Vanessa: Exterior, Victoria theater, Broadway and 46th street, New York, night. November 11th, 1948. Joan Bennett and Walter Wanger dressed to the nines, exit a chauffeured car flashbulbs popping. The handsome couple walk the red carpet for the premiere of Walter's new movie, "Joan of Arc." Fans fill the streets on either side, pressing against the barricades to catch a glimpse of the stars. This is Walter's big night, the culmination of several years in the making. Interior, Victoria theater, later. As the movie plays, Joan, sitting beside Walter grows restless. Walter anxiously looks around the theater to gauge the audience response. He clocks more than one extended yawn. The film is not going over well. Cut to, on the theaters massive movie screen we watch as "Joan of Arc" played by Ingrid Bergman is burned at the stake. We cut back to Joan squirming in her seat glowering up at the screen.

Joan Bennett [Reenactment]: "Burn, damn you. Burn."

Karina: Welcome back to Love is a Crime. I'm Karina Longworth, 

Vanessa: and I'm Vanessa Hope. 

Karina: Our last episode ended with Joan Bennett's career mired in uncertainty after the disaster of "Secret Beyond the Door." She and her husband, Walter Wanger had thought that their production company with Fritz Lang would provide Joan with some job security, but now their working relationship with Lang had soured and it would be up to Walter alone to find a new prestige vehicle for his wife to star in. "Secret Beyond the Door" went into wide release in early 1948. That would turn out to be a year of cataclysmic change for Hollywood.

Vanessa: By 1947, there was an economic downturn for Hollywood, but in 48, the Supreme court ruled that all of the studios, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner's, MGM, and RKO had to give up their theater chains. So they struggled more and so did independent producers with post-war production costs. I guess movie attendance started slipping again because television was on the rise and tastes were changing and there were more competing entertainments for Americans leisure time. Basically movies were not the center anymore.

Karina: The industry began a scramble that would only intensify over the next decade. As the studios struggled to cope with a host of threats; the monopoly breaking consent decrees, the rise of television, and an aging stable of stars. In early 1948, Joan turned 38. 38 meant something different 73 years ago than it does now. In 2021, actresses in their late thirties, such as Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson are still considered desirable. On the other hand, not everything has changed. Joan Bennett would frequently joke that after a certain point, the only roles available to her, were as witches. Anne Hathaway at age 38, starred in "The Witches" as a character known only as Grand High Witch. Of course Joan's experiences had to do with more than just her age, and we will get there. Suffice it to say at age 38, Joan Bennett's sex symbol roles were largely behind her. She'd move on to a new phase of her career just as her husband, Walter Wanger was putting nearly everything they shared at risk. Today on Love is a Crime, Walter Wanger launches an ambitious project that has disastrous consequences for his marriage and his career, setting up the scandal that will change several lives

For most of the 1940s as he was making bank for Universal by cranking out popcorn films. Walter had hoped to find a project that would do more than make money or get great reviews. And few of his films thus far had done both. He wanted to make a movie that would cement his legacy as an important producer and as a powerful man. "Joan of Arc" was Walter Wanger's big end of the decade gamble. A screen adaptation of a play in which Ingrid Bergman had triumphed as the French warrior, "Joan of Arc" was independently produced by Sierra Films. A company Wanger had formed with Bergman and director, Victor Fleming for the purpose of making the movie. With her own career at a crossroads, how did Joan feel that her husband and producing partner had decided that an epic film built around another younger actress would be the one he'd be remembered for? 

Vanessa: Joan Bennett was wary of "Joan of Arc" from the beginning. On the evening in 1946 when Walter bursts through the front door, waving a fountain pen, proclaiming that 'this is the pen that closed the deal with Ingrid Bergman,' Joan looked at the pen and then looked around her house and had a strong premonition of disaster that this house that was their security and a source of pleasure for so long, had now been put in peril. That they might end up having to mortgage it for this movie. She also put some of her own money into the film, but was skeptical about these big ambitious film projects of Walter's. Both because she considered them pretentious and Walter put so much of his own personal and professional capital behind it. He did long for a career defining film with it and he wanted it to be the equivalent of what "Gone with the Wind" was for David O Selznick and believe it or not, this film, "Joan of Arc" ended up costing $200,000 more than "Gone with the Wind."

