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| Zero Mostel with Woody Allen in background |
Alfred Miller (Michael Murphy), a blacklisted writer, asks his friend Howard Prince (Woody Allen) if he will "front" for him, submitting teleplays under his own name and giving him the money minus a 10% commission. Howard decides to do this for other blacklisted writers as well and before long he has become one of the top names in the industry, with plenty of money, a beautiful apartment, and a girlfriend in Florence Barrett (Andrea Marcovicci), who works for the live anthology show to which he sells most of his teleplays. But then the star of the show, comic Hecky Brown (Zero Mostel) is let go because of alleged communist ties, and told that he just might get his career back if he learns all he can about Howard Prince ... The Front is an absorbing picture with a deceptively light tone at first but it leads to a shocking suicide and a dramatic resolution. Mostel gives a knock-out performance as Hecky, bottling up rage and despair until it comes violently loose, and he pretty much wipes the top-billed Allen off of the screen. Allen's casting is problematic. After some early negative experiences when he was not in charge, he has mostly only appeared in his own films, and The Front is a very rare exception. Obviously he respected and trusted director Martin Ritt [Hud], but while his name might have brought more people into the theaters, it's obvious that he's still playing "Woody Allen" (if playing it well) and one can only wonder what another performer might have brought to the role. Still, he doesn't ruin the film and may have helped get its message across. Ritt, writer Bernstein, and several actors in the production were themselves blacklisted in the fifties, including Mostel, Hershel Bernardi [Peter Gunn], and Lloyd Gough [The Green Hornet]. The movie has humor and heart but never forgets the seriousness and tragedy of the fifties witch hunts.
Verdict: Mostel's finest hour and a half. ***.
This looks great, I dimly remember reading about it. Mostel is so good in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and of course The Producers, and should have played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. I wonder why he was not given that role, since he appeared so often in films? Was Topol a bigger star than Zero?
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Mostel was very disappointed that he never got the role, but I'm just not certain why it went to the less-known Topol. Maybe Mostel wanted too much money or one of a hundred other things that can do wrong with casting.
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