's a secret, boychick. The electricity makes everything brighter. I could see. All the Jews were afraid because if you could kill me, all the Jews would die.

Roy Marcus Cohn: [to Peter] They tried to kill me. The bastards didn't make it, though. [points to the window] What do you see there? You see the SUN! They have this one doctor. They PAID him to kill me. They couldn't do it themselves, the miserable cocksuckers... They got him to do it. You don't think so? My friends hate me. My enemies hate me. Now you hate me. Everybody hates me.::Peter: [interrupting] You knocked off your enemies a long time ago and your friends love you. You know that.

Roy Marcus Cohn: Senator, I've seen enough names working for Pat McCarran. You're going to be hauling up Jew after Jew... all those European names, and with a McCarthy and a Kennedy together, it's gonna look like an Irish/Catholic-run pogrom. That will discredit everything you do, and I know, because I'm a Jew.::Senator Joseph McCarthy: But they're Communists. They betrayed the faith of the Fathers for this Socialist God of Iron. Now, that's the issue, not anti-Semitism.::Roy Marcus Cohn: That's NOT what your opposition will say. It's very hard sometimes to control what an issue really is, and if your enemies can find a way to twist your motives, believe me, they will do it.