Trumbo in Vancouver

Dalton Trumbo will soon be seen on screen in the flesh, moustache and eyeglasses of Bryan Cranston, who looks remarkably like him. The real Trumbo was in Vancouver forty-five years ago for the opening of his fierce anti-war film, "Johnny Got His Gun."

Talking with an interviewer in his suite at the Bayshore Inn, Trumbo had his trademark cigarette holder, but the parrot given him by Kirk Douglas wasn't perched on his shoulder.

The conversation didn't touch on Trumbo's years on the notorious "black list" or his role as one of the "Hollywood Ten"--scriptwriters who were accused of contempt of Congress and jailed for refusing to reveal information at hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee. (An account of those intemperate times is detailed in "Naming Names" by Victor Navasky.)

What was talked about was the number of films Trumbo had written--at least thirty-six, some under pseudonyms when film studios didn't want to be known for hiring him. Films made by Douglas and Stanley Kubrick ("Spartacus") and Otto Preminger ("Exodus") changed that, but it was a very long time before Trumbo was known to have written "Roman Holiday" (posthumous Academy Award in 1993). He also won an Oscar for "The Brave One," writing as "Robert Rich," actually the name of a studio messenger.

Between 1936 and 1973, Trumbo wrote at least thirty-six screenplays, including "Kitty Foyle" and "Papillon", four novels (one a National Book Award winner), and more, including scores of letters subsequently published under the title "Additional Dialogue." "Johnny Got His Gun" was not a great box office success, but it did win the Cannes Grand Prix.

An interviewer suggested that the story of Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers might be a subject for a film, and he agreed. But he didn't get to write it. Dalton Trumbo died in 1976, aged seventy.

Those who saw Trumbo in Vancouver in 1971 look forward to seeing "Trumbo" on screen in 2015.