Dalton Trumbo, Commie Hypocrite, and Hollywood’s Leftist Propaganda Machine
By Dr. Tom Snyder, Editor
Hollywood liberal left keeps pulling the wool over people’s eyes about the so-called Hollywood Blacklist that put 10 Stalinist screenwriters in jail for up to one year in 1950.
The latest cinematic attempt to spread lies about this period in Hollywood and American history is TRUMBO.
TRUMBO is a liberal/leftist whitewash of Communist Party member Dalton Trumbo, a hypocritical Hollywood writer who was blacklisted by the movie industry when he mocked Congress during a 1940s investigation of Soviet, Communist infiltration of that industry. TRUMBO not only gives a false, revisionist, whitewashed, superficial account of Trumbo’s phony, hypocritical stand for freedom of speech, it also presents a false, misleading, superficial, and ultimately laughable definition of communist ideology.
The movie opens a few years after Trumbo joined the Communist Party, with Trumbo as a successful screenwriter in Hollywood after World War II. Along with actor Edward G. Robinson and others, Trumbo is active on the picket lines of one of the labor unions in Hollywood. Right after he signs a lucrative contract with Warner Bros., conservative gossip columnist Hedda Hopper writes an article lambasting Trumbo’s radical politics, calling Trumbo a Communist traitor.
Soon, Trumbo and his friends in the Communist Party are being called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, D.C. Trumbo convinces everyone they need to confront the committee and its legitimacy. He argues that the liberal Supreme Court will probably rule 5-4 in favor of them, on freedom of speech grounds.
However, Trumbo doesn’t count on one of the liberal judges dying unexpectedly. So, he and nine other writers go to jail for showing contempt of Congress, then blacklisted by the major Hollywood studios when Trumbo gets out of jail 11 months later. Nor does he count on Hedda Hopper and other conservatives in Hollywood, who rise up to support the blacklist of unrepentant Communist writers, including Trumbo and his sick friend, Arlen Hird. They are forced to resume their writing careers, but at very low pay and under other people’s names.
TRUMBO is well made, except that it’s such superficial, silly propaganda that only an uninformed person could take it seriously. Sadly, however, few people are aware of the real truth about the Hollywood Blacklist and the biography of misguided Communist loons like Dalton Trumbo.
For example, Trumbo was a huge hypocrite. Thus, the movie neglects Trumbo’s own support of the Communist Party’s efforts to blacklist anyone who didn’t tow the Party line coming from their Soviet masters in Moscow, including their own Party members! For instance, Trumbo went along with the Party’s efforts to force fellow Party member Albert Maltz to recant an article where Maltz defended freedom of speech for all artists regardless of their politics. Trumbo also publicly supported the Party’s blacklist against Robert Rossen who wrote and directed ALL THE KING’S MEN, because the Party didn’t like the movie and book because of their politics, which exposed Gov. Huey Long’s tyrannical record and one-man rule in Louisiana using a fictional narrative). Finally, during World War II, Trumbo himself actually met with the FBI to give them names of people, who asked to buy a copy of Trumbo’s pacifist 1939 novel JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN. The book was written at the time of Stalin’s pact with Hitler and was meant to oppose American involvement in the fight against Hitler. The Party supported the book at first because of the Stalin-Hitler pact, until Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, when Moscow ordered the Party to oppose and suppress the book. Trumbo reportedly went along with both decisions, then named names to the FBI. Thus, in reality, Trumbo and his Communist friends only really defended freedom of speech for their leftist buddies, not for those who might disagree with them or outright oppose them (this is also true of the Communist Left today).
The history of all this information about Trumbo and the Hollywood Backlist can be found in the article “Fountain of Lies” by Art Eckstein, Frontpage Magazine, March 14, 2005, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=9274. See also this link at Discover the Networks: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=369, as well as “Hollywood’s Missing Movies” by Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley, https://reason.com/archives/2000/06/01/hollywoods-missing-movies and Billingley’s book THE HOLLYWOOD PARTY. Finally, see Ecksein’s article “The Truth About the ‘Hollywood Ten,’” Frotnpage Magazine, April 18, 2005, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=8914, “The Blacklist as History” by Ron Radosh, The New Criterion, December 1997, http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-blacklist-as-history-3228#top, and “‘The Blacklist & the Cold War’ Revisited” by Hilton Kramer, November 1997, The New Criterion, http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/-ldquo-The-Blacklist—the-Cold-War-rdquo–revisited-3249
The silliest and most ridiculous moment in this movie is a scene where Trumbo explains communism to his little daughter. He says communism is when you go to school and realize that the student next to you has no sandwich to eat at lunch, so you share your sandwich with her.
This, of course, is a totally inaccurate definition of communism. Real communism is not privately sharing your sandwich with another person. That’s PRIVATE charity.
No, real communism is when armed soldiers from the government come to your house and forcibly take your sandwich away from you so they can give it to the government and its fatcat bureaucrats and dictators at the top while leaving you and your neighbors with only a few crumbs. Of course, under real communism and real socialism, the government and its armed goons are more likely to shoot you dead or put you in prison and take your sandwich anyway, leaving no crumbs whatsoever for you or your family!
Of course, if you really pay attention to what the Bible says, you will find that nowhere does the Bible support communism or a government run welfare program, including Social Security. Instead, the Bible supports private charity, personal responsibility, taking care of one’s own family, and hard work (see 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15, 1 Timothy 5:3-16, 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, Deuteronomy 14:28, 29, Numbers 18:24, Matthew 6:1-4, Proverbs 10:4, and Proverbs 14:21 and 23).
Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
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