The Plot Thickens: Lucy - Episode 7: Red Scare

[@kathywatts9539]

Love these programs. Ben Mankiewicz is the perfect voice for these !!!

[@jubalcalif9100]

I heartily concur ! He's no Percy Helton in the voice dept but I must admit, Ben's is pretty dang good !

[@ChrisWolff2013]

@@jubalcalif9100 He's awesome

[@ChrisWolff2013]

Ben's awesome

[@yolandadelazerda207]

He sure is!

[@JoseMorales-lw5nt]

And to think, MANK, the film about CITIZEN KANE'S screenwriter, just happened to be Ben's grandfather! You can now understand his love for Classic films. He's the grandson of one of the all-time greats...

[@sf78310]

Thank you TCM for these amazing, inside reality based series. The Podcast’s are excellent. A terrific job by everyone. Thank you Ben!

[@jubalcalif9100]

I agree 100 per cent ! :-)

[@Vandermin011]

I started weeping when I heard the story of Lou Costello offering his friendship to Lucy when the chips were down. Paterson, New Jersey boy makes good, again. Love you, Lou!

[@daybird2]

Just how can you describe a podcast such as this? I cannot come up with the appropriate words. I can say that it's just about the finest of it's type that I've ever listened to. It's full of interesting facts, holds your attention all the way through, and is beautifully narrated. I even "teared up" a bit when learning of the kind gesture that Lou Costello made to Lucy when she was feeling so down. What a great person! Thanks for all the hard work that went into this production. Can't wait for the next episode!

[@BrendainPA]

You did a wonderful job describing these podcasts- I agree with you 100%.

[@jubalcalif9100]

This is one great podcast ! Oodles of thanks to the good folk at TCM ! Each season gets better ! :-)

[@jonathanstmartin]

This has been a thoroughly entertaining and enlightening program. Looking forward to a Season 4

[@jubalcalif9100]

Me too ! I've greatly enjoyed the first 3 seasons. Wonderfully entertaining & informative ! :-)

[@VeraHannaford]

This episode made me emotional. Just an outstanding podcast.

[@jasonraschen1109]

I binged Episode 6 & 7 back-to-back. So much great information. I can’t thank you enough TCM for producing this outstanding podcast!

[@megan8832]

Y’all are doing an amazing job with these!

[@scotnick59]

The most famous woman in America, yes, she really was THAT well-loved

[@EMMALEEMC]

imagine working all your life, family tragedies, decades fighting through poverty, rejection & the business to trailblaze a huge innovative multi-million-dollar history making success and in 15 seconds/overnight someone takes all your credibility away unfounded. it's funny bc i always thought the "GIRLS GO INTO BUSINESS" episode had a funny energy over it. i would've been sobbing after filming the episode too, bless that crowd for embracing her. DESI having all these contacts tho, verrrrrry interesting.* bravo TCM 💯

[@stephaniestanley8041]

Amazing podcast. We all love Lucy. This is what I predicted Being the Ricardo's would address. How they escaped this I don't know. No one survived at the time of the witch hunt.

[@annettepora8091]

Lucy had to have really loved Desi. No one else would have tolerated such troublesome behavior.

[@cvilla5668]

Thank you for this podcast it's awesome

[@jubalcalif9100]

I certainly have a notion to second that emotion ! :-)

[@carolynmccarney5880]

Please keep these entertaining programs coming!

[@XSocalxProFroX]

This series is amazing I’ve learned so much!!

[@allenraysmith6885]

Thank you for this wonderful podcast!

[@linapagliari8003]

Ty for sharing Lucy with us fans really enjoying this series great job done ur all wonderful 😁🇨🇦🇨🇦

[@3dartistguy]

Ricky went before the Audience and said the only Red thing about Lucy was her Hair, and even that Red Color was false....

[@eduardo_corrochio]

Desi

[@Lightdion]

Omg I am loving all this tea🍵! Marvelous work!

[@shillanassi]

great program, as always.

[@scotnick59]

I read that Larry Parks came to Lucy's in order to support her (he had been black-listed as a "red"). Lucy: "Larry, I love you, but PLEASE go away".....Not exactly the type of company she needed at that trying time.

