Trumbo Page #9

did? Hired a private detective.

Wow.

CHRIS:

CLEO:

And found out Hal was already

married.

All the kids let out LAUGHS and SHOUTS and pound the seats.

They love seeing this new side of their mother.

NIKI:

Mom, how could you not tell us this

before? This is great!

CLEO:

I’m telling you now because when he

did all that, your father proved

when he believes in something... or

someone...

EXT. ASHLAND FEDERAL PRISON - DAY

Large, remote, set amid thick green Kentucky forest.

CLEO (POST-LAP)

...it doesn’t matter what anybody

else thinks, says or does...

INT. ASHLAND FEDERAL PRISON - PRISONER PROCESSING - DAY

CLEO (POST-LAP)

...he will try, fail...

Trumbo is naked, along with a GROUP of prisoners who are

undergoing a body and cavity search by GUARDS. Trumbo is

stoic.

CLEO (POST-LAP) (CONT’D)

...fall down, get up, fall again.

But never, ever give up.

INT. TRUMBO FAMILY CAR - DRIVING - NIGHT

CLEO:

So don’t waste your time being mad

at the people trying to stop your

father.

(MORE)

(CONTINUED)

TRUMBO - JOHN MCNAMARA 49.

CONTINUED:

CLEO (CONT'D)

(smiles)

Feel sorry for them.

INT. ASHLAND FEDERAL PRISON - LOADING DOCK - DAY

On a blazing summer afternoon, Trumbo off-loads 50-pound

slabs of frozen beef rib from a truck, balancing one on his

shoulder, sweating and moving past TWO PRISON GUARDS.

PRISON GUARD 1

(mid-story)

...so he files a complaint, says I

don’t treat him fair.

PRISON GUARD 2

N*gger said that?

PRISON GUARD 1

So warden says I gotta do right.

Boy wanna better job? I put him in

charge o’ the whole goddamn supply

room. ’Cause I know somethin’ the

warden don’t. N*gger can’t read!

Finally, Trumbo gets his huge side of beef to the pallet and

manages to drop it. He stands, soaked, catching his breath.

There’s a sharp pain in his back. He tries not to let it

show.

PRISON GUARD 2

(laughing)

Can’t read, that’s good!

PRISON GUARD 1

Serve the jig and warden both

right, supply gonna be a goddamn

mess!

INT. ASHLAND FEDERAL PRISON - SUPPLY ROOM - DAY

Very much a mess. Reports and records in random piles and

sloppy stacks. But also a cool, dark basement relief from

the swelter above.

A wrung-out Trumbo hands a clipboard to a powerful, severe

black man named VIRGIL BROOKS.

DALTON TRUMBO:

Beef’s unloaded. Driver needs a

signature.

Brooks nods and takes the clipboard. Without really looking,

he scribbles a line near the bottom of the page.

(CONTINUED)

TRUMBO - JOHN MCNAMARA 50.

CONTINUED:

DALTON TRUMBO (CONT’D)

Actually, he needs it... here.

Trumbo points to the still-blank signature line. Brooks

signs again.

DALTON TRUMBO (CONT’D)

If you could use help, I used to be

in shipping, at a bakery.

BROOKS:

I heard you was a writer.

DALTON TRUMBO:

That, too.

BROOKS:

And a Commie.

(with a hard look)

F*** is wrong with you people?

This is a great country.

DALTON TRUMBO:

Agreed.

Well, he tried. Heads out.

BROOKS:

You type?

DALTON TRUMBO:

Eighty words a minute.

BROOKS:

Bullshit.

MOMENTS LATER - TRUMBO TYPES

With two fingers, copying off a rule book. Brooks glances at

his watch and chops the air. Trumbo stops.

BROOKS:

Now if only I could read it.

(then, off typewriter page)

“Protocol as to return of goods:

There shall be triplicate copies of

form 14-A filed with Supply,

Shipping and office of the warden.”

Trumbo looks up at Brooks, surprised.

(CONTINUED)

TRUMBO - JOHN MCNAMARA 51.

CONTINUED:

BROOKS (CONT’D)

You think you gonna teach me the

alphabet so I shake your hand all

grateful ’n’ say, “Thankee Missuh

Trumbo, you done changed mah life,

suh, I never fuhgit you.”

(then)

This ain’t no movie and I ain’t Mr.

Bojangles. I got twenty years for

killin’ a white man tried to rob my

bar, I did it and I’d do it again.

Look down on me and I will f*** you

up like you never been f***ed up in

your whole bullshit Beverly Hills

life. I’m here to build my time

and get paroled, you wanna help

make that happen?

Brooks hefts a box of files onto the desk with a THUD.

BROOKS (CONT’D)

Welcome to f***in’ Supply, comrade.

INT. ASHLAND FEDERAL PRISON - PRISONER DORM - NIGHT

1951. One of the few prisoners still awake, Trumbo sits on

his cot in a single cone of light, scribbling on a pad.

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

(starting a letter)

Dear Cleo.

INT. LAZY-T RANCH - CLEO’S DARK ROOM - DAY

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

I don’t count the days or hours. I

count the seconds.

She switches the red light off and opens the shades. Summer

sun REVEALS developing equipment and dozens of photos hung to

dry. All of the children: fishing, on horseback, playing

tag, sitting for a group portrait.

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

Sometimes I think I’ll die of

boredom. Other times, fear.

As she inspects each critically, she passes something we

don’t expect:
a boxer’s speed bag hanging from the ceiling,

which she gives a single, light WHACK without looking.

TRUMBO - JOHN MCNAMARA 52.

INT. ASHLAND FEDERAL PRISON - SUPPLY ROOM - DAY

Immaculately organized now.

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

Not of this place.

Trumbo sits, dutifully typing at top speed.

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

So far...

Prison Guard 1 enters, shocked at the crispness of the room --

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

...its challenges are all

surmountable. Augmented by days of

lovely boredom, so flat and calm in

the wake of all that churning,

ugly, luckless battle.

-- and the report Brooks writes with a f***-you smile.

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

No, my fear is for what will

happen...

EXT. LAZY-T RANCH - DRIVEWAY - DAY

Cleo is playing a furious game of ping-pong against both

Chris and Mitzi -

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

...when I get out. To our

family...

-- while Niki sits nearby, absorbed in a copy of the Daily

Worker, with its headline: “NEW COMMUNIST HOLLYWOOD HEARINGS

BEGIN.”

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

...and our country.

INT. ASHLAND FEDERAL PRISON - MESS - DAY

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

Not all the national news is

worrisome. Some reminds me that

what the imagination can’t conjure,

reality delivers with a shrug.

Nearly deserted but for Trumbo as he enters with a sheaf of

reports, crossing past a lone figure mopping the floor:

(CONTINUED)

TRUMBO - JOHN MCNAMARA 53.

CONTINUED:

Congressman J. Parnell Thomas, wearing a prison uniform

identical to Trumbo’s. He stops mopping. Trumbo pauses in a

doorway. The two men regard one another.

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

And reality has delivered, in all

its beatific wonder, to the federal

penal system, former Congressman

and head of HUAC, J. Parnell

Thomas. Convicted of tax evasion.

Thomas goes back to work. Trumbo’s eyes linger on Thomas as

the former inquisitor dips his mop then swabs the floor.

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

Proving the truism...

Trumbo deposits his sheaf on a table top and exits.

DALTON TRUMBO (V.O.)

“...Character is destiny.”

INT. LAZY-T RANCH - KITCHEN - DAY

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