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xaipe
Feb 04, 2016xaipe rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was one of the most famous of the "Unfriendly Ten" which included Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Katharine Hepburn, Melvyn Douglas and Fredric March who were all also blacklisted in 1947 in the first flash of America's witch-hunts in the Army McCarthy hearings. But that's pretty much all that the casual observer knew about him before his son, Christopher, wrote a play based on his father's blacklist-era letters, called Trumbo: Red, White and Blacklisted" which was adapted as an off-Broadway production directed by Peter Askin. Now Peter Askin's documentary, which includes dramatized readings by such familiar names as Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Nathan Lane (who played Trumbo in the play), Liam Neeson, David Strathairn, and Donald Sutherland fills in the historical gaps with newsreels, interviews, and some film clips. The importance of this documentary is that it shows how much of a boat rocker Dalton Trumbo was, how his insistent visibility helped break the Blacklist, and how the forces that tried to make the Blacklistees toe the line are still running things. "Trumbo" isn't really about Communism, it's about thought control, and the power of this film comes from its varied, non-manipulative portrayal of an indomitable creative spirit. This excellent documentary is a good accompaniment to the recently released movie "Trumbo."