Starring: Bryan Cranston, Helen Mirren, Diane Lane, John Goodman, Louis C.K, Elle Fanning
Distributor: Entertainment One Films
Runtime: 124 mins. Reviewed in Feb 2016
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Hollywood has been reluctant to revisit the past and expose in full the most infamous period in its history, which was the reconvening of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1946. Trumbo seeks to redress this omission, and after a lacklustre start which sees poor imitations of legendary Hollywood actors such as Edward G Robinson and John Wayne, director Jay Roach swiftly turns this long but interesting biopic into a primer on the impact of Cold War paranoia on Hollywood’s Dream Factory.
Dalton Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad) was a prolific, highly-paid Hollywood screenwriter and novelist whose anti-war stance and left-wing beliefs had seen him become a member of the Communist Party in 1943.
The HUAC had been created in 1938 to flush out American citizens who were Nazi sympathisers. In 1946, however, with the shadow of the Iron Curtain over Europe and the threat of nuclear war, the HUAC was reconvened as part of a vociferous campaign to root out alleged Communists and their ‘Fellow Travellers’, with a particular focus on Hollywood.
This resulted in Trumbo and other left-leaning screenwriters, actors and directors being subpoenaed to give evidence to the HUAC, where in the full glare of publicity and under fierce cross-examination, they were accused of being political subversives, and directed by the HUAC committee to testify against themselves and others.
Many capitulated, but some did not, amongst them Dalton Trumbo, who along with nine other eminent screenwriters known as the ‘Hollywood Ten’ (most of whom were Jewish), were imprisoned for contempt of Congress, and later blacklisted by Hollywood’s moguls.
Trumbo fought back in other ways too. On his release from prison after a year’s incarceration, and in the firm conviction that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protected his freedom of speech and assembly and the right to follow whatever religious or political path he chose, Trumbo used his prodigious energy and talent to churn out dozens of film scripts for a number of minor studios, notably King Brothers Productions. In this way, Trumbo saved his family from insolvency, and made a fortune for the studio head, Frank King (played wonderfully by John Goodman).
Trumbo’s final victory comes in the 1970s when it is revealed that writing while blacklisted, he was the recipient of two Oscars, for Roman Holiday in 1953 (writing under the alias Ian McLellan Hunter) and The Brave One in 1956 (as Robert Rich).
Jay Roach’s movie successes include cutting-edge comedies such as the Austin Powers films, and Meet the Parents. Trumbo is Roach’s first film with a serious theme and the change of pace isn’t entirely successful.
Based on Bruce Cook’s biography, written in collaboration with Trumbo in 1976, equal time is given to Trumbo the man and Trumbo the triumphant victim of a political regime that tried to crush him.
In a powerful performance that earned him an Oscar nomination at this year’s Academy Awards, Bruce Cranston portrays Trumbo as a complex and charismatic subversive who aside from his formidable gifts and being a prominent member of the Hollywood elite, was at heart a family man – albeit with a luxurious house and country property – who finds himself struggling to put food on the table.
Other characters however, some as important in many ways to the story as Trumbo himself, are merely sketched. These include poor impersonations of famous actors which jar with vivid memories of how they appeared on the screen, and players in the whole shameful HUAC debacle and its aftermath – such as independent producer/director Otto Preminger (Christian Berkel) and Kirk Douglas (Dean O’Gorman) – who deserve greater prominence than the storyline gives them, or even films of their own.
The Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, on the other hand, is a revelation. Helen Mirren plays her without finesse, no doubt justifiably so, and the scene in which she storms into the office of Jewish mogul Louis B Mayer of MGM and calls him a ‘shtetl kike’, literally takes the breath away.
Despite its flaws, Trumbo with its clever use of fascinating inserts of contemporary footage and personalities,revisits the past and throws a ‘spotlight’ on an aspect of vilification and scaremongering that has resonance for our own times.
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