2. Red menace

Explicit content warning

01/29/24 • 36 min

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Dalton 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

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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1. An American dream

2 Recommendations

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

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3. The case against Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin’s personal life sparks legal woes. Hedda Hopper, known as the queen of Hollywood gossip, was Chaplin’s nemesis, and she deemed him "un-American.” Joan Barry was just 22 years old when she arrived in Hollywood with dreams of stardom. She soon met Chaplin and the pair became romantically entwined. When the relationship went sour, Chaplin’s enemies – including J Edgar Hoover and columnist and radio star Hopper – saw an opportunity. Chaplin soon landed in court facing charges under the White-Slave Traffic Act.

Archive: The Hedda Hopper Show, 3 December 1940 J. Edgar Hoover, Battle of the United States, Army-Navy Screen Magazine, 1940 Pearl Harbor newsflash, WOR Radio 1941 The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin, United Artists, 1940