Background for TRUMBO

Dalton Trumbo
1905 - 1976

Dalton Trumbo wrote or co-wrote dozens of feature films, including Exodus, Spartacus, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Kitty Foyle and Papillon. At the start of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, he had recently signed with MGM, one of the most lucrative screenwriting contracts in Hollywood annals, giving him a weekly salary of $3,000. He won two Academy Awards using fronts and aliases, while blacklisted -Roman Holiday and The Brave One. He wrote four novels, including The National Book Award-winning Johnny Got His Gun. Trumbo's work continues to inspire contemporary artists as diverse as Steven Spielberg (Always was a remake of Trumbo's A Guy Named Joe) and Metallica (their Grammy-winning "One" was based on Johnny Got His Gun. In 1947, Trumbo, along with others who became known as the Hollywood Ten, went before the HUAC and declined to answer the question, "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?" For his refusal, Trumbo was fired from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, imprisoned for a year, and blacklisted.

The purpose of the hearings, although they were not trials, was clearly punitive, yet the procedural safeguards appropriate to tribunals in the business of meting out punishment were absent: there was no cross-examination, no impartial judge and jury, none of the exclusionary rules about hearsay or other evidence. And of course, the targets from the entertainment business had committed no crime: "whistle-blowing" in this context injured only the innocent.

Communist screenwriters did not revolutionize, Stalinize, communize, Sovietize, or subvert the output of the film industry. They did try to approach their subject matter more objectively and straightforwardly than was the norm; they endeavored to add realism and delete racial distortions and ethnic stereotypes; they aimed to accentuate any real elements or story material they found within their assignments. If the majority of the films made from their scripts seem politically indistinguishable from the films made from the scripts of non-radical screenwriters, it is not necessarily because they lacked skill or determination, but because the studio executives were more skilled and determined - and by far more powerful.

As a matter of undeviating practice in the motion picture industry it is impossible for any screen writer to put anything into a motion picture to which the executive producers object. The content of motion pictures is controlled exclusively by producers; [all aspects of a film] are carefully studied, checked, edited and filtered by executive producers and persons acting directly under their supervision.