2. Red menace

Dalton Trumbo’s career as a screenwriter blossoms just as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover makes Hollywood a focus of his anti-communist obsession. Charlie Chaplin makes influential friends on the political left. Trumbo becomes active in the Screen Writers Guild, a harbour for radical politics. Chaplin draws critical praise and unwanted attention with a rousing speech in The Great Dictator, his first talking film. 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.