★★★★★

What a great movie!

I mean it. John Goodman gives an amazing performance and Bryan Cranston shines in his role of Dalton Trumbo. Everybody should watch Trumbo not just to see a great movie to but learn about and incredibly dark time in American history.

The history behind Trumbo

Joseph McCarthy was not part of the House of Representatives but is normally associated with the House Un-American Activities Committee. It is probably because he was the most visible and trampled on safeguards provided by the Constitution of the United States. This “any crime is a good crime if it bags a Communist” mentality became known as McCarthyism. During these most un-American investigations and proceedings, anyone deemed to be a member of the Communist Party and in a position of “prominence” was arrested, investigated, and put on public trial. This was really the embodiment of George Orwell’s “thought police” from the novel “1984.” Friends and neighbors were encouraged to testify against each other as Communists instead of “thought criminals” but the reality was much the same.

In order to keep media “ideologically pure” for “the master race” envisioned by McCarthy, public figures which held views not on the short list of sanctioned American Activities were first publicly humiliated, then black listed so no major studio or publisher would work with them. Many lives were ruined.

This is a story of Trumbo and his associates. How they found a little studio making movies which looked up at B-grade willing to have first him, then them, “fix” their scripts. Eventually they took some chances on scripts he wrote from scratch and the hoping to one day achieve B-grade studio found itself with an Academy Award for a script written by a black listed screen writer.

For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.