The Front was one of the very few movies in which Woody Allen starred but didn't write or direct. After Scenes from a Mall, people got the idea that the poor guy couldn't act at all except in his own movies, but he was fine in this. He can only play one character. And you sort of forget that that one character usually isn't very bright. He's in over his head in this film, but so is everyone else. They're up against something bigger and dumber than they know how to deal with.
Allen plays Howard Prince, a cashier in a restaurant. He has a friend from high school (Michael Murphy) who's now a television writer. He's been blacklisted and wants Prince to work as a front, to submit his scripts as if he (Prince) wrote them.
Soon he's doing this for other blacklisted writers. They're all Communists or leftists. They're not Democrats who've been falsely accused.
Zero Mostel as Hecky Brown, a leftist comedian who appears as host of an anthology series on what appears to be live TV.
I read that some who survived the blacklist were angry with the movie. They thought it was too comedic with Allen in the lead. It doesn't seem that way now. It was released between Love and Death and Annie Hall. Allen's reputation was different then. His movies, even the comedies, are more serious now and that may change how the movie is perceived.
I thought it might be an antidote to The Majestic, starring Jim Carrey as a blacklisted screen writer. But Carrey plays an apolitical victim who's blacklisted due to a misunderstanding. It stupidly ends with Carrey's triumph over McCarthyism although his victory comes because he names someone as a Communist.
There are no triumphs in The Front.
Free on Amazon Prime.
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