Dalton Trumbo was one of Hollywood's highest paid screenwriters in the 1940s, penning films such as "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" and "Kitty Foyle" (for which he received an Academy Award nomination). In 1947 he was called before the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and, after defiantly refusing to discuss his political affiliations, was thrown into prison as one of the infamous "Hollywood Ten."

Upon his release in 1950, he moved with his family to Mexico, where he continued to write screenplays – including "Roman Holiday" and "The Brave One" – under various pseudonyms. When his script for the latter won an Academy Award for Best Story, the Oscar went suggestively unclaimed.

Finally, in 1960, he was given full screen credit for his work on "Exodus" and "Spartacus," thereby ending his professional exile. Yet the character of the man who emerges in this riveting documentary is much more than the sum of these parts.