Trumbo
Short description
Trumbo is a drama about Dalton Trumbo, one of the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood during the 1940s. His career and his standing in the film industry are upended when the House Un-American Activities Committee investigates communist activity in the United States. Called to testify, Trumbo refuses to answer the committee's questions, and the decision costs him his studio contract and his place in the industry.
The film follows his effort to keep working despite being blacklisted, with support from his family, while facing hostility from powerful figures in Hollywood. Bryan Cranston plays Trumbo, and the cast includes Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Louis C.K., David James Elliott, Elle Fanning and John Goodman, among seventy credited performers. Jay Roach directed from a screenplay by John McNamara, and also produced alongside Monica Levinson and Michael London. It was Roach's eleventh film as director in chronological order, following Game Change and preceding All the Way.
Released in 2015, the film runs 124 minutes. Made for a budget of 15 million dollars, it took about 11 million dollars worldwide, less than its cost. Audience response has been favorable: it holds 7.4/10 on IMDb from roughly 87,000 votes and 7.2/10 on TMDB from about 1,700 votes. The critics' rating stands at 6.8/10 from 206 reviews, somewhat below the audience scores on both sites.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, Gary Oldman was supposed to play the role of Dalton Trumbo.
- This is the third feature film in the last four years in which John Goodman has played the role of a studio owner or top executive. He previously appeared in "The Artist" (2011) and "Argo" (2012). Incidentally, both of these films won the "Oscar" for "Best Picture".
- Trumbo held Communist Party membership card number 47187.
- Four actors who appeared in "Trumbo" had previously worked with Ben Affleck: Bryan Cranston and John Goodman starred in "Argo", Diane Lane played a role in "Superman Doomsday" and "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice", and Elle Fanning is in "Live by Night", which is slated for release.
- Steve Martin once stated that in his youth, his then-girlfriend and her family introduced him to completely new ideas and postulates. Her father's name was Dalton Trumbo. Martin had no idea who that was.
- This did not happen in real life, however the film shows how Edward G. Robinson commits an act of betrayal towards his friends, naming them as communists at a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee of the US Congress. Robinson testified four times before the Committee, but never named any of his acquaintances as communists, even those he suspected of sympathizing with communism. He admitted that he himself had been a victim of deception by organizations that served as a front for communists, but he did not name Dalton Trumbo or anyone else as a communist. Robinson stated that he considered them, as well as himself, to be liberals, and that some of them periodically invited him to rallies and other events, but he did not call anyone a communist.
- In the 1950s, Dalton Trumbo's screenplays were awarded two Oscars for Best Screenplay, but Trumbo did not receive either of them. Other authors were credited in the titles of both films, as Trumbo himself was blacklisted. The first film for which Trumbo received an award was "Roman Holiday." Ian McLellan Hunter was credited as the screenwriter, and he did indeed write screenplays for films and was later also blacklisted. In 1993, after both Trumbo and Hunter had passed away, the American Film Academy attempted to take the statuette from Hunter's family and give it to Trumbo's widow. Hunter's son, Tim, a director ("River's Edge," "Tex," and others), refused to part with the statuette, so the American Film Academy had to issue another statuette to Trumbo's widow. The credits of the 2003 DVD release of "Roman Holiday" list Trumbo instead of Hunter. The second film to win Trumbo an award was the drama "The Brave One" (1956). Robert Rich was credited in the titles here. Unlike Hunter, Rich had no involvement whatsoever in writing the screenplays. He was simply the nephew of one of the film's producers. In May 1975, approximately a year and a half before Trumbo's death, the American Film Academy presented him with a gold statuette for the screenplay to this film.
- During breaks in filming, Alan Tudyk entertained the children (including Elijah Miskovski, who played his son in the film) by imitating the voices of King Candy ("Wreck-It Ralph”), the Duke ("Frozen”), and Alistair Krei ("Big Hero 6"). Upon learning that Alan had also participated in the voice acting for the computer game-shooter "Halo 3," the children simply followed him around for the rest of the shoot.
- Helen Mirren and Richard Portnow starred together in "Hitchcock" (2012), another film whose plot unfolds in Hollywood of years past. The film's plot is primarily focused on the making of "Psycho" (1960), in which Janet Leigh starred. "Trumbo," in turn, tells the story of the making of "Spartacus" (1960), in which Janet Leigh's husband Tony Curtis starred.
- According to director Jay Roach, many scenes where Trumbo writes either sitting at a desk or lying in a bathtub were invented by Bryan Cranston 'on the fly.' Moreover, Cranston actually wrote entire sentences on paper in front of the cameras.
- All the films that Jay Roach directed before "Trumbo" were comedies.
- Otto Preminger was actually both a director and an actor. He appeared in the animated film "The Hobbit" (1977) by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass. Dean O'Gorman played in Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" trilogy (2012-2014).
- In the living room of the Trumbo house, a certificate of membership in the "Delta Tau Delta" fraternity hangs on the wall. Dalton Trumbo was indeed a member of this fraternity during his studies at the University of Colorado Boulder.
- The film is based on true events.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
