Fiilmmaker Peter Askin has done a freshly creative job of dramatization by enlisting top actors to recite the letters and using interviews with Trumbo’s son and daughter as well as others who lived through those trying times. The result is a documentary that has much life and brings considerable talent to bear on the screenwriter who had a list of top credits (Kitty Foyle,” “A Guy Named Joe,” “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo”) but was relegated to writing under assumed names, fronts as they were called. An iconoclast under any circumstances, Trumbo went to prison for contempt rather than betray his conscience and accuse others of being Communists.

He has plenty to say in his letters and in interview clips about those who did betray their friends and colleagues rather than lose their work opportunities, and he also has harsh words for the producers who knuckled under to the Congressional witch hunters who ran self-serving, publicity-seeking hearings that vilified those called before it unless they cooperated in the naming names game.

Among those appearing in the film are Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Nathan Lane (who played Trumbo on the stage), Josh Lucas, Liam Neeson, David Strathairn and Donald Sutherland. There is a dignified tone to the exploration of Trumbo’s views and his life as a family man in what is presented as a loving marriage.

The film reveals entertainingly what a wit Trumbo was, as expressed in his well-written, often acerbic letters that reflect his delight in being a wordsmith. It invites indignation at the persecution of such a man and others for insisting on their First Amendment rights. By standing on that amendment, those called before the inquisition defended their rights to political beliefs on the ground that Congress had no right to intrude. Those who took the Fifth Amendment to avoid having to name names could stay out of prison but were blacklisted and denied work for not cooperating. Film clips demonstrate the viciousness of these media-circus hearings.

“Trumbo” stands as a vital work that reminds us of those who heroically defied the hysteria at great cost to themselves and their families and of how tyranny can set in, even in a country such as ours, when hysteria sweeps the land. We owe a debt to those like Trumbo who stood firm.