Dalton Trumbo
Dalton Trumbo
James Dalton Trumbowas an American screenwriter and novelist, who scripted films including Roman Holiday, Exodus, Spartacus, and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. One of the Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committeein 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry. He was subsequently blacklisted by that industry. He continued working clandestinely, producing work under other authors' names. His uncredited work won two Academy Awards; the one for Roman Holidaywas given to...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth9 December 1905
CityMontrose, CO
CountryUnited States of America
Then there was this freedom the little guys were always getting killed for. Was it freedom from another country? Freedom from work or disease or death? Freedom from your mother-in-law? Please mister give us a bill of sale on this freedom before we go out and get killed. Give us a bill of sale drawn up plainly in advance what we're getting killed for... so we can be sure after we've won your war that we've got the same kind of freedom we bargained for.
Numbers have dehumanized us. Over breakfast coffee we read of 40,000 American dead in Vietnam. Instead of vomiting, we reach for the toast. Our morning rush through crowded streets is not to cry murder but to hit that trough before somebody else gobbles our share.
There are plenty of laws to protect guys' money even in war time but there's nothing on the books says a man's life's his own.
You show me a politician with his heels ten feet in the air, and by Judas priest, Ill show you an honest politician.
If I were dead and buried And I heard your voice, Beneath the sod My heart of dust Would still rejoice.
Goodbye, my love, my life. Goodbye, goodbye.
Now I lay me down to sleep my bomb proof cellar's good and deep but if i'm killed before I wake remember god it's for your sake amen.
What's so noble about being dead?
I am one day going to be working openly in the motion picture industry. When that day comes, I swear to you that I will never sign a term contract with any major studio
I will, proudly and by preference, do at least one picture a year for King Brothers, and I will try to make it the best picture that I have it in me to do
A good businessman never makes a contract unless he's sure he can carry it through, yet every fool on earth is perfectly willing to sign a marriage contract without considering whether he can live up to it or not.
Nothing is bigger than life. There's nothing noble in death. What's noble about never seeing the sunshine again? What's noble about having your legs and arms blown off? What's noble about being an idiot? What's noble about being blind and deaf and dumb? What's noble about being dead?
There's a game out there, and the stakes are high. And the guy who runs it figures the averages all day long and all night long. Once in a while he lets you steal a pot. But if you stay in the game long enough, you've got to lose. And once you've lost there's no way back, no way at all.
Bankers, nepotists, contracts and talkies: on four fingers one may count the leeches which have sucked a young and vigorous industry into paresis.