Karina: Now let's not ascribe Joan's wariness to simple catty jealousy. Wanger had made a lot of movies with a lot of actresses. As a producer, he was never faithful to his wife. Just a couple of years earlier, he had made a star out of Yvonne De Carlo by casting her in "Salome" where she danced. Wanger had been drawn to De Carlo due to her resemblance to Joan Bennett. At least, she resembled the Joan Bennett that wind your head remade in the mold of Hedy Lamarr. This doesn't seem to have caused any problem in Joan's marriage, but now Walter was betting it all on one film and it turned out to be a bad bet. Though Ingrid Bergman was then one of the most beloved actresses in Hollywood, "Joan of Arc" was widely considered a leaden slog. Still the industry acknowledged Walter's gamble in the forum that Hollywood often uses to offer constellation prizes to ambitious movies that don't make enough money, the Oscar's. 

Vanessa: "Joan of Arc" received seven academy award nominations in 1949, including best actress for Ingrid Bergman and it won three Oscars. Two awards for costume design and cinematography, as well as a special award to Walter Wanger for quote, 'distinguished service to the industry and adding to its moral stature in the world community by his production of the picture, "Joan of Arc." In Walter's Oscar speech, he said, 

Walter Wanger: I cannot accept it except in the names of my partners Ms. Ingrid Bergman and Mr. Victor Fleming, who made this great picture of possible. Thank you.

Vanessa: He felt that both deserved to win their own Oscars for their work on the movie because of this speech, there have been inaccurate reports that suggest that Walter actually refused to accept the "Joan of Arc" special award. On the contrary, Walter attempted to capitalize on the honor by branding "Joan of Arc" and its marketing as the quote 'academy special award picture.' Walter was hoping this would strengthen what he thought was a weak advertising campaign, but the Academy Board of Governors called foul because it was he and not the film who had received the special award. He could have easily advertised the film with the awards or even the nominations "Joan of Arc" did receive, but that was not enough for him. Once again, Walter was showing his propensity for shooting himself in the foot. Walter's attempts to rebrand, "Joan of Arc", as an award winner didn't help. The film, ultimately grossed enough to land on the list of the top 10 biggest box office earners of the year, but it had cost so much to make that it would have had to have sold twice as many tickets as it did just to break even. The problem was compounded by the unusual way that Walter had financed the movie as Wanger's biographer, Matthew Bernstein explains. 

Matthew Bernstein: So in terms of the financing of Walter's films, the standard practice in the late 1940s was for what was then called an independent producer to get a loan from a bank for about 60% of the budget of the film. Banks, like Bank of America were routinely granting these kinds of loans, but the loans were always conditioned on the fact that you had a major studio that would contribute the other 40% of the negative cost of the film. The studio was there to guarantee to the bank that the film would be done, that the film would go out, that the film would have national distribution so that it had the best chance of making back its costs, but also making a profit. So that was the standard deal, and that was pretty much the deal Walter had arranged with Universal for Diana Pictures. So, with "Joan of Arc," Walter tried to do the same kind of thing only the scale of it was utterly ramped up. I mean, the budget of "Joan of Arc" was four and a half million dollars. This was the most expensive film to be made in Hollywood up to 1948, but because of delays in getting the production started, Walter had to switch studio partners from MGM to RKO, and MGM would've put in a million dollars. RKO only put in 300,000. Um, and so Walter really had to like pledge all his income on that was due him on his previous films. So his personal income was cut in half. And then when "Joan of Arc" didn't earn back, it's costs, uh, you know, he was very discouraged and in trouble. 

Karina: Walter needed " Joan of Arc" to make money, and when it didn't, he blamed his lead actress who had found herself at the center of perhaps Hollywood's biggest sex scandal since the silent era.

