Love is a Crime

Episode 7: The Shooting

In December 1951, Walter Wanger (Jon Hamm) points his gun at Jennings Lang’s (Griffin Dunne) groin and fires -- and Joan Bennett’s (Zooey Deschanel) life and that of her family will never be the same. Though it’s her husband who commits a shocking act of violence, and it’s he who is actually sent to jail, Joan finds herself painted in the press as the perpetrator. As Hollywood and America rally around the gun-toting man, the adulterous woman is thrown to the wolves to fend for herself and her family. Also featuring Brian Comstock as Police Chief. 
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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.