Love is a Crime

Episode 6: Man Hunt

In the years after World War II, the political climate abruptly shifts, and Walter Wanger’s (Jon Hamm) history of using movies to promote progressive causes makes him a target for persecution. Wanger’s personal and professional lives are thrown into chaos thanks to a conspiracy involving the FBI, the Bank of America and some of the same anti-communist organizations enforcing the Hollywood Blacklist. With Walter in crisis, Joan’s (Zooey Deschanel) career is revived thanks to her agent and lover Jennings Lang. Afraid of losing his wife, Walter contemplates desperate action. Also featuring Bobby Finger from the podcast Who Weekly as Eric Johnston, Nate DiMeo from The Memory Palace as Samuel Goldwyn, and John August from Scriptnotes as Dore Schary.
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It’s one of the wildest scandals in Hollywood history: In 1951, major Hollywood producer Walter Wanger (Jon Hamm) went to prison for shooting an agent who he suspected was having an affair with Joan Bennett (Zooey Deschanel), Wanger’s actress wife. When the dust settled, Wanger was accepted back into Hollywood’s inner circle with open arms, while a puritan panic virtually ended Bennett’s career in movies and her family would never be the same. How did Joan — the youngest member of one of America’s most famous acting families, and one of the key femme fatales of 1940s film noir — end up a real-life fallen woman, paying a public price for her husband’s crimes? In this limited podcast series, Joan and Walter’s granddaughter/filmmaker Vanessa Hope, and film historian/podcaster Karina Longworth (You Must Remember This), tell the untold story of the Bennett/Wanger romance and professional partnership — a film noir played out in real life.