After finding the experience of playing "Joan of Arc" unfulfilling, Bergman had written a fan letter to Roberto Rossellini, an Italian filmmaker who was making documentary-esque dramas amidst the wreckage of World War II. She ended up flying to Italy, to star in a Rosellini film called "Stromboli" and on location, director and star, both married to other people, fell in love. Rumors of their dalliance reached Hollywood just as "Joan of Arc" was expanding into nationwide release. Wanger fired off a telegram to Bergman harshly shaming her for harming his bottom line with her personal life. 

Walter Wanger [Reenactment]: "The malicious stories about your behavior need immediate contradiction from you. If you are not concerned about yourself and your family, you should realize that because I believed in you and your honesty, I have made a huge investment endangering my future and that of my family, which you are jeopardizing if you do not behave in a way, which will disprove these ugly rumors broadcast over radio and press throughout the world." 

Karina: Bergman made no public comment. And eventually news broke that she was having Rossellini's baby. By March 1950, her adultery had so flown in the face of the American facade of propriety that Bergman was actually denounced on the floor of Congress by a Colorado politician. By that point, Hollywood had turned on Ingrid too, even though until very recently she had been one of the most bankable stars in movies. Bergman moved to Italy to be with Rossellini and didn't make a Hollywood movie for six years. Howard Hughes, who had financed "Stromboli" through his RKO pictures, rushed "Stromboli" into release with a daring and to many minds, juvenile advertising campaign that made the movie seem like a documentary of Bergman's real life affair.

Vanessa: What happened to Ingrid Bergman over her affair with Rossellini was so extreme. It wasn't just the Hollywood press that went after her, but she was denounced on the floor of Congress. You know, normally scandals like illegitimate babies, homosexual interludes, statutory rape even, we're all covered up all the time. This wasn't covered up because the climate in the United States was so misogynistic and sexist and Walter wrote this telegram to her that was so hypocritical. I mean, he needed her to appear in real life like the "Joan of Arc" kind of virginal warrior characters she plays in the movie, but that wasn't fair. I think he was furious that the film was failing and he was looking for a scapegoat. But you know, when a woman fails to give a man what he's supposedly owed, she will often face punishment. And that's what happened to Ingrid Bergman. Misogyny isn't simply some deep seated, psychological hatred of girls and women. I think it's better conceptualized as the philosopher, Kate Manne describes it, the law enforcement branch of patriarchy. A system that functions to police and enforce gendered norms and expectations and involves girls and women facing disproportionately or distinctively hostile treatment. It's kind of about keeping women in line, domesticating them, bringing them to heal. Down girl. 

Karina: Walter was convinced the problem with "Joan of Arc" was not the movie itself, but the way it was released and marketed by RKO and Howard Hughes. At the end of 1950, Walter was sent the box office numbers and was fran k in his response. 

Walter Wanger: I'm not sure, very disappointed, but I hate to say not surprised. I do not see how anybody could have expected the company that would put out "Stromboli," the kind of advertising they did, to be able to handle "Joan of Arc". People are not such an idiot.

Karina: With "Joan of Arc", a financial disaster, Walter had to take out a bank loan to finance his next Joan Bennett picture. And he put up as collateral Joan's house, which she had built for herself as an unmarried woman in the 1930s, and then had rebuilt after the fire in 1943. Ironically, the film that put Joan's house in danger cast Joan as a woman in danger of losing her hard, won domestic stability. Based on the novel, "The Blank Wall", "The Reckless Moment" was born from two anxieties plaguing Wanger in the 1940s. One was cultural, Walter groused that as America moved toward the 1950s, its values were changing. 

Walter Wanger [Reenactment]: "Now, anyone who doesn't support unfettered accumulation and consumption is a potential trader, and anyone whose private life doesn't conform to a squeaky clean image of the American nuclear family is considered a threat."

