Nobody involved with “Casablanca” had high expectations for the picture, although it was written by the colorful Epstein twins, Julius and Philip, and Howard Koch. The Epsteins were widely admired for their witty dialogue, on and off screen. Of the film, Julius once said, “There wasn’t one moment of reality in ‘Casablanca.’ We weren’t making art. We were making a living.” Nevertheless, when it was released, it became an instant hit, and won three Oscars, including best picture. It’s all in Isenberg’s account, and “Casablanca” fans will find it to be a treasure trove of facts and anecdotes.

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“High Noon” is a far deeper dig into the background and historical context of its subject; that is, the sorry history of the blacklist, instituted by the studios after the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) put a gun to their collective heads in 1947.

Despite the voluminous literature on the subject, surprisingly little has been written about “High Noon.” For many years, Billy Wilder’s unfriendly words about the so-called Unfriendly Ten who refused to answer questions before HUAC — “Only two of them have talent. The rest are just unfriendly” — passed for the conventional wisdom. Even though Carl Foreman, who hatched the story and wrote the script, had more — and better — credits than most of his blacklisted confreres, unlike them he didn’t live to finish writing his memoirs. The director, Fred Zinnemann, never made it into the film critic Andrew Sarris’s famous Pantheon, and the producer, Stanley Kramer, was condescended to by intellectuals for his message movies.

Glenn Frankel comes to his subject with a widely praised book about John Ford’s “The Searchers” and an impressive résumé in journalism, including a Pulitzer Prize. Although much of Frankel’s material is familiar, the blacklist is a gift that keeps on giving. There always seems to be something new to chew on, in this case the transcripts of HUAC’s secret executive sessions. Besides, it’s a story that bears retelling because Hollywood, not to mention the rest of the country, is haunted by ghosts that won’t go away (witness Newt Gingrich’s recent call for a resurrection of HUAC, now to be wielded against ISIS, not Communists).

Image Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in “High Noon.” Credit... Everett Collection

At first HUAC was considered something of a joke, but as time passed, the committee’s antics became more scary than risible. Like much of the Hollywood left, Humphrey Bogart supported the 19 “unfriendly” screenwriters initially called before the committee. He had backed Franklin Roosevelt in his 1944 presidential campaign, and when he was attacked by the right, he struck a defiant note in The Saturday Evening Post. Alluding to his role in “Casablanca,” he wrote, “I’m going to keep right on sticking my neck out, without worrying about its possible effect upon my career.” But a brief three years later, when the right turned up the heat, he published an abject apologia in Photoplay magazine entitled, “I’m No Communist,” in which he distanced himself from the Ten. Likewise, Jack Warner, whose studio had invented the anti-fascist genre, gave HUAC the names of 16 screenwriters, including those of the Epstein twins, of whom he said, “Those boys are always on the side of the underdog.” Foreman didn’t intend his script to be the blacklist parable it became, but as he watched his friends fall around him, it was almost inevitable. Foreman felt like the Gary Cooper character. He regarded “High Noon” as a picture about “conscience” versus “compromise.”