Although The Unquiet Death of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg can hardly be considered definitive, the 83-minute 1974 PBS documentary provides a historical portrait of U.S. political life in both the McCarthy era and the Watergate period of its creation. The Rosenberg case remains controversial to this day, 57 years after the American government executed them for conspiracy to commit treason with conflicting evidence turning up over the years. Facets Video deserves credit for preserving the film and making it available on DVD for the first time.

If you're expecting new revelations, you're certain to be disappointed with the film since the topic has been explored and revisited numerous times. But the film remains a fascinating document that captures the spirit of the Cold War and reveals the darker suspicions Americans began to deal with in the 1970s.

Given the fact that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg maintained their innocence to the very end when they could have spared themselves from the electric chair with even a bogus confession, they established themselves as a symbol that remains deeply troubling for the U.S. Many Americans believed at the time that the Rosenbergs were innocent pawns in McCarthyism's mass hysteria game. We're more than familiar with injustices perpetrated by non-democratic regimes, but it's harder to swallow the possibility that the U.S. government being guilty of executing innocent people for political purpose. But that's the insinuation pointedly made over the course of the film.

Producer/writer Alvin Goldstein and director Alan Moorman combine newspaper headline montages with archive footage about atomic bombs and Cold War paranoia, and interview segments to effectively summarize the key elements in the Rosenberg case and capture the climate of its time. Goldstein researches extensively and obtains as many interviews as possible—FBI agents, witnesses, jurors, lawyers from both sides, and family members. Of course not all participants agree to interviews, so their absence only adds fuel for intrigue and conspiracy theories.

The fast moving montages effectively summarize essential events leading to the execution, which is highlighted with more extensive archive footage of reporter Bob Considine vividly describing the their executions. While Julius' session went routinely, this is not the case for Ethel. Considine remains visibly shaken when describing how she remained alive after the initial electric shocks and details how a “plume of smoke rose from her head” during the fatal sequence.

The meat of the film takes place during revealing interviews. Although editing choices reveal the filmmakers' point of view, the presentations themselves remain objective—the film merely records what they feel free to reveal. Thus, prosecution team lawyer Roy Cohn insists that the verdict was just and that they had more than ample evidence of their spying that couldn't be introduced in court. On the other hand, a federal agent openly reveals that he had suggested that a key witness revise his testimony about the introductory spy contact password from “Benny sent me” to “I come from Julius.”

Serving as a postscript in the end, Goldstein sums up additional evidence from FBI files that became available after Watergate that further brings the Rosenberg-Sorbell Case into question—the gist of which makes it evident that the trial judge was anything but impartial and suggesting that anti-Semitic views may have played a part in the drama. It's been well over fifty years since this infamous execution, and definitive explanation remains cloudy. The curious could wade through tomes of written material about the trial, but do virtually as well by checking out this earnest documentary along with Ivy Meeropol's Heir to an Execution. The latter offers a personal family perspective while The Unquiet Death of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg qualifies as a historical treasure, providing valuable insight into the ugliness of McCarthyism as seen through the skepticism that reached a climax in the aftermath of Watergate.