Karina: The other anxiety was personal. "The Reckless Moment" would feature Joan as a middle aged housewife whose husband is away on business when her teenage daughter becomes involved with a shady older man. The bad boyfriend is disposed of, and Joan's character has to cover it up to protect her daughter. Her husband is never seen on screen and much of the film is devoted to the ways in which a typical housewife's labor, emotional and physical, never ends. Even when murder is not part of the equation. 

Joan Bennett: "Where are you going?" 

Actor: "Owen Feller, ask me and Bea to go to the movies with him. The whole gang's going, but the beautiful beaches does not use to go." 

Joan Bennett: "Why don't you want to go Bea?" 

Actress: "Cause mother." 

Joan Bennett: "Oh, you should go dear Owen will be terribly disappointed."

Actress: "I just don't want to." 

Joan Bennett: "I've eaten and I'm tired. Really Bea the right thing for you to do is to go. I am too tired to go into it now, but I wish you would do, as I say, please." 

Vanessa: The way Walter pitched the idea for the movie to Joan, he said there was potential in the basic story to examine the life of a repressed woman, wife, and mother, played by Joan who's comfortable existence even with her husband away working is both a Haven and a trap. I think her true worth is seen not by the family that she's devoted to, but by the stranger Donnelly played by James Mason, who is blackmailing her. She ended Donnelly, two lost and lonely people from different worlds thrown together by circumstance fall in love. 

Karina: Since exiled European masters had worked so well with Joan, Walter hired German- Jewish refugee Max Ophüls to direct "The Reckless Moment". Ophüls, Wanger, and two writers collaborated to reshape the material, which had been set during the war to reflect post-war anxieties. For years, with the men in their lives absent, women had proven they could take care of themselves.

Now that the war was over and men were back in the picture, there was a masculinity crisis. Did women really need men? Ultimately Wanger decided "The Reckless Moment" should end with the wife looking forward to the return of her husband with relief, so that the narrative would ultimately reaffirm traditional domesticity even after the whole story of the film showed how stressful and unfulfilling that paradigm could be for a woman. In it's depiction of Joan's character as an alienated protagonist who finds her only moments of connection and recognition in illicit circumstances, "The Reckless Moment" radically suggested that the American home could be just as much of a noir landscape as a city street and a housewife could be just as strong of a noir character as the male detectives and schmucks in trouble, whose points of view dominated so many other films in the genre. It was a film about a woman who was underestimated and misunderstood by her family. Built for an actress by a husband who was at least trying to empathize with his wife's inner conflict.

Vanessa: Her inner life in "The Reckless Moment" is not even a question or a reality until she meets James Mason, and he starts to understand who she is. And this is part of the attraction between them and what desire she has for him might come from his understanding of her in a way that no one in her own house possibly can fathom. It's true it was unique to be able to get into the subjectivity of a woman, in film noir, since most of them focused on male protagonists and their subjectivity. So it was a really great role for Joan. I think Walter must've had some feeling for Joan and what she was going through and how devoted she was to everyone else's needs but her own and how difficult that is, and so he could imagine her need to stray, certainly and that shows an understanding of her beyond being the mother or the breadwinner actress that she was.

Karina: It almost feels as though with "The Reckless Moment", Walter Wanger was giving his wife tacit acknowledgement that he was aware that she didn't need him for so many of the things that a typical wife would rely on her husband for. That maybe if he could give her one more juicy role in one more hit film everything would be different. It was clear that this was a last chance for a few reasons. In addition to Walter's precarious position in the industry post "Joan of Arc," "Reckless Moment" was made the year Joan turned 39. That same year a new version of "Little Women" was released starring Elizabeth Taylor as Amy, the part Joan had played. Elizabeth Taylor was then 17. If that wasn't enough to hammer home the March of time before 1949 was through her eldest daughter, Diana would give birth to a daughter making Joan a 39 year old grandmother. In that climate Joan's days as a sexual temptress on screen were numbered. "The Reckless Moment" was consciously chosen as a transition film for Joan, and again, her change in persona was signaled by a change in hairstyle. This time from cascading dark waves, to the sensible crop of a 1950s mom. 

