The Front (1976)

A fascinating film about blacklisting in the entertainment industry, the material does feel rather dry but the ideas are good and the quality of the acting pushes it through when nothing else does. Michael Murphy plays his character in a very human and realistic manner, and the performers are all round well suited, although Allen goes for comedy whereas everything else is in dramatic mode. The film is weighed down in fact by unevenness between comedy and drama throughout, however it is not entirely Allen's fault. Ritt's direction seems somewhat patchy with varying tones throughout. I definitely wouldn't call this a great film - or at least I can't say that I liked it a lot - but it still did have enough in it to keep me interested until the end.

Fmovies: Woody Allen is "The Front" for blacklisted television writers in the 1950s in a film also starring Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, Andrea Marcovicci, and Michael Murphy. Several of the film's participants - director Ritt, writer Bernstein, actors Bernardi and Mostel, were themselves blacklisted.

Woody's character, Howard Prince, has moments of humor, but "The Front" is a drama, and a very good one. Prince agrees to front for a writer-friend and later takes on other blacklisted writers for money. Then comes the day that Prince himself is subpoenaed by the committee, and he has to make a decision about where he stands.

Along the way, Howard falls in love with a principled woman, Marcovicci, who becomes disgusted with the blacklist and quits her television job, and a pathetic comedian, Zero Mostel, who claims to have marched in a May Day parade and subscribed to a communist newspaper because he had a crush on a girl. Then he watches his career shrivel up.

I grew up in the '50s and remember the Red Scare very well, as in school we were always told that the Communists were coming. In Hollywood and Washington, it was believed that the Communists were here infiltrating our government, films, and television. Whether it was true or not is a separate issue from the persecution and hysteria that took place. Actress Lee Grant, for instance, was blacklisted because she went to a funeral of someone who had been accused of being a Communist. John Garfield, Kim Hunter, Gale Sondergaard, Mady Christians, Larry Parks - just a few of the actors blacklisted. There are many examples of people whose careers and lives were ruined because they had once attended a meeting to see what this political ideology was all about, or had a friend who was a Communist. Land of the free indeed.

In the 50's, in New York City, the screenplay writer Alfred Miller (Michael Murphy) meets his apolitical friend, the cashier of restaurant and smalltime bookmaker Howard Prince (Woody Allen) and tells him that he can not work anymore since he is blacklisted. Prince offers to sell his scripts to the producer of a TV station using his own name and Alfred offers a 10% commission to Prince.

Prince uses the money to pay his debts and improve his life and soon he offers his name to two other blacklisted writers. Meanwhile he dates the TV screenplay editor Florence Barrett (Andrea Marcovicci). When the veteran actor Hecky Brown (Zero Mostel) is blacklisted and fired by the producer Phil Sussman (Herschel Bernardi), the idealistic Florence quits her job. But when Hecky Brown commits suicide, Prince takes a stand against the unjust system.

Today I have just watched "The Front" on VHS maybe for the third or fourth time (last time was on 31 May 2002). This fairytale about the dark period of the North America history known as McCarthyism is wrongly categorized as "comedy" and is actually one of the most important and a serious movie by Woody Allen that perfectly works with the situation of a figurehead that realizes the damage caused by the Powers that Be to the careers and lives of his compatriots and decides to react against them.

Another attraction is that the director Martin Ritt; the writer Walter Bernstein and the stars Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi and Lloyd Gough had been blacklisted in the 50's. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Testa de Ferro por Acaso" ("Figurehead by Chance")

The Front fmovies. This film is directed by Martin Ritt from a screenplay by Walter Bernstein. Both director and writer, along with several members of the cast, were blacklisted during the 1950s. Woody Allen stars as Howard Prince a good-for-nothing restaurant cashier and part-time bookmaker. At the start of this film, Allen has the total schmuck persona that he used in many of his earlier films but as the film progresses he gradually develops a conscience until the ‘happy' ending when he performs an honorable act and is led away to prison. Ritt and Bernstein are highlighting the idiocy of the blacklist by having as their hero the money-grabbing, self-serving Prince. Eventually, even he cannot stomach what is going on in the name of decency and freedom. The film is darkly humorous and chilling in its depiction of an era when the owner of a small grocery store could dictate to a national network who it could and could not employ. At one point Prince has to rewrite a script about the holocaust because the programme sponsor is a gas company.

The film is a real achievement being both funny and a savage indictment of a crazy era, told with feeling by people who lived through it and suffered under it. The only misjudged performance is Zero Mostel's maudlin comedian. Michael Murphy turns up again as he does in many of Allen's early films. Andrea Marcovicci is effective as the beautiful and cerebral script editor who falls for Prince. Prince agonises over whether she loves the man or the artist, surely the inspiration for Allen's own exploration of the same theme in Bullets over Broadway nearly 20 years later.

It's amazing to me that it has been more than a quarter of a century since this movie was made. I think at the time the movie was made it was said that it could not have been made before then because of the controversy; "Hollywood" would not have allowed it to be made.

This movie is of historical significance because it is based on reality; a reality that seems impossible now. I saw this movie in a theater in which another movie was shown first. The first movie was a documentary of the search for communists and the real-life story preceding the fictional portrayal of the same thing was a powerful combination.

I think this movie must be seen by all to see how unreasonable people can be if we are too intolerant.

SPOILER: Woody Allen acts but does not direct this excellent depiction of the McCarthy Era blacklisting in "The Front."

He plays his typical neurotic way until he is asked to front for blacklisted writers. The money comes in and all is well for Allen.

We meet the people that he is fronting for. We also meet Zero Mostel, in an excellent supporting role, as a blacklisted comedian, Hecky Green, who begs for work and throws himself out a window as a result.The scene where Allen is afraid to attend his funeral, since the FBI is taping who is entering the funeral parlor, is memorable.

Allen is asked to appear before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee to name names. What he said in that scene will forever be etched in the minds of movie-goers.

A marvelously, well-acted movie on one of the greatest tragedies in our nation's history. This movie dealt with how blacklisting ruined the lives of so many people in the entertainment industry.

Walter Bernstein, who was blacklisted in real life, wrote the screenplay for this film. No wonder why it was so good. He wrote from personal experience and therefore from the heart.