Reel Politik, Episode 19 - Neighbour, How Stands The Union? (ft. Violet Lucca)

In the new Reel Politik, Tom and Jack are joined by Violet Lucca (@unbuttonmyeyes), a New York-based film critic who is digital producer and host of the excellent Film Comment podcast (@filmcomment). The discussion centres around the McCarthyist era of American history - the post-war anti-communist hysteria that saw anyone even vaguely left-of-centre become the target of ravenous right-wing ghouls, with lives and careers destroyed in the process - and John Wayne's 1952 anti-communist agitprop thriller Big Jim McLain, released in some European countries under the name Marijuana. Also discussed are an unofficial trilogy identified by Violet of ineffective war-as-backdrop dark comedies, Humphrey Bogart's efforts to wriggle out when he was labelled by some as a communist, and - as usual - whatever slug journalists have pissed the gang off this week.