The Front (1974)

I have occasionally thought about this movie in the many years since I first watched it and thought I should give it another go.  And I'm pleased that I did.  It's an early Woody Allen role but not in a film written or directed by him.  He plays a pretty unsuccessful nerd working as a restaurant cashier and part-time bookie, when old school friend and successful TV writer Michael Murphy visits and tells him that he has been blacklisted.  The film takes place in the early 1950s at the time of the McCarthy communist witch-hunts and the movie starts with a breezy montage set to a Sinatra tune of images from the period only marginally suggesting the paranoia of the time.

Murphy asks Allen to "front" for him, i.e. he'll continue writing his scripts, but Allen will pretend to be their author for a percentage of the proceeds.  This works so well that Allen is soon fronting for another two talented but blacklisted writers and is beginning to enjoy the rewards of cash and prestige.  It is only when he himself becomes the focus of the Un-American committee tribunal that he understands the freedoms that are indeed at stake and finally becomes a "mensch".  This movie seems to divide critics down the middle between those that feel that it is a brilliant recreation of a troubled time in America and those who think that it just isn't funny enough.  It does have its humourous moments, but in no way should anyone expect a flat-out comedy, despite Allen assuming his typical smartass persona.

The director (Martin Ritt), the screenwriter (Walter Bernstein, who was Oscar-nominated for the screenplay), and at least four of the actors were themselves victims of the blacklist and unable to work for many years.  The actors include Zero Mostel who is one of the main leads, playing a much-loved television comedian who finds himself shunned for past deeds that he doesn't even remember.  His is a showy role and the devastating effects of the blacklist on his normally ebullient personality are another reason why this movie is more tragedy than comedy.  The only uplifting factor is the thought that so many of the talents involved were able to make this film some twenty years after the events depicted. 

Tags: The Front, Woody Allen, The Blacklist