Dalton Trumbo

  • Executive Action (1973)

    Executive Action (1973)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) As far as JFK assassination conspiracy fantasies go, nearly everyone remembers Oliver Stone’s bravura 1991 masterpiece JFK, but 1973’s Executive Action has faded from memory. I’m not necessarily saddened by that—As I’m editing this review in early 2021, the United States is experiencing an alarming tribal epistemology crisis, with truth taking a distant second place to political affiliations. (And lest you think that I’m making a “both sides” argument, let me set you straight: The right wing’s acceptance of nonsensical conspiracy theories has little equivalency on the other side of the aisle.) The result is thousands of excess mortalities in a national pandemic, an attempted political coup (incompetent because fantasy-based, but a coup nonetheless), a disturbing dismissal of norms and significant damage to American institutions. So, you may excuse me if my tolerance is nonexistent for such intentional blurring between fact and fantasy for political gains. At another time, I probably would have enjoyed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s skillful blend of fact and fiction, describing a shadowy cabal planning the assassination of JFK and subsequent coverup: the film is a masterclass in dramatization of a wild conspiracy theory, playing on universal fears and prejudice to tell all about men in control rather than a lone nut sending everything in chaos. From the opening narrative scroll to the final error-filled one, Executive Action is about sowing doubt, blocking objections and suspending disbelief. It can rely on strong actors such as Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan, a sober execution and a surprisingly modern kaleidoscopic approach to its subject. In other words, it’s quite intriguing from a technical perspective and in its execution. But I simply cannot, right now, bring myself to feel any sympathy for its goals. I’ve had it up to there with conspiracy fiction now that I see it blend in the real world with people unable to make the difference between truth and politically motivated manipulation. Maybe I would have been more sympathetic five years ago. Hopefully, I will be able to be in five years.

  • Gun Crazy (1950)

    Gun Crazy (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) The history of a crazy couple on the run is longer than I first thought – never mind Natural Born Killers or Bonnie and Clyde when you can go all the way back to Gun Crazy to see more of the same (and I’m sure there are earlier examples). The first few minutes set an unpredictable tone, as an unusually gun-obsessed young man comes back from military service to find kinship in a carnival performer who is as good a sharpshooter as he is, but significantly crazier. As such couples are wont to do, they go on a criminal rampage, first robbing stores only to graduate to killing people when the heat closes in on them. The ending isn’t for those hoping for a happy ending, although it’s strikingly appropriate to the noir era. Peggy Cummins and John Dall are quite good in their roles, but in many ways it’s Dalton Trumbo’s script that hooks us in early with clever touches and never lets go until the end of their rampage. Director Joseph H. Lewis does justice to his narrative blueprint by keeping things moving at a quick pace, and adding just enough visual details to reinforce the rapid pace. Gun Crazy is, in short, a great example of a short and snappy classic crime film – not even 90 minutes, and over before you even get tired of its fast pace.

  • A Guy Named Joe (1943)

    A Guy Named Joe (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) There’s an unusual blend of elements at work in A Guy Named Joe—a mixture of wartime propaganda, supernatural events, romantic triangle and interesting performers. If you’re coming at this film from first having seen its 1989 remake Always, they it’s going to be pretty much the same things, flaws and qualities included. What’s good about it is the same, and what’s annoying (a reluctance to really lean on the supernatural possibilities of its premise) is the same as well. The indirect actions by the ghostly character on the living are both charming and frustrating in equal measure. At least Spencer Tracy (in full aw-shuck everyman yet skilled professional), Irene Dunne and Van Johnson (in a hard-fought role) are all quite good as the points of the triangle. To its credit, A Guy Named Joe is more than your usual wartime propaganda film, and Dalton Trumbo’s script is finely crafted. Some good special effects (for the time) help round up the picture. I don’t particularly love it, but maybe I would have said otherwise had I seen this first, and Always second.

  • Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)

    Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) Considering that the 1942 Doolittle raid over Tokyo was itself mostly a propaganda operation, it does make sense that it would lead to a 1944 propaganda movie about it in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Spencer Tracy is the biggest name in the movie as Doolittle making a few speeches (usually telling his crew that it’s OK if they quit and, in an interesting scene, that they should if they’ll think of themselves as murderers to civilians working in military factories), but much of the film is focused on a small bomber crew as they undergo training, deployment, action and egress to safety. Despite the obvious propagandist value of the film, Dalton Trumbo’s script is a well-constructed journey with likable characters as they go from home to danger and back. It also soft-pedals demonization of the enemy, portraying it as a justifiable response to past slights rather than killing for killing’s sake. (That’s not quite the historical record, but compare that attitude with other 1940s war movies that delight in mass murder and you’ll see the difference.)  As a result, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo has aged better than many films of the era—it’s surprisingly entertaining even today, and some great Oscar-winning special effects do help it stay even more impressive with time.

  • Spartacus (1960)

    Spartacus (1960)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2018) The fifties were big on sword-and-sandal epics, and Spartacus is in many ways just another link in the chain that goes from, at least, Quo Vadis (1951) to Cleopatra (1963). That it happens to be a Stanley Kubrick film (directing a script by the equally legendary Dalton Trumbo) is almost immaterial—Kubrick famously disliked the end result, and reacted to his experience making the film by staying as far away from Hollywood as possible for the rest of his career. Still, there’s a lot to like here, starting with Kirk Douglas’s spectacular performance as Spartacus, or Laurence Olivier sparring with him as Crassus, or notables such as Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov (back in sandals!) Tony Curtis or Jean Simmons in other roles. Trumbo’s script is quite good (the “I’m Spartacus ! ”scene lives on) and the execution does live up to Kubrick’s exacting standards. As historical epics go, Spartacus is one of the better ones, and it warrants watching as more than a historical reference.

  • Trumbo (2015)

    Trumbo (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, March 2016) Screenwriters are my Hollywood heroes, so it makes sense that I’d like Trumbo a lot more for its depiction of a screenwriter as a two-fisted creative brawler than for its on-the-nose take on the evils of the McCarthytism and its Hollywood black list. Bryan Cranston is very likable in the lead role of Dalton Trumbo, left-wing screenwriter blacklisted by Hollywood during the fifties, sent to prison, and making a living by anonymously writing movies both bad and good, even winning two Oscars under pseudonyms. Perhaps the best sequences in the film detail Trumbo’s living and business arrangement as he created a system of delegate writers to satisfy the prodigious appetites of a B-movie studio looking for affordable quality. Of course, even if Trumbo is handled by veteran comedy director Jay Roach, it gets its respectability by hammering at Trumbo’s blacklisting. That part of the film feels far less satisfying, going over familiar material about McCarthy’s red scare in a way that doesn’t feel remotely subtle. Fortunately, the film picks up toward the end as Trumbo reintegrates the Hollywood elite, thanks to people like Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger. Trumbo may fail in trying to present a hefty respectable drama about the dangers of political profiling, but it partially recovers by taking us within the world of a top-level screenwriter.