Blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo is revealed in this touching documentary that utilizes talking-head interviews along with Trumbo's letters to people and institutions to flesh out the man responsible for such film classics as "Johnny Got His Gun," "Spartacus," "Roman Holiday," and "Papillon."
Joan Allen, Michael Douglas, David Strathairn, and Donald Sutherland are some of the actors who vicariously channel Trumbo by reading his letters as monologues mixed with dramatic and comic inflection.
Trumbo was named as one of the House on un-American Activities Committee's list of 10 blacklisted screenwriters indicted by Congress for contempt for refusing to confirm or deny membership in the Communist Party.
The hugely successful Hollywood writer served a year in prison before taking his family into exile in Mexico along with some of his Hollywood Ten peers.
Upon returning to the states penniless a year later, Trumbo began writing a plethora of black-market screenplays under a variety of different names.
Dalton Trumbo was never able to collect the Oscar he won for "Roman Holiday."
"Trumbo" is a passionate depiction of a fiercely ethical, grouchy, prodigious, articulate and loving individual.
Dalton Trumbo forever!
Rated PG-13. 96 mins.
