By Alex Deleon

I caught TRUMBO yesterday on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to L.A. and found it so fascinating that I watched it three times in a row on this 12 hour global traverse -- and it just got better with each viewing.

Somehow this major Hollywood film about Hollywood fell through the cracks in 2015 and didn't get the recognition it deserves. 

To the average film goer the name Dalton Trumbo may not ring many bells but to those interested in Hollywood history  and engagé American fiction it is a landmark name. I first heard of Trumbo back in my undergraduate daze at UCLA when  an attractive coed, Julie Lamont the daughter of a prominent Hollywood film family, advised me to read a novel entitled "Johnny Got His Gun" which blew my mind because it was the first person account from a hospital bed of a WW I battle survivor, struck deaf dumb and blind and a quadruple amputee as well, who wants to be put out of his unbelievable misery but cannot communicate with the doctors -- the ultimate anti-war novel almost too painful to get through.  Author, Dalton Trumbo.

 I soon learned that Trumbo was not only a powerful writer of fiction but also a major Hollywood screen writer, major anti-McCarthyism gadfly, the leader of the blacklisted "Hollywood Ten", and was still writing scripts of award winning films under various assumed names. 

From Jay Roach's tremendous new docudrama I learned that among Trumbo's uncredited screenplay masterpieces were Preminger's Exodus, Kubrick's Spartacus, both released in 1960, and multi Oscar winner "Roman Holiday" 1953, directed by William Wyler and starring Gregory Peck.

I also learned that Edw. G. Robinson, one of my own all-time favorite actors, squealed before the Congressional Inquisition and named names among them that of Trumbo.

The gathering drama of the film reaches a culmination point with a quick newspaper insertion announcing the official revolt against the Congressional Inquisition by Director Otto Preminger -- the kind of moment where one wants to get up and cheer:

My own memories of Hollywood's answer to Mao's Cultural Revolution were totally refreshed by this edgy archly primed and enthusiastically acted docudrama biopic -- Bravos for director Jay Roach, screenplay writer John McNamara, and actor Bryan Cranston ~ uncanny in the title role. 

Kudos also to David James Elliot as John Wayne, Michael Stuhlbarg as Edward G. Robinson, Dean O'Gorman as Kirk Douglas, Christian Berkel as a most hoaky Otto Preminger, Bulky John Goodman as a baseball bat wielding schlock film studio head, and last but not least, Helen Mirren as queen of the Hollywood gossip column bitches, Hedda Hopper. 

This film is not only The Great American Film about Hollywood's darkest days, but also a kind of wake up call in the current era of Trump versus Clinton.

Alex,  L.A. Airport Marriott, August 2, 2016