Dalton Trumbo: Overlooked Genius Quiz

Answer: Roman Holiday

The 1953 William Wyler classic 'Roman Holiday' was awarded the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Trumbo, the film's screenwriter, was blacklisted in 1947 due to suspected Communist activities, and was unable to work in motion pictures. To circumvent this, screenwriter Ian McKlellan Hunter was hired to 'front' for Trumbo, and it was Hunter who was subsequently awarded the Oscar.

In 1993, seventeen years after his death from a heart attack, the Academy officially awarded Trumbo the Oscar for 'Roman Holiday'. For the film's 2003 DVD release, Trumbo's name was digitally inserted into the film's credits.

Answer: Road Gang

In the early days of cinema, it was not unheard of for major studios to recycle the plots of successful films. This practice gave rise to the 'B-film' industry, and one of the forerunners of this circuit was Warner Bros. Pictures. In 1936, the studio handed its B-film department the task of reworking the hit 'I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang', which had been a hit for Warner four years earlier. Trumbo was chosen to write the script for the remake, titled 'Road Gang'. One of his earliest hallmarks as a writer is apparent in the film, as 'Road Gang' was given a much more optimistic ending than its predecessor.   

Answer: Kitty Foyle

The 1940 Ginger Rogers vehicle 'Kitty Foyle' earned Trumbo his first Academy Award Nomination. Trumbo's adversarial relationship with Rogers was a hot topic in Hollywood. Rogers at one point famously refused to read lines written by Trumbo which she felt were 'communist' in nature. Four years later, Rogers starred in the Trumbo penned 'Tender Comrade'.

The film was eventually pulled from circulation after Trumbo and the film's director, Edward Dmytryk, were blacklisted. Rogers herself was briefly suspected of communist ativities due to her association with the film, and her mother Lela was forced to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, during which she claimed her daughter was 'duped' into making the film. Ginger Rogers was never blacklisted.

Answer: True

Vincente Minnelli's film 'The Sandpiper' featured four screenwriters. Along with Trumbo, the credited writers were Michael Wilson, Irene Kamp, and Louis Kamp. The film is remembered mostly for the Oscar-winning song 'The Shadow of Your Smile', and for helping introduce actor Charles Bronson, who had a minor role in the film as a sculptor.

Answer: Robert Rich

Eight years after refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, after which he was blacklisted, Dalton Trumbo was chosen to pen the script for 'The Brave One', Irving Rapper's film about a boy and his bull. The film won Trumbo the Oscar for Best Screenplay, an award he would not officially receive until 1975. Due to his abolishment from the film industry, Trumbo was forced to write the script under an assumed name.

He chose Robert Rich, the name he would later use for his production company.(Clue answer: Robert Rich is also the name of the Rich Products owner who invented the first non-dairy whipped topping in 1945).

Answer: He Ran All the Way

Both Dalton and Butler were fronted by 'G.I Joe' screenwriter Guy Endore on the 1951 noir thriller 'He Ran All the Way', starring John Garfield and Shelley Winters. Endore was a fellow Communist who became famous in 1940 when he lobbied for the innocence of seventeen Mexican teenagers on trial in Los Angeles for the Sleepy Lagoon Murder.

Although Butler and Endore were Communists, they were not one of the so-called 'Hollywood Ten' as was Trumbo. The company that produced the film, United Artists, refused association with Trumbo and Butler, but not Endore.

This allowed Endore to front for his two bretheren, and Trumbo and Butler went uncredited for years as the film's screenwriters.     

Answer: Gun Crazy

In 1949, Trumbo helped pen the script for the Bonnie and Clyde-inspired 'Gun Crazy', also known as 'Deadly is the Female'. Having been ousted from the movie system, Trumbo was 'fronted' by Mr Magoo co-creator Millard Kaufman. Trumbo co-wrote the script with MacKinlay Kantor, based on Kantor's short story. 'Gun Crazy' has gone down in movie lore as one of the finest B-film offerings of its time, and its success helped Trumbo secure more work in the coming years.

