Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided

In this must-listen account, biographer Eyman (Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise) journeys through Charlie Chaplin’s unconventional life and times, traversing the heights of the silent film era and the lows of the Red Scare movement in Hollywood. With a brisk yet companionable tone, narrator Phil Thron describes the 10-year period that led to the banishment of a controversial movie icon. Having never taken U.S. citizenship, Chaplin challenged ideas about capitalism and critiqued fascism in his films at a time when many Americans preferred taking an isolationist stance regarding world affairs. Media columnists could make or break one’s career in the entertainment industry, and anticommunist sentiment was rampant. Chaplin battled disinformation for decades, and though he was never convicted of a crime, his career never recovered, and he remained unable to return to the U.S. until 1972. Eyman offers a rebuttal to Kenneth S. Lynn’s 1997 Chaplin and His Times, inviting listeners to lend a sympathetic ear to Chaplin’s fall from grace.