Sinister Cinema: Abraham Polonsky — Dangerous Citizen

Tuesday August 18, 7pm — it felt like the meeting of a secret society. Always fun. Eddie Muller of TCM’s Noir Alley sent out an invite to a private screening in the 4-Star on Clement for his new documentary Dangerous Citizen: The Life and Times of Abraham Polonsky. The 111-minute doc had “its World Premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, August 9, 2026” — as “the centerpiece of a program focusing on filmmakers singled out for political persecution by anti-Communist ‘witch-hunters’ in the U. S. government during the 1940s and ’50s.” I think we were the first audience of any size stateside to put eyeballs on it. I asked Eddie how many of the Hollywood Ten he’d met. He didn’t think any, but had met several of their children. I once thought — for some offbeat reason — that I had met four of the Ten, but sat down to it one day and determined it was only two. Nuts. Alvah Bessie and Lester Cole. Cole and I sat next to each other on a panel about Hammett circa 1982. Of course Hammett features…