Trumbo

Plot: Communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, gets jailed for Contempt of Congress and blacklisted, but eventually triumphs.
Stars: Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Helen Miren
Best Quote: Wilder on the "Hollywood Ten":  Only two of them had talent, the rest are just unfriendly. 

I was looking forward to this movie because I'm a big Bryan Cranston fan.  I was perfectly willing to overlook the usual "Oy vey, the blacklist..it was Amerika's darkest hour" nonsense - just to be entertained.  And...I was shocked at how bad this movie is.  It looks like a TV movie of the week, has flat characters, and a boring script. The acting is OK, with Goodman and Mirren as standouts.  We get lots of celebrity impersonations. Dean O'Gorman gets Kirk Douglas right,  David Elliot gets John Wayne, way wrong.

The first half isn't that bad, as Trumbo fights with HUAC. But after Trumbo gets out of jail, its damn dull. Its all: Trumbo has to work hard - and gets testy! Trumbo's daughter is unhappy! Trumbo has to sell his scripts at below-market value! And finally, Trumbo gets screen credit for Spartacus  - Hallelujah! - the end. And we get endless filler scenes of Trumbo writing or looking at TV - Yawn.

The Movie Vs. Reality
The movie more or less follows Trumbo's biography except for the following:

• Trumbo moved to Mexico City for two years during the 1950's. This is skipped entirely.
• Trumbo averaged $50,000/year ($2 million in 2018 dollars) during the blacklist.
• E.G. Robinson was neither a communist nor a big friend of Trumbo's.

Incredibly, the movie lies about Trumbo's communism. 
The Cold War has been over for almost 30 years and we know all about Stalin's crimes, the internal workings of Communist Party USA, and who was a Communist spy - yet this movie still can't tell the truth!

Y'see - as Cranston explains to his daughter - "communism is just making sure everyone gets equal shares of cake"!  Good grief, give Trumbo his due. He was a dedicated, hard-core Stalinist with sophisticated  principles/beliefs.  He followed the party line, praising the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and opposing aid to England prior to June 22, 1941.

He never said a bad word about Joe Stalin. And like all communists, he was OK with censorship & blacklisting - as long as the Left was doing it. Or as Susan Sontag put it: "They don't need free speech in the USSR, they have socialism". 

Later Cranston says "I [Trumbo] love this country" and "We have a good government" - which of course the real Trumbo would've laughed at.  The Communists thought patriotism "petite bourgeois nonsense"  and believed Democracy should be replaced by the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat."  

If the Movie is Correct - why was Trumbo a Communist?
The movie gives Trumbo an Ozzie and Harriet family, and a Leave it to Beaver house,  and pretends he was just a "Free Speech advocate" and Union supporter. If that's so, why was Trumbo a Communist?  Ninety percent of Hollywood wasn't Communist yet still opposed fascism, supported the  New Deal, and  favored unions.  Ronald  Reagan managed to do all three - and was an anti-Communist!  And how - exactly - did Trumbo "Fight Hitler" by joining the Communist Party in Beverly Hills?