The Front

A film set in New York at the beginning of the 1950s. Howard is a cashier in a restaurant. He gambles, has debts, and means nothing to anyone. His friend Alfred used to write for television. He cannot write now; his name went onto a list and no channel will work with him. He makes an offer. Alfred will write, Howard will give his own name, and the money will be shared. The arrangement works. The scripts are accepted and Howard is suddenly considered a gifted writer. Then two more writers are added. Howard delivers the work of three men under his name and becomes a respected figure at the studio. There is an inquiry at the network. A committee is collecting names and performers are asked to make statements about their pasts. Hecky is a comedian. He went on a march years ago and is now answering for it; he cannot get work and disappears as his price falls. From there the film describes Howard being cornered. The committee calls him too. What the narrative is interested in is not politics but an ordinary man's account: Howard holds no views at all, and precisely because of that his having to decide is the film's centre. There is humour and it is bitter. The narrative moves as comedy and then, at a certain point, stops laughing. The names behind the film lived through this. The director, the writer and several of the cast had been blacklisted; in the end credits the year each was listed appears beside their name. Hecky, played by Zero Mostel, is the closest to that, and the part connects directly to the actor's own past. Woody Allen is not the director here; he appears only as a performer and the screenplay is by Walter Bernstein. Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi and Andrea Marcovicci are in the cast. Martin Ritt directed. Who it is for: anyone curious about the blacklist period and bitter comedy. Who it is not for: anyone expecting history in depth; the narrative keeps its comic tone and simplifies the complications of the period.