[@breckrichardson390]

Given that he's the one who created this nightmare for her, know, wrong person to be coming to her door. Just send an apology in the mail.

[@antoniod]

@@breckrichardson390 How did Larry Parks create that? If anybody did it was Alger Hiss, who really did spy for the Soviet Union and kicked off the Red Scare.

[@LJ-ht4zs]

Also, Larry Parks had named names -

[@DeedeeSch1]

Loving this, my first time on podcasts! And, Ben, you are the bomb! I would even love to hear you read the phone book! Shalom!

[@WeirdGurl92]

I wish I found these after they were completed! I just wanna binge!

[@QHMCQ]

Great work, again. Thank you!

[@3dartistguy]

Desi also said that night that they had Both voted for Eisenhower.

[@fritzmasten7675]

Sad but such a fantastic pod!!

[@bejoyful]

Find it unbelievable that Desi had J. Edgar Hoover's phone number; Winchell ought to have told Lucy before doing his show; Hoover and Winchell were both mentioned in two of their episodes although Winchell never should have gotten the promotional benefit.

[@okay5045]

I love Lucy a strong, smart beautiful woman ❤️

[@glittersnatched]

I knew she was amazing, but damn I love her so much more now.

[@AllisonCorona-nv7ov]

Remember that, although the Soviet Union and the United States hated each other during the thirties, they mutually agreed that they hated the Nazis more than they hated each other. Together they defeated Hitler's regime. Can you imagine what would have happened if Lucy had registered as a Nazi⁉️

[@nyclady27]

Really intriguing podcast. Luv them. Luv TCM! However, if I may make a suggestion. The first Lucy podcast I listened to was a bit confusing with the delays with the music. I kept thinking the podcast was over between pauses. Maybe for stupid people like me you could either interject, "back in a moment" or put up a banner during these times that say we'll be right back? I know now to look at the time remaining. It just may be me, but if you have older people, as myself, they may also need to know the episode isn't over yet. No shade. Just mentioning it took this old woman a bit to understand the format. 👵😊 Again, I luv everything TCM has to offer a film lover. My mom said she was surprised I wasn't born humming the " Syncopated Clock" from NYC's The Late Show, The Late Late Show, The Late Late Late Show, and The Late Late Late Late Show. Mommy always said our light was the last lit window in the buildings graphic. She gave me my absolute luv of the old movies, and movies in general. 🙂👍🏻❤ Thank you to all you lovely, so immersed in the behind the scenes hosts for making TCM so informative, entertaining, and creating this wonderful movie lovers family feeling. 🙂👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🌻🎬 📽 Oh, I miss Robert. 😔 🌻🎭

[@HenPapirman]

Does anyone know where one can get the full monologue Desi gave before filming the show that day? ("The Girls Go Into Business") I saw the photo of Lucy going in front of the audience while they were clapping. Would love to hear the original monologue.

[@michaelsatler3671]

Walter Winchell would be a good fit for his own Fox news show, and Senator Joseph McCarthy would fit in as the current minority leader of the U.S. Senate. During WWII, Hollywood fought hard for democracy, doing so much to keep up the morale of the home front and military, with McCarthy and Winchell ignoring that.

[@28carter]

The 50's are back

[@LowellBDennyIII]

This podcast glosses over some known facts and employs Lucy's own [successful, in my opinion] tactic before HUAC. * She not only registered as a member of the CPUSA, but so did her brother, whose employment suffered the rest of his life. * Her grandfather, described here as a "socialist," was a CPUSA member and organizer in NY state [before his stroke]. *The Party meetings referenced were in Lucille Ball's LA home. * Lucy was [named] on the state central committee of the California region of the CPUSA by the CPUSA. All of this is public record from her testimony to HUAC. I believe she deftly dodges the bullet by saying she did "such-and-such" because of her grandfather. A male actor could never have made such an excuse and gotten away with such a tactic. Her brother, who was not raking in millions for corporations, did not do so well from HUAC. Larry Parks and Paul Robeson, among others, were actual members of the Party. Instead of being ashamed of this and keeping up this revisionist nonsense, let's remember why Lucy joined, why millions joined in the 30's, why her grandfather was a Party organizer: the Communist Party USA was the party of working people. It was also the party for Black people, an anti-lynching party. It was the Party that staffed the CIO and its unions. That's why so many joined. Rather than continuing to portray these "Hollywood legends" as naive dupes, how about we flip the script and consider they were the advanced ones, and elite society the albatross around our necks? We will not progress if we keep telling these Red Scare stories like this. (And Desiderio Arnaz left Cuba over 20 years before the "Revolution" referenced in this podcast. The incident where the Arnaz family of Santiago de Cuba lost their fortune was in the early 30's under a different Cuban regime.)

