 Blacklisted writer/director Abraham Polonsky (qv) wrote the  original screenplay for the film. When Irwin Winkler (qv) decided  to rewrite the script by changing DeNiros character from a  Communist to a more generic Liberal, Polonsky had his name removed  from the films credits. "I wanted it to be about Communists because  thats the way it really happened. ... They didnt need another  story about a man who was falsely accused," he said in an interview  in the New York Times.