Wednesday, September 2, 2009
'Trumbo' on 'American Masters' on PBS
REASON TO WATCH This portrait of blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo is an adaptation of a 2003 Off-Broadway play written by his son Christopher with added perspective by family and friends.
WHO WAS TRUMBO Born in Montrose, Colo., in 1905, Trumbo was a cantankerous, brilliant, tough-minded westerner who became an A-List Hollywood scribe, then landed on the blacklist when he refused to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. (The verdict, he later said, was "just. I had contempt" for the committee and Congress. Trumbo had been a member of the Communist party, as were many others in Hollywood in the '30s.)
He spent 11 months in a federal prison and upon release, spent the next 15 years writing under dozens of pseudonyms. Under one (Robert Rich) he even landed an Oscar for "best writing/motion picture story" for "The Brave One" in 1956. He won another Oscar for "Roman Holiday," awarded 17 years after his death. Trumbo became an accredited writer, finally, with "Exodus" and "Spartacus," both in 1960. He died in 1976.
WHAT THE SHOW'S ABOUT The Off-Broadway two-man play was based on his letters, with Nathan Lane in the title role. Son Christopher was the other character, though Wednesday night you'll see Chris in the flesh, as he reflects upon his father and legacy; daughter Mitzi is quoted. Meanwhile, actors read/dramatize the letters, and the list of dramatis personae, so to speak, is pretty impressive - Lane, Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Josh Lucas, Liam Neeson, David Strathairn and Paul Giamatti. Those letters? Literate, ornate, bemused, amused, self-righteous, bawdy, picaresque and often quarrelsome. "Dear burglars" he began one to the telephone company.
BOTTOM LINE Trumbo is a patron saint of the Hollywood liberal establishment, which means more consecration. With the exception of Giamatti and Lane, the actors read his letters as though they were holy writ - Douglas intones the words as if they had been chiseled on tablets by the Big Guy. It all gets to be a bit tiresome and long-winded. But get past the letter readings and there's a fascinating, well-told story - of courage and resiliency.
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