1. An American dream
01/22/24 • 35 min
3 Listeners
Charlie Chaplin was one of Hollywood’s first and biggest stars. He helped create the art and industry of movies. But by the 1960s, he was exiled. Oona Chaplin follows her grandfather’s rise from the grinding poverty of his childhood in Victorian London to wealth and fame in Hollywood. In many ways, it seemed like the embodiment of the American Dream. But almost as soon as he hit the big time, Chaplin made some powerful enemies. Federal investigators were suspicious of his political beliefs and began to build a file on him. We learn how Hollywood became the battleground for the soul of America.
From the BBC World Service and CBC Podcasts.
Archive:
Communism Condemned, Universal Newsreel, 1947 Hedda Hopper's Hollywood show, 14 January 1951 Testimony of J. Edgar Hoover before HUAC, National Archives and Records Administration, 1947
Charlie Chaplin was one of Hollywood’s first and biggest stars. He helped create the art and industry of movies. But by the 1960s, he was exiled. Oona Chaplin follows her grandfather’s rise from the grinding poverty of his childhood in Victorian London to wealth and fame in Hollywood. In many ways, it seemed like the embodiment of the American Dream. But almost as soon as he hit the big time, Chaplin made some powerful enemies. Federal investigators were suspicious of his political beliefs and began to build a file on him. We learn how Hollywood became the battleground for the soul of America.
From the BBC World Service and CBC Podcasts.
Archive:
Communism Condemned, Universal Newsreel, 1947 Hedda Hopper's Hollywood show, 14 January 1951 Testimony of J. Edgar Hoover before HUAC, National Archives and Records Administration, 1947
Previous Episode
Introducing Hollywood Exiles
History remembers Charlie Chaplin as Hollywood’s first superstar. At the height of his career, the FBI considered him and other figures from the film industry something else: a threat to the United States. His granddaughter, Oona Chaplin, tells the story of how Hollywood became a battleground for the soul of America. Hollywood Exiles is a story of glamour, duplicity, and the US government’s decades-long campaign to root out communism in Tinseltown. Premieres 22 January 2024.
From the BBC World Service and CBC Podcasts.
Next Episode
2. Red menace
1 RecommendationsDalton Trumbo’s career as a screenwriter blossoms just as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover makes Hollywood his focus for rooting out communism. Trumbo becomes active in the Screen Writers Guild, a harbour for radical politics. Charlie Chaplin makes influential friends on the political left. With his first talking film, The Great Dictator, Chaplin draws critical praise and unwanted attention with a rousing speech. Shifting alliances between Soviets and Nazis force an awkward political reckoning in the US. Host Oona Chaplin explores the FBI's covert operations which targeted alleged communists. We learn how Hollywood became the battleground for the soul of America.
From the BBC World Service and CBC Podcasts.
Archive:
Interviews with Dalton Trumbo, UCLA Department of Communication Archive, 1972
G-Men trailer, directed by William Keighley, Warner Brothers 1935
Upton Sinclair interviewed by Joe Toyoshima, 1966
The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin, United Artists, 1940
Battle of the United States, J. Edgar Hoover, Army-Navy Screen Magazine, 1940
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