The blacklist is a subject much discussed, analyzed and written about. I always thought that the best commentary on the blacklist came from Robert Redford's character in The Way We Were. They'll come a time when producers will need the talent they have ostracized and the wives of right wing producers will be screwing left wing writers and vice versa and no one will remember what it was really all about. The blacklist like Prohibition, like segregated baseball caved in under the weight of its own imbecility. The tragedy is so many lives had to be ruined.
The story of Dalton Trumbo's years in exile are told in the film Trumbo and it's lead Bryan Cranston who received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He might have gotten the award had the Academy voters felt that Leonardo DiCaprio was overdue.
Dalton Trumbo in his life never spied for the Soviets, no American security issues were ever breached by him. Like so many he joined the Communist Party at a time when we were allies with the Soviet Union against the Nazis. He never hit it and thought this was what America was about, the right to think one's own thoughts express the same and not be penalized.
When things got hostile between the USA and the USSR that's when the forces of reaction came to the fore. The House Un-American Activities Committee which never passed a single law in its history was great at getting headlines. What better headlines than having movie stars of all kinds appear before that committee? So an investigation of the movie industry and the hidden Communist messages in films by writers of leftist sympathy.
Trumbo was one of the first to be blacklisted, a member of the so- called Hollywood Ten of writers. It might be an interesting exercise to look at his screen credits and try to see what could have the members of HUAC found in such films as A Guy Named Joe and Our Vines Have Tender Grapes that are Communist tinted.
The blacklist came and it was enforced by a group called the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Heading it were John Wayne who during the years of the early 50s when the blacklist was riding high and he was number one at the box office. Wayne is played here by David James Elliott who has the height, but no one could ever capture that outsize personality.
Michael Stuhlbarg plays Edward G. Robinson who turned friendly witness after being a defender of the Hollywood Ten and who Trumbo worked with in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes. Unlike Trumbo and the writers who formed an underground cottage industry of writing under pseudonyms to keep bread on the table, actors could not do that. It was why so many like Robinson and Sterling Hayden for instance did what they felt they had to do to preserve their careers.
Even Wayne was a manipulated figure who thought he was doing a patriotic service. Hedda Hopper played by Helen Mirren was far more evil. She was right wing to the core and she did in fact as is shown in Trumbo chastise Wayne for being too soft when he wants to relent.
It was hard on the Trumbos, but Cranston and supportive wife Diane Lane and their kids held it together. The domestic scenes and the Trumbo household are very significant because it shows that other than the fact that dad was barred from working in the most glamorous of industries, they were as ordinary a family as you might find on Leave It To Beaver or The Donna Reed Show. Other than the fact these kids developed some severe social consciences as we see in Elle Fanning as Trumbo's older daughter. But many did who did not live and work in Hollywood.
I should single out John Goodman who really should have gotten a nomination himself in the Best Supporting Actor category as Frank King who was an independent producer of cheerfully admitted shlock movies who hired Trumbo and his colleagues under the table. What he does with one of Hedda Hopper's spies from the Motion Picture Alliance was priceless.
History records the blacklist ending when Trumbo is officially given credit for both the films Spartacus and Exodus. Both came out in 1960. If there are any villains in the story it was the large studios who caved into political pressure. Had any one of them back in the late Forties told HUAC where to go and what to do there would have been no blacklist. A whole lot like the integration of baseball when Jackie Robinson was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers. When that great experiment was successful teams like the Boston Braves, New York Giants and Cleveland Indians all signed black players and in a decade every team was integrated.
So it was with Hollywood's blacklist. In 1965 the producer and star of Spartacus Kirk Douglas and the producer and director of Exodus Otto Preminger both worked with John Wayne on In Harm's Way. In 1969 John Wayne included in the cast of True Grit blacklisted actor Jeff Corey. It was all a bad dream.
But those who dreamed good dreams and fought the good fight for their freedom of speech and their right to work in expressing their speech were people like Dalton Trumbo for whom this picture and review is dedicated to. Sometimes the real heroes aren't in front of the camera.
The story of Dalton Trumbo's years in exile are told in the film Trumbo and it's lead Bryan Cranston who received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He might have gotten the award had the Academy voters felt that Leonardo DiCaprio was overdue.
Dalton Trumbo in his life never spied for the Soviets, no American security issues were ever breached by him. Like so many he joined the Communist Party at a time when we were allies with the Soviet Union against the Nazis. He never hit it and thought this was what America was about, the right to think one's own thoughts express the same and not be penalized.
When things got hostile between the USA and the USSR that's when the forces of reaction came to the fore. The House Un-American Activities Committee which never passed a single law in its history was great at getting headlines. What better headlines than having movie stars of all kinds appear before that committee? So an investigation of the movie industry and the hidden Communist messages in films by writers of leftist sympathy.
Trumbo was one of the first to be blacklisted, a member of the so- called Hollywood Ten of writers. It might be an interesting exercise to look at his screen credits and try to see what could have the members of HUAC found in such films as A Guy Named Joe and Our Vines Have Tender Grapes that are Communist tinted.
The blacklist came and it was enforced by a group called the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Heading it were John Wayne who during the years of the early 50s when the blacklist was riding high and he was number one at the box office. Wayne is played here by David James Elliott who has the height, but no one could ever capture that outsize personality.
Michael Stuhlbarg plays Edward G. Robinson who turned friendly witness after being a defender of the Hollywood Ten and who Trumbo worked with in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes. Unlike Trumbo and the writers who formed an underground cottage industry of writing under pseudonyms to keep bread on the table, actors could not do that. It was why so many like Robinson and Sterling Hayden for instance did what they felt they had to do to preserve their careers.
Even Wayne was a manipulated figure who thought he was doing a patriotic service. Hedda Hopper played by Helen Mirren was far more evil. She was right wing to the core and she did in fact as is shown in Trumbo chastise Wayne for being too soft when he wants to relent.
It was hard on the Trumbos, but Cranston and supportive wife Diane Lane and their kids held it together. The domestic scenes and the Trumbo household are very significant because it shows that other than the fact that dad was barred from working in the most glamorous of industries, they were as ordinary a family as you might find on Leave It To Beaver or The Donna Reed Show. Other than the fact these kids developed some severe social consciences as we see in Elle Fanning as Trumbo's older daughter. But many did who did not live and work in Hollywood.
I should single out John Goodman who really should have gotten a nomination himself in the Best Supporting Actor category as Frank King who was an independent producer of cheerfully admitted shlock movies who hired Trumbo and his colleagues under the table. What he does with one of Hedda Hopper's spies from the Motion Picture Alliance was priceless.
History records the blacklist ending when Trumbo is officially given credit for both the films Spartacus and Exodus. Both came out in 1960. If there are any villains in the story it was the large studios who caved into political pressure. Had any one of them back in the late Forties told HUAC where to go and what to do there would have been no blacklist. A whole lot like the integration of baseball when Jackie Robinson was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers. When that great experiment was successful teams like the Boston Braves, New York Giants and Cleveland Indians all signed black players and in a decade every team was integrated.
So it was with Hollywood's blacklist. In 1965 the producer and star of Spartacus Kirk Douglas and the producer and director of Exodus Otto Preminger both worked with John Wayne on In Harm's Way. In 1969 John Wayne included in the cast of True Grit blacklisted actor Jeff Corey. It was all a bad dream.
But those who dreamed good dreams and fought the good fight for their freedom of speech and their right to work in expressing their speech were people like Dalton Trumbo for whom this picture and review is dedicated to. Sometimes the real heroes aren't in front of the camera.