This one was recorded/watched because I remembered my Uncle Skip watching it in the Eighties and it has an eerie parallel with today’s media landscape with its “either you’re with us or you’re against us” attitude. It was also one of Zero Mostel’s last performances before his death. I think The Muppet Show was his other.
The Front begins with Howard Prince (Allen) being approached by his old school buddy Al for a difficult favor. Thanks to McCarthyism, Al has been blacklisted by the TV networks so he can no longer (openly) be a scriptwriter. If Howard puts his name on the work then Al can continue writing for a livelihood. In return Howard gets ten percent which is enough money to pay off his gambling debts, move out of his lousy apartment and quit his job as a cashier. Actually, when Howard sees how “easy” this is, he convinces Al to sign up two other writers on this operation: even in the early Fifties, writing didn’t pay that well so taking 10 percent from three guys works for his modest needs. Despite Howard being a rather apolitical person, the vindictive mood and paranoia around him can’t be avoided. FBI agents still shadow the three writers, the network has a slimy private detective to investigate any alleged ties to the Communist Party and lives are still ruined by spineless executives. Sounds familiar. (cough! Fox. cough! ABC) Even as he strikes up a relationship with the show’s script editor Florence, he discovers that he can’t find a way to dance around in the middle with the McCarthyist bullies. Howard realizes this too late when he notices how a national network is cowed by a grocery store “chain” on Long Island which only has four stores at most. But when the show’s former MC Hecky Brown (Mostel) is blacklisted, something will have to give.
I think the people behind The Front (no pun intended) made a casting error going with Allen. The subject matter was rather heavy for his style of comedy. No matter which decade it is, Woody is going to do his Woody Thing. When he’s putting the moves on Florence, it felt like every other movie I’ve seen him in: Bananas, Take the Money & Run and Sleeper as examples. He had the underachieving slacker who-makes-bad-sports-bets down pat, otherwise the movie gets distorted into being like all his other flicks through his one-liners. My other complaint was his character being a borderline illiterate getting away with the work of three separate writers, each with his own obvious style. Even today, not everyone who works in TV is an idiot. The producers and editors’ BS detectors would’ve been screaming “fraud” after talking to Howard for at least 10 minutes. Meanwhile, Zero Mostel keeps the film on track as an aging actor willing to do anything to keep working. He has a family, an ex-wife and his pride to maintain. Zero’s performance is convincing because he was blacklisted in the Fifties (alongside the movie’s director, screenwriter and two other cast members). He knew the pain, the betrayal and the lies producers tell you when one is blacklisted.
The Front isn’t as preachy nor as obvious as The Crucible yet it is still a great, cautionary tale of how the majority can be intimidated by a bunch of dumb, hypocritical creeps (like now) but there’s no A Bug’s Life ending to get everyone to realize this. Woody did put a smile on my face when he tells the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities, “Fellas…I don’t recognize the right of this committee to ask me these kind of questions. And furthermore, you can all go f*** yourselves.”