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Trumbo: How Historical Revisionism in Film is attempting to Dupe a Generation

Posted on 28 December 2015 by The Tactical Hermit

I just watched the movie Trumbo after a friend of mine who works in the movie biz asked me to see it and give him my ‘honest’ opinion. The bottom line is despite all the “rave” reviews the film got and even with the star power of Brian Cranston, Dianne Lane. Helen Mirren and John Goodman the movie was utterly and completely nauseating to watch.

I felt it my obligation, as a caretaker and watchman of history, to warn others of how utterly historically inaccurate the movie really is. But alas, I am out of my depth on this subject. Let me quote an author who is an expert on the subject of Hollywood and Communism, author Allan Ryskind.-SF

 

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New Hollywood Movie ‘Trumbo’ Glorifies a Stalinist Screenwriter

The just released movie,Trumbo, is not only a major tribute to Communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo but is Hollywood’s latest effort to exalt those hardcore Party members who made a serious attempt—and almost succeeded—in capturing the movie industry.  The following are the author’s answers to questions put to him by those interested in the historic battle between the Communists and the anti-Communists in the 1930s and 1940s.

Q: Do you view the newly released movie, Trumbo, a major tribute to the blacklisted screenwriter, as fundamentally accurate?   

A: It bears little relation to the truth, really.  Trumbo’s heavy labors on behalf of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin and a Communist America are essentially erased, down George Orwell’s famous memory hole.  So is his support of Lenin, Adolph Hitler (during the Hitler-Stalin pact) and North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung after his aggressive attack against South Korea in 1950.  Trumbo’s support of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe and military threats against Western Europe are also unnoticed. Trumbo, in fact, is treated as something of a saintly Socialist, more Pope Francis than Karl Marx.  The anti-Communist community, meaning those who fought  the considerable Red conspiracy in Hollywood, are slammed pretty hard, with columnist Hedda Hopper, actor John Wayne and the House Un-American Activities Committee absorbing some of the biggest licks.

Virtually all the anti-Communists are made to look mean, petty and hypocritical, so audiences fresh to the controversy might easily dismiss their opinions.  Trumbo, however, is elevated to hero status a brave, talented American—he was brave and talented, I think I’ll concede that point—who not only defied the blacklist, but defeated it, while striking  a major blow on behalf of the First Amendment, supposedly Dalton’s North Star when it came to politics.  It’s all nonsense, of course, for he was a deadly serious Stalinist who deployed a dozen strategies to do in his country.

Q: How did this movie come about?

A: The film’s screenwriter is John McNamara, who did such TV shows asLois and Clark and Acquarius and was inspired by Bruce Cook’s 1977 friendly biography. McNamara, a big admirer of Trumbo, worked on the script for years.  Jay Roach, the director, is another Trumbo fan.  He’s directed such successful hits as Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery and Meet the Parents . The star who plays Dalton is Bryan Cranston, who was a meth dealer in the hit TV series Breaking Bad and has been giving major interviews singing Trumbo’s praises.

Q: Conservative critics say that Hollywood is making a hero out of a dedicated Stalinist who fought long and hard to bring about a Sovietized America. Was he, in fact, a member of the Communist party?

A: There is no question about his CP membership.  In those famous 1947 hearings, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) submitted material proving beyond a quibble that he was a party member, though Trumbo and nine other screenwriters and directors refused to respond to questions about party membership, accusing HUAC of violating their First Amendment rights.  Trumbo and the other nine, soon to be dubbed The Hollywood Ten, served time in prison for contempt of Congress and were blacklisted because the Hollywood studios laid down the rule that no one could work in Hollywood if he or she belonged to the Soviet-controlled Communist party or refused to tell Congress whether or not they belonged.  Years later, however, Trumbo finally admitted to his biographer, Bruce Cook, that he joined the party in 1943 and that “I might as well have been a Communist ten years earlier.  But I’ve never regretted it.  As a matter of fact, it’s possible to say I would have regretted not having done it …” (Bruce Cook’s Dalton Trumbo, pp. 146-148.)

In an unpublished memo among his papers at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison (a copy of which is in my possession), Trumbo writes, after his prison term and a lengthy sojourn to Mexico, that he “reaffiliated with the party in 1954” and that “in the spring of 1956, I left the party for good.”  His papers in Madison also revealed he remained a Stalin apologist until his death, insisting that whatever his defects, the Kremlin dictator’s most important historical contribution was to have advanced the cause of Socialism worldwide.

Q: But is it really fair to call him a Stalinist, meaning a long-time servant of the Soviet dictator?

A: Though he says he joined the party in 1943, Trumbo never publicly deviated from the Stalinist line since the late 1930s and never publicly criticized any of his infamous deeds.  In a sympathetic portrayal of the Hollywood Communists in their classic, The Inquisition in Hollywood, authors Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund ask: “Were the Hollywood Communists ‘Stalinist’? The initial answer must be ‘yes.’  Communist screenwriters defended the Stalinist regime, accepted the Comintern’s policies and about-faces, and criticized enemies and allies alike with an infuriating self-righteousness, superiority and selective memory, which eventually alienated all but the staunchest fellow travelers.” (p. 239)

“As defenders of the Soviet regime,” they added, “the screen artist Reds became known apologists for crimes of monstrous dimensions, though they claimed to have known nothing about such crimes, and, indeed, shouted down, or ignored those who did.”  Ceplair and Englund also stress that they “defended that regime unflinchingly, uncritically, inflexibly—and therefore left themselves open to the justifiable suspicion that they not only approved of everything they were defending but would themselves act in the same way if they were in the same position.” (p. 241)

Q: But why did the House Un-American Activities Committee feel it should open up an investigation of the Communist influence in Hollywood?

A: By 1944, a number of important Hollywood writers, directors, labor union officials and studio executives, alarmed by the Communist infiltration of the industry, formed the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals MPA).  Among the founders and members were Morrie Ryskind, Walt Disney, Russian émigré Ayn Rand, labor union officials and executives from various studios.  Actors Robert Taylor and John Wayne were leaders in the group.

The group was formed because in 1944 it looked as if committed Stalinists had gotten control of the movie industry.  Party members had major influence in the powerful guilds and unions, with the very influential Screen Writers Guild having tapped Red screenwriters Dalton Trumbo and Gordon Kahn to run the guild’s flag-ship publication, The Screen Writer.  Under Trumbo and Kahn, The Screen Writer became an arm of the Red movement in Hollywood.  Virtually everything Red was saluted.  The Communists even appeared to have control of screen content, as numerous films, written by party members, were being shown in theaters across the country celebrating the Soviet way of life and Stalin himself.

Read the Remainder of the Article at CNS News

 

In closing guys, we must understand, as True Patriots, that History is sacred, and if we are going to tell it, we owe it to both our Generation and Future Generations to be HONEST in the re-telling of it. Beware of Revisionist History! IMO it is one of the most dangerous propaganda tools of the socialist and islamo-fascist, because this current generation has no context of the truth! The majority will believe whatever you put up on the screen or print in a book; we owe it to this generation to be both the watchman and caretaker of history; it is that sacred.-SF

Stay Alert, Stay Armed and Stay Dangerous!

 

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