Dalton Trumbo was among the highest paid scribes in mid-’40s Hollywood, so valued that he had no morality clause attached to his contract. Kirk Douglas, now frail and in his nineties, remembers him as “the best writer of that time.”

Besides a handful of films, Trumbo’s perhaps best known today for refusing to declare if he had ever been a member of the Communist Party during the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee hearings. He fully displays his curmudgeonly side in the archival footage as he indignantly turns the tables on his interrogator.

Convicted for contempt of Congress, he served 11 months in prison, and afterwards was barred from employment. He fled with his wife and three kids to Mexico, yet continued to surreptitiously write for the same studios that refused to publicly hire him, with the help of friends willing to front for him. Thus, a “Robert Rich” was nominated for penning the story of The Brave One.

However, the documentary lacks a detailed overview of his writing career—how he went from writing the iconic Spartacus to the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton melodrama The Sandpiper. Since much of the footage is likely to be familiar to film buffs (Robert Taylor and Walt Disney cooperating before HUAC), the film’s selling points are the personal accounts of his children.

Trumbo’s vivid archival footage and interviews share less-than-equal time, though, with an all-star cast—sitting behind a desk, glass of water handy—taking turns reading from the writer’s letters and speeches. Celebrity appearances in documentaries, though necessary for funding and distribution, often risk pulling the audience out of the film. (“Is that Kathleen Turner’s voice?’ “Martin Sheen, again?”) Their participation here suits this account of Hollywood history, but the mood remains earnest and somber. And unfortunately, the declamatory, and sometimes grandiose, statements blend together. The excerpts are taken from the play by Trumbo’s son Christopher.