In honour of his new film opening the Cannes Film Festival we decided to talk about little known film in which he stars “The Front”. The particularity of this film resides in the fact that Allen only stars in the movie. It is one of those rare films in which he acts but doesn’t directs or write.
In the early 1950s Howard Prince (Woody Allen), who works in a restaurant, helps out a black-listed writer friend by selling a TV station a script under his own name. The money is useful in paying off gambling debts, so he takes on three more such clients. Howard is politically pretty innocent, but involvement with Florence – who quits TV in disgust over things – and friendship with the show’s ex-star – now himself blacklisted – make him start to think about what is really going on.
Martin Ritt (“Norma Rae, “Hud”) directs this black-comedy about the Hollywood blacklisting with a personal touch. The film isn’t a hard depiction of the situation of the US during the McCarthy era and it doesn’t delve into the hard questions but what the film does best, is translate the emotions and the experience lived by so many on the screen. The film the film was written by, directed by, and included actors who were all blacklisted in the ‘50s which gives the film authenticity. “The Front” is the journey of a normal selfish man who discovers the horrors of his time. Woody Allen excels in this dramatic performance bringing this little crook to the screen with an ironical but still very human touch. The film illustrates a time of ignorance that work on the conscience.
Zero Mostel’s performance as Hecky Green is one to praise. A blacklisted actor himself, he plays out events which really happened to him and his friends. A scene where he gives a performance in a resort and is cheated out of a part of his money, really happened to him.
Films about the McCarthy era are rare, it is almost as if Hollywood decided to forget about that period in which people were marginalised, intimated and seen as second class citizens. But some rare cases like “The Front”, “Trumbo” or “Goodnight and Goodluck” portray the era as it should, even though all those films are more personal accounts and stories of that time.
Walter Bernstein was nominated for the 1977 Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay.
