| PRODUCT DETAILS | | The Front |  | |
The Front
Woody Allen's dark comic send-up of Hollywood McCarthyism! Allen stars as a cashier posing as a writer who sells a script as his own, when it was actually written by a blacklisted pal. Stars Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, Danny Aiello and more. Nominated for an Oscar® - Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Walter Bernstein, 1977).
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Price: $26.99
 The Front
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| User Reviews |  | Just Say No!
rating: 5
The various blanket infringements on the rights of American citizens and others since the criminal events of 9/11 hardly represent the first time that the American government has seen fit to curtail those rights. The Palmer Raids roundup of reds, radicals and foreigners in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution at the tail end of World War I comes to mind. As done the subject of this film, the red scare against communist and other labor radicals after World War II with the onset of the Cold War against the Soviet Union, a former ally. The name of this period narrowly is given in the history books as the McCarthy witch-hunt era, although that hardly dose justice to the widespread political paranoia, high and low, in America at that time. The signature event was the execution of the Rosenbergs, Julius and Ethel, for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. As this film points out as it unfolds that political perfect storm dragged in and ruined many people from many fields, probably none more publicized than in the entertainment industry especially film and the emerging television medium.
Woody Allen has performed many roles over the year from nerdy romantic lead to nerdy neurotic New York intellectual and social commentator but this is one of the few roles of his where the subject matter is more than just fodder for his sardonic writing or comedic talents. The story line here is rather simple, if the politics are rather more complex. Woody, a bright but underachieving New York bar cashier Howard Prince, as a favor (and to get some much needed cash as well) to his blacklisted lefty childhood television writer friend (played by Michael Murphy) agrees to "front" for him. This means that said friend does the writing and Woody gets the credit, the cash and off-handedly as is the case with many commercial productions the girl. In short order Woody gets to like the notoriety and the new lifestyle and agrees to front for other blacklisted writers. Then the real trouble starts.
During the early 1950's it was not enough to write sanitary material for the mass media (approved by outsiders with their own agendas), it was not enough to apologize to various Congressional committees and their cohorts for youthful, innocent and, frankly, acceptable leftist political beliefs in order to survive in the entertainment industry (the subject here but it could have been in the trade unions, education, governmental service or almost any other facet of American life at the time). One had to grovel and name names. And the bulk of those who were called before the committees or faced other types of pressure did do, with regret, with relish or with indifference. But they did it.
There is an incredibly poignant sub theme that runs throughout this film that details the pressures in the career-shattering of one of the "recanters", Hecky Brown (masterfully played by Zero Mostel, blacklisted in the 1950's himself as was the director Martin Ritt and some of the others involved in this production), who in the end gives up Woody to the committees- finks on him, in other words. However filled with remorse Hecky commits suicide. That was not common to be sure. Hell, those were desperate times and not everyone has the courage to say no. Woody's character, in the convoluted, Allen way does just that. Just says no. And pays the consequences. So in the end there were choices. For every Elia Kazan, Elizabeth Bentley and the like there was a Howard Fast, a Dashiell Hammett and the like who said no. As some recently released information has indicated the Rosenbergs paid the ultimate price for their refusal to name names. That, in the end, is what this film is all about and that is what should be honored.
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When Hollywood went amnesiac...
rating: 1
I'm so glad to see all those praising reviews, and just one which tells us a little more about it...
What can we say ? Communist sympathisers in the 50s depicted in the film didn't know a thing about stalinism... they all were about helping out poor people... then why not helping Eastern Europe ? Didn't those people deserve to be helped ? But no, there was no such thing as communist Europe, all those poor dumb people were liberated by the Red Army who had the politeness to stay and help them out... and the CPUSA was such a free party, which never had a nickle from Uncle Joe... what a wonderful world... and the Rosenbergs were innocent, of course... don't forget : it's only a 1971 movie. Only ?
