Documentary Lets Dalton Trumbo Speak (Through Surrogates)
Sixty years after a Congressional panel grilled 10 uncooperative writers, directors and producers about their supposed Communist connections, Hollywood still quarrels over the heroes and villains of its Red Scare.
The propriety of giving Elia Kazan — one who “named names” — an honorary Oscar in 1999 remains a contentious subject. And only five years ago Stanley Kramer’s widow bitterly battled the makers of a television documentary that depicted her late husband using the blacklist to deny his former partner Carl Foreman a producer’s credit on “High Noon.”
But on Monday night in Toronto, one of the era’s acknowledged heroes, the jailed and blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, was expected to deliver some posthumous words that might finally put to rest the hunt for good guys and bad.
The admonition occurs in the first few minutes of “Trumbo,” a documentary directed by Peter Askin and written by Trumbo’s son, Christopher Trumbo. The film is making its debut as part of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Real to Reel series.
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The propriety of giving Elia Kazan — one who “named names” — an honorary Oscar in 1999 remains a contentious subject. And only five years ago Stanley Kramer’s widow bitterly battled the makers of a television documentary that depicted her late husband using the blacklist to deny his former partner Carl Foreman a producer’s credit on “High Noon.”
But on Monday night in Toronto, one of the era’s acknowledged heroes, the jailed and blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, was expected to deliver some posthumous words that might finally put to rest the hunt for good guys and bad.
The admonition occurs in the first few minutes of “Trumbo,” a documentary directed by Peter Askin and written by Trumbo’s son, Christopher Trumbo. The film is making its debut as part of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Real to Reel series.