Answer: Lonely are the Brave

Written specifically as a star vehicle for Kirk Douglas, 'Lonely are the Brave' was adapted from Edward Abbey's 1956 ode to non-conformity, 'The Brave Cowboy'. Released in 1962, The film was one of Trumbo's first scripts after his exile from Hollywood officially ended. Douglas has stated on many occasions that the film is his personal favorite.

Answer: Spartacus was too perfect; he had no faults.

When producer/star Kirk Douglas fired director Anthony Mann one week into shooting, the young Stanley Kubrick was brought on board to finish 'Spartacus'. Eager to prove himself, Kubrick immediately took exception to Trumbo's vision of Spartacus. Trumbo was reputed to be an overly-optimistc individual, and he often infused that trait into many of his characters. Kubrick, by contrast, was a man of healthy cynicism, and his thirst for total control put him at odds with Trumbo.

The director insisted that Spartacus be changed to a quirkier, more flawed individual.

In the end, Trumbo's experience trumped Kubrick's green thumb, and the character remained as written.  

Answer: A nurse tried to kill the protagonist at the end of the film.

'Johnny Got His Gun' told the fictional story of Joe Bonham, an American soldier who suffers massive injuries after being blasted by a mortar shell on the last day of World War I. In the film, Joe asks his doctors, through morse code, to kill him. They refuse, and his nurse decides she must kill him herself, but she is is unsuccessful.

Her attempt to kill Joe does not occur in the novel. 

Answer: Exodus

In 1959, director Otto Preminger asked Trumbo to write the script for 'Exodus', based on Leon Uris's famous novel of the same name. Although Trumbo had written several screenplays since his banishment from Hollywood, his name was never used. Preminger was the first filmmaker to openly hire Trumbo under the condition that the script be written under Trumbo's real name, thus ending his status as a blacklisted writer. With stars such as Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, and Lee J. Cobb, 'Exodus' was a success, and assured Trumbo's new future in motion pictures.

Answer: Lorenzo Semple, Jr.

'Papillon' was a 1970 memoir written by Henri Charriere. The book detailed his years as a prisoner in a penal colony in French Guiana. Several years after publication, the book was chosen for the silver screen. Lorenzo Semple, Jr., best known for his work on the 'Batman' TV series, was brought on to co-write the screenplay with Trumbo. For necessity's sake, the two writers butchered the book, eliminating several events and changing others.

The film is regarded as a condensed, almost fictionalized account of Charriere's life on French Guiana, but was nonetheless a memorable film due to the performances of Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen, who portrayed Charriere.

Answer: Sam Jackson

'Spartacus' author Howard Fast was the original choice to helm a script from the novel, but Fast's inexperience as a screenwriter made it too difficult a task. Producer/star Kirk Douglas turned to Trumbo, who had already written several successful scripts since being blacklisted over a decade earlier. Trumbo chose to work under the name Sam Jackson, but was later given due credit for the film several years after his blacklisting was lifted.(Clue answer: Actor Samuel L. Jackson played Mace Windu, the first Jedi who was murdered by Anakin Skywalker in 'Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith').

Answer: False

Two notable films which documented the blacklistings of 1947 were 'Hollywood Ten', released in 1950, and 'Hollywood on Trial', released in 1976. The latter earned an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature. Although he appeared as himself in both films, Trumbo was not involved in the writing process.

Answer: Johnny Got His Gun

For years, Hollywood tried to adapt Dalton Trumbo's famous 1939 anti-war novel 'Johnny Got His Gun' to film. In the late sixties, legendary Spanish director Luis Bunuel became interested in the project, and at one point had announced that production would begin, with Trumbo as the screenwriter.

The project ultimately fell through, but Trumbo was so invigorated by the idea of seeing his thirty-year-old vision on screen, he decided to direct the film himself. Released in 1971, 'Johnny Got His Gun' won the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

However, it failed to make an impact in Trumbo's homeland of America, and was soon forgotten. The film entered mainstream culture in 1989 when heavy metal icons Metallica used portions of the film, complete with dialogue, in their video for the song 'One'.