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"Take care of yourself. The water is full of sharks."
rating: 5
The McCarthy-inspired Blacklist in the late 40s and 50s is such a shameful incident in America's history that film and TV has largely steered clear of the subject altogether: you can count the films dealing with it directly on the fingers of one hand, so it sounds like damning with faint praise to say that the rarely revived The Front is the best of them all. That it's the `Woody Allen film' that time forgot hasn't helped it's reputation, but in truth, although many regular Allen collaborators from co-star Michael Murphy to producers Jack Rollins and Charles H. Joffe are involved, this isn't an Allen film: some of the wisecracks may be tailor-made for him, but this is Martin Ritt and Walter Bernstein's film and Allen's just playing a role, that of a cashier and small-time bookie who finds himself `fronting' for blacklisted writers for 10% of whatever they get for their scripts.
Kicking off with a superb scene-setting montage of the 50s at its best and worst, from baseball and apple pie to the Korean War and the execution of the Rosenbergs while Frank Sinatra sings Young at Heart on the soundtrack, it's a film that certainly speaks from personal experience. Along with writer Walter Bernstein and director Martin Ritt (who had both touched upon the blacklist more obliquely in 1970's The Molly Maguires) many of the cast - Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, Lloyd Gough, Joshua Shelley - were blacklisted, while the daughter of one of the blacklist's most tragic victims, John Garfield, also appears. Yet surprisingly it's not a whitewash: the blacklisted writers make it clear that they weren't put on the list by mistake but because they are communists, while Allen's front may start out on his new career as a favor to a friend but quickly shows his true opportunistic colors. No sooner has he seen how much money he can make than he's taking on more writers at higher rates, seducing Andrea Marcovicci's production assistant who is really in love with the words that aren't even his own rather than the man himself and getting ideas above his station, refusing to hand in scripts he thinks aren't up to his standards because "It's my name that goes on the script." In that he's really no different from anyone else in a world where club owners take advantage of the blacklist to get performers like Mostel's increasingly suicidal Hecky Green at bargain rates and then still knock them down even further after a sell-out show. But it's not long before he becomes a political suspect himself...
Set in the fledgling TV industry where gas company sponsors insisted on rewriting concentration camp dramas to avoid giving their product a bad image and where businessmen who only owned a couple of stores could demand - and get - the right of veto over any cast members they thought are `too red' for their customers' liking by threatening to withdraw a single commercial (both true incidents), it doesn't really need to resort to comic invention, but it's more of an absurd yet dry black comedy that's often too dark NOT to laugh at. The final scene where Allen comes up against the committee and tries to bluff his way out of a contempt charge is really just a piece of wish fulfilment, the kind of thing you wish you had said long after the moment has passed, but it's hard to begrudge Ritt and Bernstein their moment: they earned it. Running a tight hour-and-a-half and with great photography by Michael Chapman, it's well worth investigating.
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a chilling black comedy......
rating: 5
THE FRONT, starring Woody Allen, Michael Murphy and Zero Mostel, is an engaging, brilliant, well-written piece that examines the plight of Blacklisted writers and other creative artists who were stifled and forbidden during the age of McCarthyism and the Witch Hunt. Many in their industry were forced and strongarmed to "name names" of people with supposed Communism and anti-American behavior (those who might pose a threat to this supposedly democratic nation of ours). There were numerous eloquent, intelligent and insightful people who were made "invisible" under the clause of this regimented attempt to stamp out those who were politically subversive.
Howard Prince (Allen) is a meak cashier who poses as a Blacklisted writer (Murphy) secretly passing on his work and acting as ghostwriter in a series of pieces that earn him critical acclaim. Though, this response proves quite seductive for Prince, who pockets the money to pay off gambling debts, he becomes aware of the great wrong and injustice being done to those targetted as subversives, and Howard feels he must take a stand. This film is seemingly humorous, at first, but then turns decidedly dark and unflinchingly brutal toward the end. You have to see this. It could quite possibly give you a very important perspective on the realities of censorship, political and creative suppression, as well as the underlying corruption that cost so many people their jobs during the 1940s and 1950s.
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The Front
rating: 5
Martin Ritt's restrained but powerful film is a searing indictiment of the corrosive, cowardly effects of McCarthysim, a time the director lived through. It's a sort of bitter victory (or sweet revenge) that Mostel was cast, as he was an early victim of the same blacklist. The inimitable Zero steals the show as the tragic Hecky, but Woody is also fine in a fairly straight role. A vivid recreation of a dark moment in our history.
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The Front
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