Vanessa: I think it's a really unusual role for any female actor, because she's both the femme fatale and object of desire for James Mason's character, and a mother. And typically mother roles are completely desexualized in films of that era, so that Joan had to chop off her hair and wear a sensible wardrobe and have the look of a suburban mother basically, and the hair from other roles then, I mean, and Joan wore it in real life, unfortunately. It was practically a helmet. I mean, it was so tight and close to the head. 

Karina: Indeed "The Reckless Moment" would foretell the repression of the 1950s housewife, predating the domestic dramas of filmmakers like Douglas Sirk in its depiction of the stifling life of a woman whose identity is entirely wrapped up in keeping her family together. Joan's eldest daughter, Diana formed an attachment to "The Reckless Moment" because she felt the character so closely matched what her mother was really going through. "She was exactly like the role she played in the film," said Diana, "it's almost as if she wasn't acting. 

Vanessa: Joan's character in "The Reckless Moment", really fit with how Joan was an ideal house manager, and mother, and also repressed in ways that wouldn't have been talked about, but her daughter Diana could have picked up on. I think Joan became a mother so young to Diana when she was a week shy of turning 18, she didn't ever experience the letting go and the party teenage years. She was always controlling her house and trying to be taking care of other people. So to play this character in "The Reckless Moment" with children and a nanny, managing the house and the dinner menu, and on top of it managing a total disaster, certainly seems like Joan. 

Karina: Of course, Joan was a famous actress who could draw self-esteem from her work, but arguably she only got into that work to begin with to support her family and over 20 years later, she was still both the steady breadwinner of the household and the domestic goddess expected to keep the home fires burning come what may. And in 1949, it was uncertain what was to come. "Reckless Moment" was given a token theatrical release and barely registered to an audience that was otherwise flocking to big budget epics. The highest grossing film of 1949 was "Samson and Delilah" starring Hedy Lamarr. In this climate, "Reckless Moment," didn't have much of a chance. As Wanger wrote to Ophüls in resigned despair, 

Walter Wanger [Reenactment]: "The film is suffering very much. The business is catastrophic and most disappointing." 

Karina: The bad box office was a bigger catastrophe because Walter had been forced to depart from business as usual in order to get "Reckless Moment" made. 

Matthew Bernstein: For the failure of "Joan of Arc" it was hard for Walter to find a producer distributor to partner with him. The only studio that would partner with Walter on the project was Columbia. So at Columbia, Walter was treated really poorly. They insisted that Walter defer his salary and wait to get reimbursed for developing the script until Columbia earned its money back. It had a minimal investment and he again, had to arrange a bank loan. So, you know, the film was absolutely brilliant, it's highly regarded today, but two years after its release, Walter still owed the bank of America for its loan. And while this was just less than 20% of the budget of "The Reckless Moment", it still was a lot of money. It was just a complete mess. So Walter was trying to follow the standard practices, but with "Joan of Arc", he just got in way over his head in terms of the amounts involved and when both "Joan of Arc" and "The Reckless Moment" proved unprofitable he was left with all this debt that he had to repay and no clear means of raising the funds to pay them off. 

Vanessa: In addition to his debt to Bank of America, Walter had convinced Joan to sign a note worth $65,000 to another creditor, which was guaranteed by a second loan on her beloved Holmby Hills house. Given how hard she had worked to earn the money for that house and how important it was for her to maintain a stable home for her daughters, Walter's further imperiling of the house only put more strain on their relationship. 

Karina: After the spectacular failure of "Joan of Arc," Walter had begun to feel like a pariah in Hollywood. 

Vanessa: Now because he was in such a large hole financially and trying to get his career back on track, Walter went off to Europe to try to do pre-sales on movies, which wasn't really something they did back then. Walter was ahead of his time. But unfortunately that was kind of working against him. 

Karina: Walter's professional and financial problems and the way these problems made him feel as a man we're already taking a toll on his marriage. Joan would later describe the problems in her marriage to Walter with flair. 

