Claudio Carvalho In the 20's, the controversial New Yorker journalist Walter Winchell (Stanley Tucci) begins his career writing gossips about his acquaintances. He is hired by the New York Daily Mirror and using inside information from informers, he becomes the first American gossip columnist. He becomes successful and is invited to host a successful broadcast show in the radio. In the 30's, he attacks Adolf Hitler and befriends President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Christopher Plummer). After the World War II, Winchell attacks the communists and becomes a collaborator of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Winchell is not able to adapt his show to the audience of television and when McCarthy is censured by the Senate, Winchell becomes unpopular and his career virtually ends."Winchell" is a good HBO movie about the polemic columnist Walter Winchell, who was feared by the powerful and famous in the 30's and 40's. Along the years, Winchell hires a ghost-writer, Herman Kurfeld (Paul Giamatti), who admires him and has a lover, the showgirl Mary Louise "Dallas" Wayne (Glenne Headly) that likes him. Winchell is shown as a manipulative man that uses his personal dossier to force people to provide inside information for his column and his radio show; a man that neglects his family and has a wrong move supporting the McCarthyism and denouncing people. In the end, he pays a high price for his mistakes, and is forgotten by the public opinion He ends his life alone, without family or friends, and his son commits suicide. The last scene with his mentally disturbed daughter attending his funeral alone is one of the saddest conclusions of a film (and a life) that I have seen. Stanley Tucci gives one of his best performances in the role of Winchell. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Poder da Notícia" ("The Power of the News")

tswa963505 This is a great movie. Cinematography and scripting are excellent. The fact that it wasn't a summer blockbuster in the vein of "Independence Day" and "Mission: Impossible" speaks well for it. Stanley Tucci's performance is riveting. He portrays the complexity of character of a highly controversial figure, hated by some and loved by others, and both for good reason. He was a crony of J. Edgar Hoover, but also had a social conscience. One minute we see Winchell shamelessly using blackmail in order to be the first to scoop a story; the next we see him being beaten to within an inch of his life by Hitler sympathizer thugs because he refused to be silent on the threat of the rise of Naziism.

DTL The pickings at the Video store have for me been slim. Slimmer in fact than the theatres. I did however rent WINCHELL an HBO movie starring Stanley Tucci in his Emmy Award winning performance as Walter Winchell the famous newspaper columnist and radio commentator of the 30's through the 60's. I did not know much more than that about WW, but after seeing this film I learned a great deal. HBO's attention to historical detail in costumes and art direction are superb. Stanley Tucci proves once again that he can't do a bad performance. Paul Giamatti as his head press agent is marvelous. This is an excellent rent.

Doctor_Bombay Being a child of television. The legacy of Walter Winchell to me previously consisted of bits and pieces. ITEMS as it may.This recent in a series of HBO bio-pics gives loving attention to Winchell, the man, his inventiveness, dedication and ultimately, his power. It seems complete enough in the spectrum with which we view the man. There is suggestion that his influence may have rivaled FDR himself, and he shows William Randolph Hearst to be no match mano-a-mano.Paul Mazursky is perfectly suited to direct this and gives us everything we need on the screen. Stanley Tucci earns a well-deserved Golden Globe in the title role. Paul Giamatti is superb as Winchell's ghost, Klurfeld (who's book sourced this film), only Glenne Headley, who's work tends to be spotty at times, seems a bit overmatched as WINCHELL's southern-fried moll, Dallas.I left with renewed respect, for the man.