In the early 1950s, Lumet was an in-house director on "Danger," a murder-mystery drama, and "You Are There," a show that featured historical reenactments of such events as the Salem witch trials and the fall of Troy. The shows' producer, Charles Russell, an ardent liberal himself, decided to hire several blacklisted writers - notably Walter Bernstein ("Fail Safe") and Abraham Polonsky ("Body and Soul") - to pen the scripts, using fronts and pseudonyms to protect their identities.