Joan Bennett [Reenactment]: "My relationship with Walter had become filled with untenable problems. Actually the decline of our marriage had begun much earlier than his professional decline. I learned too late that he was not essentially a family man. There were any number of Amaris misdemeanors. The marriage had been extremely rocky from the beginning."

Karina: Joan first discovered Walter was unfaithful to her three months into their marriage. Though she knew Walter's reputation as a quote unquote "ladies man," Joan was shocked at his infidelity.

Vanessa: I do think Joan might've assumed Walter would behave differently with her because I think we all go into committed relationships thinking we're the one and only, and that our love is unique and special. Even though, generally speaking, what's different when men cheat versus women, is that men claim no emotional involvement, I think for Joan, it was probably still upsetting and painful to feel this meant she was less special or their relationship was less meaningful and their commitment not being honored in a way she would have expected. And, you know, she said, nevertheless, she felt a deep attachment to Walter and that prevented her from seeking a divorce so soon after getting married. And I think her mother counseled her to stay with Walter and she did. 

Karina: Joan had been married to a man who she knew had been chronically unfaithful to her for nearly 10 years. In the late spring of 1949, Joan was left alone at home with her two very young daughters and also 15 year old Melinda to care for. Vanessa believes it was around this time that Joan and her agent Jennings Lang crossed the line into an extra marital affair. 

Vanessa: Joan and Walter's youngest daughter, my aunt Shelly, was born in 1948, and Joan had once before fallen for a new man shortly after having a baby with her husband. And that husband had been Gene Markey and the new man having an affair with Joan had been Walter. Walter, it turns out, according to my mother, may have found Joan less attractive post-pregnancy or at least been strange around her. My mother felt that he was different around her after she became pregnant. That some men find pregnant women off-putting or uncomfortable making. And it's possible that Joan was dealing with some form of postpartum depression at any rate it feels like Joan might've needed company or attention and was vulnerable to Jennings' affection in 1949. Maybe Joan was overly influenced by "The Reckless Moment". She's the one playing the part and suddenly she's playing it in real life. 

Karina: Around the same time that his wife was beginning to explore an adulterous involvement, Walter was trying to make two films about adultery, "The Duchess of Langeais" and "The Ballad and the Source." The stories behind these movies tell us a lot about who Walter was during the period. What he was preoccupied with, how he desperately tried to use the power he had left to save his career, and why everything soon slipped away from him. 

Vanessa: The Duchess of "The Duchess of Langeais" has her own fortune title and place in the Royal court. But she's in a loveless marriage with a man who cares only for the status his wife gives him. In this world, both the Duchess and her husband are allowed to take as many lovers as they like. But when the Duchess falls in love with one of her lovers, to the point of threatening her marriage, that's considered unacceptably scandalous. Unable to bear the torture of loving a man she cannot marry and being married to a man she does not love who doesn't love her, the Duchess joins a convent and ultimately kills herself. In "The Ballad and the Source," our heroine Sibyl leaves her loveless marriage for true passion with another man and in retaliation, her ex-husband holds their daughter prisoner for 18 years and so poisons their daughter's view of her mother, that by the time they do meet, no relationship is possible. If they had been made, these films would have been very different from one another, but both are sympathetic in their portrayal of a woman who defies conventional monogamy. These movies didn't get made in part, because the sensors in the US, Europe, and the UK were intent on the regulation of female sexuality. As if making movies where women pursue their desires was going to bring down Western civilization. They viewed these stories as being unacceptably positive in their depiction of adultery, but if movies that end with their female characters dead or permanently estranged from their children qualify as positive portrayals of adultery I hate to think what a negative portrayal might look like. 

Karina: Another reason, the "The Duchess of Langeais" didn't get made, had to do with the extremely hard to get star Walter wanted for it. As Matthew Bernstein explains, 

Matthew Bernstein: He persuaded Greta Garbo, one of the greatest stars of the twenties and the thirties to make a comeback film in Europe in the late 1940s. Garbo even did screen tests for it. Walter spent months in Europe, looking for producing partners in Italy, in England, but he just couldn't get a suitable script together and hold together the financing. So by early 1950 Greta Garbo was sick of it. You know, she went to France, she wouldn't return his calls, and she just washed her hands of working with him and making any film at all. She just decided she wouldn't do a comeback film. 

