Fred Jerome, journalist and science writer, covered the 1960s civil rights movement, university journalism instructor, inventor of Media Resource Service connecting journalists with scientists.
Fred Jerome, whose father, V. J. Jerome, was one of the more than 100 communists arrested under the Smith Act and who served for 3 years (1954-57) in a Pennsylvania federal prison, gives a critical analysis of the Trumbo film. Dalton Trumbo was a one of the Hollywood 10 communists whom the House Un-American Activities Committee sentenced to serve a year in prison in 1950.
On the positive side, Jerome says the film was very well done; gives a realist glance of US McCarthyism or "the Great Red Scare"; gives the public someone who says with pride "I am a communist;" shows a man who refuses to bend under the Congressional Investigating Committee questioning. He sees the highlight of the film --Trumbo's daughter asking him if he is a communist, if mom is a communist and if she is a communist. Trumbo's response about the importance of believing in sharing wealth is a start in explaining what communism is.
On the less positive side, Jerome believes the film suffers from the Hollywood "one man against the world" scenario. Jerome says that Trumbo would have been the first to says is not about one person; but, in the film, you don't see the 1000s of others who protested around the world nor even the other of the Hollywood 10 being questioned.
Interview with Fred Jerome
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