[@LBGirl1988]

Communism is no friend to the human in practice. I don’t believe getting behind negative and destructive policies is enlightened. While I don’t like communism and literally deduct intelligence points from those who embrace it, I don’t believe how McCarthy went after folks was American or enlightened. It was as fascist as the woke canceling of today. Both wrong. I also give pro-communist in the 1930s a pass. Very few knew the degradations that were happening in Russia. Communism on paper and in a college class, is utopia. In practice, it’s barbaric and soul destroying.

[@LowellBDennyIII]

@@LBGirl1988 That "assessment" of communism is only informed by bigotry and ignorance. You also must think you're smarter than Lucille Ball, her brother, mother, and her grandfather.

[@LBGirl1988]

@@LowellBDennyIII 🤣🤣🤣 Yes, I am afraid that when it comes to realism and basic analytical common sense then yes, I am smarter than Lucy and family. Let me point you in the direction of the reality that she was not a communist because she cared about wealth. And under a communist regime, Lucy and all of the wonderful contributions she gave the world could never have happened. Serious duh. Nor could she have been able to become rich. And she wanted to be rich. Communism has consistently stifled creativity and incentives in all areas of society. It's been proven for the past 100 years. So yes, stupidity reigns when individuals look at all of the overwhelming evidence and think that it must be a good idea. Clearly you are unaware of the definition of "enlightened." And while you are looking up the real definition of enlightened, also look up bigotry. Evidence in front of your eyes is just that. 100 years of evidence or cold hard facts. All of these facts have nothing to do with anything other than FACTS. Bigotry…enlightened…🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@sallylapradd2900]

You're wrong about "Revolution" referenced in this podcast. TCM is correct: Gerado Machado's dictatorship was overthrown August 1933 - when Desi was 15/16 years old. The removal of Machado is the revolution TCM references. Stop with the nonsense mis-information.

[@LowellBDennyIII]

@@sallylapradd2900 Bullshit. 1933 wasn't a "revolution" or the "Revolution." That was a coup. TCM knew what it was doing.

[@raymondsharpe4638]

Mancrush on Ben!

[@ChrisWolff2013]

I would kill to have his hair.

[@scotnick59]

@@ChrisWolff2013 Imagine having Lucy's....lol

[@raymondsharpe4638]

@@ChrisWolff2013 me too

[@elderwelder]

It wasn't "a fear" IT WAS A FACT!

[@antoniod]

Larry Parks continued to defend the Communists as a legitimate political party in his HUAC testimony, not a good idea when Stalin was running the Soviet Union and encouraging the North in the Korean War.

[@paulaharrisbaca4851]

"Mike Vulgaris and his exceptional ears"??? Hmmm.

[@mikefederighi9081]

.

[@romanclay1913]

When Lucille Ball registered to vote in 1936, she listed her party affiliation as Communist, along with her brother and mother. To sponsor the Communist Party's 1936 candidate for the California State Assembly's 57th District, Ball signed a certificate stating, "I am registered as affiliated with the Communist Party." The same year, the Communist Party of California appointed her to the state's Central Committee, according to records of the California Secretary of State. In 1937, WIKIPEDIA

[@scotnick59]

Well-said and researched: thanks for posting!

[@romanclay1913]

This makes me love Lucy even more.

[@kjgammon1658]

Uneducated, stupid move!

[@romanclay1913]

@@kjgammon1658 Your intolerance matches your cretinism.

[@kjgammon1658]

@@romanclay1913 speaking of uneducated cretins, if you're even able to find Venezuela on the map... you might look into their current state of affairs, oppression of their people, and socialist economy.