IONCINEMA.com presents: Trumbo (2008)

CAST AND CREW

Director

Peter Askin

Trumbo

Release Date: Jun 27, 2008 - Wide Release
Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Film Genre: Documentary
Country: United States

» IMDB.com

It is an odd irony of history that renowned American screenwriter Dalton Trumbo is still best known for the years of his life in which he didn’t work. In 1947, the accomplished writer of KITTY FOYLE and THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO, was called to testify before the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee and was thrown into prison as one of the infamous "Hollywood Ten." Upon his release from jail in 1950, Trumbo moved with his family to Mexico, where he continued to write screenplays (ROMAN HOLIDAY, THE BRAVE ONE) under various pseudonyms. Finally in 1960, Otto Preminger and Kirk Douglas hired Trumbo to write EXODUS and SPARTACUS, respectively, with full public credit, thereby ending the blacklist. The powerful character of the man who emerges in this riveting documentary — adapted by Dalton’s son, Christopher, from his celebrated off-Broadway play — is much more than the sum of these parts. The film explores Trumbo’s persona through interviews with those who knew him, and, even more richly, through his own words. Trumbo was a spirited letter writer all of his life and rarely left a trenchant observation, impassioned complaint or scathing bon mot unexpressed. His scrappy, idealistic nature made him many loyal friends, but possibly even more enemies. TRUMBO touchingly reinterprets his letters through readings by contemporary Hollywood’s leading lights including Donald Sutherland, Liam Neeson, Michael Douglas, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Paul Giamatti, and Nathan Lane.

MOVIE NEWS ITEMS

2007-12-06
Samuel Goldwyn takes 'Trumbo' off blacklist