Polish-born film director Roman Polanski during a burial ceremony for French film maker Claude Berri, in Montrouge, France, Jan. 15, 2009. (AP)

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In 1977, film director Roman Polanski — “Chinatown,” “Tess,” “The Pianist” – was indicted for drugging, raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl in LA.

He pled guilty to a single charge, spent 45 days in confinement, then fled the country for Europe.

Last Saturday he was arrested in Switzerland. The U.S. wants him back.

The details of the case are disturbing. The post-arrest reaction across the Atlantic, fascinating.

This hour we’ll hear it. Geraldine Ferraro says lock him up. French luminary Bernard Henri-Levy says let him go. They’re with us. Plus The New York Times’ David Carr.

This hour, On Point: Judging Roman Polanski.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Montclair, N.J., is David Carr, columnist and reporter for The New York Times covering media and culture. He also writes for the Times’ Media Decoder blog and writes the Oscar-season blog The Carpetbagger.

From New York City we’re joined by Bernard-Henri Levy. A writer, journalist, philosopher and public intellectual, he recently authored a petition, posted at The Huffington Post, calling for Polanski’s immediate release and signed by such luminaries as Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, Isabelle Adjani and Isabelle Huppert. His recent books include “Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism” and “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville.”

Joining us from New York City is Geraldine Ferraro, attorney and former U.S. Congresswoman from New York. She was the first woman to be nominated for vice president by a major party, when she ran on the Democratic ticket with Walter Mondale in 1984. She is now a principal with Blank Rome LLP, a law practice and lobbying firm. She has argued strongly for prosecuting Roman Polanski. In the late 1970s, as assistant district attorney for Queens County, New York, Ferraro led the newly created Special Victims Bureau, prosecuting cases involving rape and child abuse.

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Long before “Dancing with the Stars” brought rappers and bullriders to the ballroom floor, there was Fred Astaire, bringing song and dance to the big screen.

In musicals from “Top Hat” to “Funny Face” and “Silk Stockings,” he wooed Hollywood’s leading ladies — and viewers around the world — with his elegance, grace, and impeccable dance.

Cultural critic Joseph Epstein brings a fresh take to the story of Fred Astaire, from vaudeville days to enduring icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

This hour, On Point: The art and life of the extraordinary Fred Astaire.

You can join the conversation. Did you grow up watching Fred Astaire’s footwork in movies like “Top Hat,” “Swing Time,” and “The Gay Divorcee”? Does “Puttin’ On the Ritz” make you get up and dance?

Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Joining us from Evanston, Illinois, is Joseph Epstein, essayist and bestselling author of “Snobbery: The American Way” and “Friendship: An Expose.” His new book, “Fred Astaire,” appears in the “Icons of America” series from Yale University Press.  Read an excerpt (pdf).

From New York, we’re joined by Elizabeth Kendall, dance critic and author of “The Runaway Bride: Hollywood Romantic Comedy in the 1930’s” and, most recently, “Autobiography of a Wardrobe.” She’s a professor at Eugene Lang College, The New School of Liberal Arts.

Here’s Fred Astaire and “Puttin’ on the Ritz” …

Here’s Astaire and Ginger Rogers in “Swing Time” …

And here they are “Dancing Cheek to Cheek”…

Alfred Hitchcock was for years the master of movie suspense. But fifty years ago — May, 1958 — he brought out a film so weird that filmgoers didn’t know what to make of it.

It was called “Vertigo.” It had Jimmy Stewart as a San Francisco detective afraid of heights, on the trail of icy blond Kim Novak.

Hitchcock was a Hollywood hero, but “Vertigo” was a box office dud. Now it’s on many “ten best films of all time” lists. Obsessive. Perverse. Haunting. Bizarre. And, fans say, a masterpiece.

This hour, On Point: Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” at 50.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Dan Auiler, film critic, historian, and co-author with Martin Scorsese of “Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic” and author of “Hitchcock’s Notebooks: An Authorized and Illustrated Look Inside the Creative Mind of Alfred Hitchcock”

Jack Sullivan, director of American Studies at Rider University and author of “Hitchcock’s Music”

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly

In 1967, revolution was in the air. And not just on college campuses. Hollywood, too, was at the threshold of a generational rebellion.

The year’s Oscar nominees told the story: So long to the super-sanitized, big-studio moviemaking machines. Hello to the new rough-and-tumble — sex, violence, and rock-n-roll. Out with the “Sound of Music” clones. In with “Bonnie & Clyde”, “In the Heat of the Night” and “The Graduate.” Films that captured the American moment, and ushered in a new Hollywood era.

This hour, On Point: The Oscar films of 1967, and the birth of a new Hollywood.

-Jane Clayson

Guests:

Mark Harris, author of “Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood.”

Jack Beatty, “On Point” news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly.

It’s the season of big releases and Oscar angling, at the end of a wild, up and down year for movies — from sweeping epics of war won and lost, to comic close-ups on pregnancy, young love, and growing up.

There were the perennial Hollywood blockbusters — from “Ratatouille” to “Spiderman III” to yet another “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

But there were smaller films, too, that stood out from the crowd and impressed the critics. “Waitress,” “Atonement,” “The Namesake.”

Up next, On Point: The movies that stole our hearts — and might just steal the Oscars.

-James Hattori

Guests:

Carrie Rickey, film critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Ty Burr, film critic for The Boston Globe.

David Carr, media critic for The New York Times and author of the “Carpetbagger” blog on the Oscars for the Times website.

It sounds like a culture-war set piece: Hollywood rolls out a religious-themed Christmas blockbuster and conservative believers go ballistic. That was the story this weekend with the release of “The Golden Compass.”

Based on the wildly popular fantasy novels by British author Philip Pullman, a famously outspoken atheist, the film casts God and the Church as evildoers. Or does it?

Some have called for a boycott of the film. But Pullman fans say the movie lacks the deeper spiritual meaning of the books.

This hour, On Point: the storm surrounding “The Golden Compass.”

-Jane Clayson

Guests:

Stephen Prothero, chair of the religion department at Boston University and author of “Religious Literacy: What Americans Need to Know.”

Hanna Rosin, contributing editor to The Atlantic Monthly and author of “God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save the Nation.”

Father James Martin, Catholic priest, associate editor of America: The National Catholic Weekly, and author of “My Life With the Saints.”

The “Daily Show” may be going down, and Leno and Letterman and “Desperate Housewives” and “Heroes” and a whole lot of movies. The writers behind most of American television and movies are talking strike.

It’s been almost twenty years since a Hollywood writers’ strike. In 1988 it was about their piece of the video rental pie. Now, that sounds like horse-and-buggy stuff. The new issue is the Internet, and who’s going to get what as TV webisodes and movie downloads kick in.

This hour, On Point: high drama, crash scenes, and maybe a strike as the web rewrites Hollywood.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Carl DiOrio, deputy film editor and labor editor for the Hollywood Reporter.

Shelly Palmer, author of “Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV” and the television news blog Media 3.0.

Michael Winship, President of the Writers Guild of America, East.

Jonathan Potter, Executive Director of the Digital Media Association, whose members include technology firms such as Microsoft, YouTube, AOL, Apple, and RealNetworks.