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Fantastical Ingenuity. As McCarthyism receded, the blacklist began to lose force; and Director Otto Preminger did it in when he openly signed Trumbo for Exodus. Living in unfashionable surroundings by his own choice, Dalton Trumbo swears he will never move back to the posh Angeleno hills, although he is making as much as $100,000 a picture. Father of three children, two of whom are in college, another in high school, Trumbo has become a sort of half-mellow Polonius who writes notes of advice:
¶On European sexual characteristics (for a teen-age daughter about to tour Europe): "The only interesting thing that can happen in a Swiss bedroom is suffocation by feather mattress ... In Britain, occasionally some young man, mistaking you for a horse, may leap at you."
¶On stealing: "Never steal more than you actually need, for the possession of surplus money leads to extravagance, foppish attire, frivolous thought."
¶On lying: "Let the lie be delivered full-face, eye to eye, and without scratching of the scalp, but let it, for all its simplicity, contain one fantastical element of creative ingenuity."