true crime podcasts

Jon Hamm and Zooey Deschanel to Star in Narrative Podcast Love Is a Crime

Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos by Shutterstock

Jon Hamm and Zooey Deschanel are starring in a dramatic podcast following the story of Hollywood producer Walter Wanger and his wife, film noir pioneer Joan Bennett. Love Is a Crime follows the Wanger’s shooting of agent Jennings Lang, who he suspected was having an affair with Bennett when he saw them in public together. Lang recovered and Wanger served a four-month sentence for his crime. But it was his wife who lost her career because of the incident, making only five movies in the next decade, while Wanger went on to make several successful films, including Cleopatra in 1963. The couple divorced in 1965. Love Is a Crime, a classic Hollywood tale of love, scandal, and death will be told in the industry’s newest format, hosted by Karina Longworth (You Must Remember This) and filmmaker Vanessa Hope, the granddaughter of Wanger and Bennett. “Why would my grandfather, a successful movie producer, a liberal thinker, a man who helped Jewish emigres escape Hitler, take a gun to confront his wife?†Hope said. “Why would my grandmother, a beautiful movie star who had all but invented the archetype of the film noir femme fatale, and was then starring in a hit franchise of family films, risk everything to sneak around with her agent?†The first narrative podcast from Vanity Fair, Longworth and Hope will share insight to the couple’s professional and romantic partnership. Deschanel will play Bennett, Hamm will play Wanger, and Griffin Dunne plays Jennings Lang. Get invested in drama older than your mama when Love Is a Crime premieres August 17.

Jon Hamm, Zooey Deschanel to Star in Podcast Love Is a Crime