Dalton Trumbo was a peculiar fellow. He wrote his powerful anti-war classic JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN in 1938, as Hitler neared the height of his power. It was published the next year, as storm clouds brewed over Europe. The novel was no doubt set during the Great War because it's the only one he knew.
Also as the novel was published and reaching shelves Hitler and Stalin made their infamous Pact and as the two great behemoth autocratic, murdering dictatorships joined hands across a Europe destined to feel their brunt, Trumbo remained a peacenik; so long as his beloved USSR and Stalin were pals with Der fuhrer, the guy with the funny mustache must not be so bad. Besides, Stalin was way ahead in the great dictator mustache race of the 1930s.
Of course, When many USSR archives opened up we learned Hitler and Stalin were in a race to betray each other. And, with German efficiency, the won.
This peeved Trumbo no end. He became so fervently pro-war, as the world lurched deeper and ever deeper into the biggest war of all, when the US joined in (over the objections of those who, like Trumbo, remembered the horrors of the Great War and didn't want to be sucked into another European cataclysm, with concomitant loss of American life--then and now written off airily as "isolationists") Trumbo eager-beaverly reported anyone he perceived as anti-war to the FBI and other organizations. He was a big informer.
Trumbo was a two-way hypocrite and a weasely snitch, but I contend the quality of an artwork must no be judged by the character of the artist. And JOHNNY as a novel and a film are amazingly powerful statements against war (albeit against Hitler).
Set in World War 1, or as Trumbo would have known it, the "Great War," (since,agains, it was written in the 1930s with Hitler on the rise), it concerns a chap named Johnny whose arms and legs and lips are blown off, but who communicates by banging his head in Morse Code (as if Trumbo is channeling the later John McCain, a man who was praised by more people who didn't vote for him than any man I can recall).
Since Johnny isn't an active hero, he lives a lot in dreams, the most vivid being a cross-maker (the always watchable Donald Sutherland).
If the stars seem low it doesn't reflect on the quality of the movie-making but the difficulty in watching.
Also as the novel was published and reaching shelves Hitler and Stalin made their infamous Pact and as the two great behemoth autocratic, murdering dictatorships joined hands across a Europe destined to feel their brunt, Trumbo remained a peacenik; so long as his beloved USSR and Stalin were pals with Der fuhrer, the guy with the funny mustache must not be so bad. Besides, Stalin was way ahead in the great dictator mustache race of the 1930s.
Of course, When many USSR archives opened up we learned Hitler and Stalin were in a race to betray each other. And, with German efficiency, the won.
This peeved Trumbo no end. He became so fervently pro-war, as the world lurched deeper and ever deeper into the biggest war of all, when the US joined in (over the objections of those who, like Trumbo, remembered the horrors of the Great War and didn't want to be sucked into another European cataclysm, with concomitant loss of American life--then and now written off airily as "isolationists") Trumbo eager-beaverly reported anyone he perceived as anti-war to the FBI and other organizations. He was a big informer.
Trumbo was a two-way hypocrite and a weasely snitch, but I contend the quality of an artwork must no be judged by the character of the artist. And JOHNNY as a novel and a film are amazingly powerful statements against war (albeit against Hitler).
Set in World War 1, or as Trumbo would have known it, the "Great War," (since,agains, it was written in the 1930s with Hitler on the rise), it concerns a chap named Johnny whose arms and legs and lips are blown off, but who communicates by banging his head in Morse Code (as if Trumbo is channeling the later John McCain, a man who was praised by more people who didn't vote for him than any man I can recall).
Since Johnny isn't an active hero, he lives a lot in dreams, the most vivid being a cross-maker (the always watchable Donald Sutherland).
If the stars seem low it doesn't reflect on the quality of the movie-making but the difficulty in watching.