Trumbo

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jay Roach/Starring: Bryan Cranston, Helen Mirren, Diane Lane, Louis C.K., John Goodman, Elle Fanning and Michael Stuhlbarg

The sordid history of the Hollywood blacklists has been well documented and dramatized in cinema. Two notable films on the subject; Martin Ritt's The Front (1976) and Irwin Winkler's Guilty by Suspicion (1991); come to mind. But unlike the aforementioned fictitious films, director Jay Roach's Trumbo is based on the real-life experiences of a legendary screenwriter who endured the unforgiving and unconscionable political witch-hunts that left so many unemployed and unemployable. Dalton Trumbo, played beautifully and with much artistry by Bryan Cranston, stands as one of the more talented writers in movie history but because his communist ties were seen by the House Un-American Activities Committee as suspicious and possibly seditious, he, along with other screenwriting peers, were barred from submitting work to the studios. Deprived of their livelihood, many found their economic situations severely stressed and their lives and reputations ruined by one of the more diabolical political movements in American history.

In Trumbo, the screenwriter's experiences serve as a testimony to the indignities and humiliations visited on a group whose membership in the communist party was borne of humanitarian concerns.

Early in the film, we see Trumbo sitting before legendary studio executive Louis B. Mayer, basking in praise and the promise of being the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood. Unfortunately for Trumbo, a new contract comes with an ominous warning about his political affiliations. Unconcerned, he spends his days writing and enjoying time with his family and screenwriting friends.

But we also see the machinations of anti-communist forces, led by the powerful Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) and a government committee hellbent on expunging traitorous elements in the film community. In one scene, Hopper stands before a full auditorium of like-minded "patriots" with actor John Wayne (David James Elliott). After rousing the audience with bile-spewing rhetoric about political subversives in Hollywood, Hopper and Wayne encounter Trumbo and his fellow-screenwriters outside the auditorium, where their leaflets about constitutional rights are left untouched by the those exiting the venue. Wayne and Hopper are unmoved by and dismissive of the writer's pleas for tolerance, while Trumbo counters Wayne's bullying with a biting question about the actor's war service.

But Trumbo finds more powerful forces marshaled against him, as a subpoena served to him during a family picnic demands that he testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington D.C. to address issues about communist propaganda finding its way into Hollywood films. Refusing to answer questions they deem intrusive, Trumbo and his screenwriting cohorts--known as The Hollywood Ten--are convicted of contempt of Congress and subsequently arrested.

We see Trumbo in the following scene standing before a prison guard. He is forced to strip naked, exposing his privates for examination. The degradation he endures for his views says much about the political climate of the time. In prison, he is hardly exempt from the hard labor demanded of inmates.

While serving his time, Trumbo stays in contact with his wife Cleo (Diane Lane) as she tries to hold the family together. Trumbo (and the audience) experiences a wonderful moment of comical irony when he discovers the man who led the witch-hunt against him in Hollywood is also serving time in the same prison for tax-evasion.

But upon being paroled, Trumbo discovers his problems have only begun. He finds being blacklisted to be another punishing sentence as he is effectively shut-out from Hollywood. Public humiliation becomes common. Trumbo is accosted in a movie theater after a patron sees his face in a newsreel about The Hollywood Ten, whereupon a drink is splashed in his face.

Trumbo finds a way around the blacklist by writing scripts with non-blacklisted writer's names on his work. He writes Roman Holiday but attaches the name of his screenwriting peer Ian McLellan Hunter (Alan Tudyk} on the front page. Though his screenplay wins an Oscar, Trumbo is unable to accept the award while Hunter is loathe to keep the statue.

Soon Trumbo discovers writing under a pseudonym to be an effective way of earn a living. As the Trumbo family is forced to move into more modest digs, Dalton is also forced to work for a schlock movie company run by brothers Frank (John Goodman) and Hymie (Stephen Root) King, who churn out low-budget pot-boilers. Though Frank and Hymie make objections about not being able to afford Trumbo, the writer gladly accepts lower pay to keep his family fed. Unlike the major studios, the King brothers don't see the Black List as an impediment to hiring a black-listed writer. Friend and fellow blacklister Arlen Hird (Louis C.K.) sees his writing junk-scripts as insulting while Trumbo sees writing under a pseudonym as an effective way of circumventing the blacklist. Soon Trumbo enlists the talents of his fellow blacklisters for the King brothers, sometimes with humorous results. One scene that is particularly funny involves a space alien story over which Frank and Arlen lock horns.

As betrayal is the overarching theme in the film, we see its many incarnations. One instance involves screen legend Edward G. Robinson; who proves to be a sympathetic ally to Trumbo and his friends before he too is forced to sit before a committee to answer questions about his dubious affiliations. Other liberal figures in the industry pledge fealty to the Trumbo and his fellow communists, until they also turn their backs on the vilified Ten.

We also see how betrayal can take the form of familial alienation. Trumbo's obsessive writing schedule drives a wedge between himself and his family. Though Cleo feels he is guilty of neglect, the person it affects most acutely is his daughter Nicki (Elle Fanning). She tries to get her father to join the family gathering for her 16th birthday, only to find him in the bathtub with his typewriter; hostile to all entreaties.

Trumbo's career takes a dramatic turn when he discovers actors and directors who are willing to defy the blacklist to work with him and more importantly, include his name on scripts. Two such people; Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger, help dismantle (though not eradicate) the Committee and Hedda Hopper's influence, thus extricating Trumbo from the blacklist's pernicious hold.

If the film ends with vindication, it also carries the bitterness of injustice. Though we see Trumbo accepting an award years after the blacklist's wane, he is quick to point out that all who suffered through its noxious influence were forever changed by it, mostly for the worse. Closing subtitles inform us credit for Trumbo's work on Roman Holiday and The Brave One, both Oscar-winning screenplays; were awarded only later; the former posthumously.

The film's showcase is Bryan Cranston, whose performance here should soundly establish him in movies. Cranston shows us a highly principled man whose unwavering loyalty to his colleagues and his unassailable political convictions came with a fiery resolve. He is a wonder in this role.

But one can't walk away from the film not having noticed Helen Mirren, John Goodman, Louis C.K. and Michael Stuhlbarg all doing exceptional work as well.
John McNamara, whose writing credits have been mostly relegated to television, contributes a solid, intelligent script. His dialogue is smart and witty and his hero wonderfully nuanced.

The Hollywood Black Lists will forever inspire dramas; it's a subject that never seems to get musty. Jay Roach's film proves the history can still be mined poignantly. The film also shows that Dalton Trumbo was long overdue for a biopic of his own.