Trumbo, a great film

Trumbo is a great film. Especially for film historians. It delves deep into the HUAC committee and it's affect on Hollywood. Trumbo is it's lead character and biggest star writer. This was back in the Golden Age of Hollywood where stars meant some, but not as much as they do today. Studios also played a bigger role. They made film after film until TV came along and caused a restructuring in the industry. Anyway numerous characters from film history grace the screen in this picture. Trumbo himself, like so many screenwriters, is little known even though he penned some of the best films of his era. He never aspired to more then a screenwriter and lived a middle class life.

After Trumbo gets out of prison for contempt of Congress he has to figure out how to make a living as a screenwriter even though he is blacklisted. He manages to make living from writing by using other screenwriters to submit his work. He even wins an Oscar for Roman Holiday and someone else has to accept his golden statue. The pressures that Trumbo and his family had to endure during the time he was on the blacklist were great. In the film you can see the hardships the McCarthyism wrought on so many people. Screenwriters, teachers, and others were all effected by McCarthyism.

I thought Bryan Cranston did a hell of a job on the film. Trumbo is an odd character, and Cranston shows Trumbo at his best and his worst.

It's too bad McCarthyism ruined so many lives. It didn't have to. There could have been some other way.