Movie Review -Trumbo

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2015 Spoiler alerts The remarkable true story of Dalton Trumbo, a leading Hollywood screen-writer who was instrumental in breaking the McCarthyist boycott on actors, writers and directors suspected of having Communist sympathies that had run for over a decade, ruining many careers, (not just in the movies). Many Americans had started supporting Communism in the 1930’s in opposition to Fascism and Nazism. Men had served with the international brigades in the Spanish Civil War. The Russian fight against Hitler in the 2nd World War drew more people to Communism, but after the War as the Cold War began, the committee of Un-American activities began its brutal witch-hunt against anyone deemed remotely red. Trumbo (played with beautiful calm with and pacifism by Bryan Cranston in his first major post Breaking Bad role) was a major league highly respected writer, and unfortunately, also a card carrying Communist. He was denounced by John Wayne (stridently supporting the witch-hunt) and malicious gossip columnist Heddy Hopper (Helen Mirren). Edward G Robinson, desperate to save his own career, tried to denounce Trumbo too, only to find his own career was not recovering, but Trumbo was ultimately forgive him and help him recapture some of his former glory. After imprisonment for no crime whatsoever, and officially boycotted, Trumbo continued to write through ghost writers and fictitious pseudonyms. He was unable to collect his own Best screen-Writer Oscar for the Gregory Peck / Audrey Hepburn movie Roman Holiday. With his arrogant commitment to the cause pushing his family life to breaking point, Trumbo eventually found that he could write quick scripts under false names for B-Movie producers, with one brilliantly portrayed here by John Goodman. Eventually however one such movie itself, The Brave One, proved worthy of a best story screen-play Oscar, which Trumbo again, could not collect. With rumours rife in Hollywood that Trumbo was still producing magic, the Committee was trying to crush him, but Trumbo was saved when directors Otto Premminger and Stanley Kubrick made big budget movies with his scripts and refused to remove his name from the script credits. Though Premminger’s Exodus (about the founding of the post-war state of Israel in 1948 was a commercial flop (though actually a very good movie) Kubrick’s Spartacus was one of Cinema’s greatest masterpieces. Studio executives wanted to withdraw the star Kirk Douglas from the movie for his open support for Trumbo, but Douglas knew that the film was too big in scale, budget and existing material to now survive without him. He effectively blackmailed the studio to leave the movie alone and Trumbo’s name in place. Though the dreaded Committee was still active as late as 1975, McCarthyism was largely killed by Trumbo and the success of Spartacus, especially when the just elected US President, JFK went to see the movie and openly announce how much he loved it. Wonderful performance, a great capture of the 1950’s Hollywood scene, and with closing credit footage of the real Dalton Trumbo too. This is a very good movie that deserves much wider attention than it received. A reminder that such reds under the beds witch-hunts should never be allowed again. Arthur Chappell