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Hollywood Exiles

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A story of glamour, duplicity and the FBI's battle against communism in Hollywood

Host Oona Chaplin guides listeners through the period known as the Red Scare - an ideological battle that implicated Hollywood’s biggest stars, including her grandfather, Charlie.

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Hollywood Exiles: 4. Hearts and minds

13/03/2024 GMT

4. Hearts and minds

BBC - Hollywood Exiles, 4. Hearts and minds

The FBI and Ayn Rand scrutinise movies for "subversive" leftist propaganda

J. Edgar Hoover and allies like Ayn Rand scrutinise movies, even classics like It’s a Wonderful Life, for “subversive” leftist propaganda.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and allies like Ayn Rand were convinced that Hollywood was infested with communists. Now they started scouring the movies themselves for evidence of propaganda. Anti-communist figures in the movie business, including John Wayne and Gary Cooper, create the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals to counter groups like the Writers Guild. Even American classics like It’s a Wonderful Life came under FBI scrutiny. Studios began to feel the pressure – even changing seemingly innocuous scripts to avoid political heat. 

Archive: 

The Locket, directed by John Brahm for RKO Pictures, 1946
Robert F Wagner on National Labour Relations Act, Labor Comes of Age, ABC Television, 1965
Ayn Rand interviewed by Mike Wallace, ABC Television, 1959
Interviews with Dalton Trumbo, UCLA Department of Communication Archive, 1972
Woman of the Year, directed by George Stevens for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1942
Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood Show, 14 January 1951
It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Frank Capra for RKO Pictures, 1946

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