“HE was a Communist in the late ’30s and early ’40s, when that meant you were pro-labour and anti-Jim Crow, and you fought for civil rights for African-Americans. It had nothing to do with Russia and everything to do with how an already great country could improve itself.”

So wrote Niki Trumbo (quoted in the voluminous production notes for Jay Roach’s bio-pic about her father Dalton, the most successful screenwriter of his, and perhaps any, time.)

John McNamara’s screenplay is redolent of not only cinema in the era when Trumbo was writing but also of the man himself – “fiery, intelligent, self-righteous, charming, entertaining and funny” (quoting the same source).

“Trumbo” is a marvellous cinema experience. Playing him, Bryan Cranston replicates the character as to both delivery of the dialogue and presentation of physical attributes. His Oscar nomination is thoroughly merited. His mastery of the role’s intense emotional pressures delivers nuances that are a joy to observe even when negotiating adversities that might destroy a less-robust character and clear perceptions of what powerfully-placed enemies were working to destroy in him.

It feels longer than its 124 minutes while simultaneously assuring its audience of content’s primacy over running time. Its themes range over a wonderful gamut – freedom of speech and other public expression, the rule of law and the House Un-American Activities Committee, the tribulations of the Hollywood Ten and Trumbo’s circumvention of the blacklist, film-studio gossip, power plays and other politics, nostalgic archival visits to all sorts of Hollywood occasions and more.

The enormous cast list manifests a certain courage. After all, what modern actor could exactly replicate Edward G Robinson, Otto Preminger, Kirk Douglas, Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren being superbly bitchy), John Wayne and other great names from that era of cinematic magnificence?

At Palace Electric