Karina: The summer of 1949, Joan joined Walter in Europe and their two daughters soon followed. It was a miserable time.

Vanessa: According to my mother, every single member of the family was utterly unhappy the entire time they were there. Walter was in a hole and unable to drum up the interest in financing he needed for his movies. Joan was away from her work, which she missed. My mother admitted to resenting that her parents didn't pay enough attention to her because they were so preoccupied with the mess of their lives and their work. Actually from the time she was very little, she feels that their lives were chaotic and that both parents were scrambling to make ends meet and no one wanted to talk about what was going on in their lives at home, and this was especially true in Paris. 

Karina: When the Wangers returned to Los Angeles together for Christmas 1949, Walter's financial situation was no better. And once again, it was Joan who had to go to work to keep her family and the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed. Jennings Lang steered Joan into the project that would lead to another crest in her career, "Father of the Bride." She played the role of the mother of the bride, the smiling selfless glue who holds the household together. While playing the perfect housewife, a matron who is virtually sexless and rendered essentially invisible by her co-star 18 year old Elizabeth Taylor, Joan was receiving visits on set from her handsome young agent. 

Vanessa: What I find even more interesting now is that her affair really got hot while she was playing the mother on father of the bride in that hair helmet. That's when she reversed and she was the mother on screen and she was the femme fatale in real life. Otherwise she was the mother in real life and the femme fatale on screen. 

Karina: The question is, why did Joan Bennett have an affair now? And why did she do it with her agent, a person who was accumulating power in Hollywood just as rapidly as her husband seemed to be losing it. Joan may not have cared about the professional upside of a relationship with Jennings Lang as much as she was seeking to fill an emotional void. 

Vanessa: Joan was financially self-sufficient, and if anything, the issue with Walter's financial troubles was that he was preoccupied with making money, getting his career back, how to win and succeed and get on top again and that would have made him potentially difficult to be married to if he wasn't paying attention to Joan or to their children.

Karina: With Walter, largely absent and on the verge of bankruptcy and Joan's beloved house in danger, Joan soon began looking for support from another man. Who was Jennings Lang? And how did he become the third point in the triangle and the one who would find himself bleeding in a parking lot in December, 1951? We'll get to that next time on Love is a Crime.

Vanessa: Love is a Crime is a Vanity Fair presentation in partnership with Cadence 13. Executive produced, created, written, and hosted by Vanessa Hope and Karina Longworth. Starring Zooey Deschanel as Joan Bennett and John Ham as Walter Wanger. Our executive producer is Chris Corcoran and our showrunner is Jacquelyn Jamjoom. Production support provided by Nico Steele, Julia Doyle and Lindsey D Shoenholtz. Theme music composed by Lionel Cohen and Vybbes. Audio produced and supervised by Shelby Comstock Britten and mixed by Gintas Norvilla and Rainhouse. Special thanks to Katey Rich from Vanity Fair and Julie Shen and Kelly Bales from Condé Nast. 

Karina: Love is a Crime was written by Vanessa Hope and Karina Longworth who consulted the following published sources in researching this episode. "The Bennetts: An Acting Family" by Brian Kellow, published by the University Press of Kentucky, used by permission from the University Press of Kentucky. "Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent," by Matthew Bernstein, published by the University of Minnesota Press, used by permission from University of Minnesota Press. "The Bennett Playbill" by Joan Bennett, published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, used by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC, Joan Bennett estate, and the Lois Kibbee estate. This episode includes an interview with Matthew Bernstein, excerpts from Walter Wanger's dictaphone tapes courtesy of Shelley Wanger, an archival clip sourced from the 21st Academy Awards, courtesy of Academy Awards clips, copyright Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and clips from the following motion pictures: "Joan of Arc", and "The Reckless Moment". Fact checking by Laura Bullard.