CHAPEL HILL - Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's name has become synonymous with the excesses of the witch hunt for American Communists in the years following World War II.

Trumbo, one of the best Hollywood screenwriters of the 1930s and '40s, was among the most prominent people blacklisted by the movie industry after refusing to name names before the House UnAmerican Activities Commmittee.

One of the producers of an acclaimed recent documentary about Trumbo will show and discuss the work next week at UNC.

Will Battersby will screen the movie and discuss it Monday at 6 p.m. in the Hanes Art Center auditorium.

On Tuesday, Battersby will give two talks at UNC. He will discuss the movie development and producing process and highlight an upcoming film in a brown-bag lunch talk at noon in Room 3413 of the Frank Porter Graham Student Union.

The discussion will continue at 6 p.m., with a question-and-answer session to follow, in room 116 of Murphey Hall.

"Trumbo" footage of interviews and a series of dramatic monologues of his letters performed by stars including Joan Allen, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Josh Lucas, Liam Neeson and Donald Sutherland. The New York Times, naming it a Critics' Pick, said the film's portrait of Trumbo and the era "gives you reason to cheer but also to weep."

In 1947, Trumbo and nine other screenwriters were called before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee to speak about alleged communist propaganda and influence in the movie industry. Trumbo, who had joined the Communist Party in 1943, and the others refused to identify industry colleagues suspected of ties to the party, resulting in contempt of Congress charges.

Trumbo spent 11 months in prison, but the effects of the experience were much more long-lasting. Producers influenced by the committee refused to hire the Hollywood Ten, as the screenwriters were known.

Trumbo continued to work, but he had to submit his work under other writers' names or pseudonyms; two of those films won Academy Awards for best screenplay.

Finally, in 1960, actor Kirk Douglas and director Otto Preminger insisted that Trumbo be credited for his screenplays for "Spartacus" and "Exodus." Trumbo died in 1976 at age 70.

Battersby is a partner at Reno Productions, a film, TV and theater production company based in New York.