The Front Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

The Front Blu-ray Movie Review

Is blacklisting funny?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 24, 2014

The inquisition launched by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) have become legend, and the trials (literal and otherwise) of the so-called Hollywood Ten and countless other show business professionals have become part of our national lore. Some people may not be aware that HUAC in various forms actually existed from 1938 to as late as 1975. As someone who had a close family member called before one iteration of the group, the Dies Committee, I can tell you from personal experience the HUAC was no laughing matter. As early as the forties, when we were still ostensibly allies of the Soviet Union, there was a burgeoning distaste for any apostasy in traditional “all American” thought and even those who (like my relative) thought they were on the side of truth, justice, and, yes, The American Way by joining Communists to fight the fascists in the Spanish Civil War soon found their loyalty to their home country questioned. Nowhere was this more prevalent in show business, which is rather ironic when you think about it for a moment. Both Communism and Fascism were able to disseminate their messages at least in part due to well crafted propaganda, and part of the fear of the HUAC and its adherents were that “fellow travelers” in the American entertainment industry were going to be able to insert subliminal—or maybe not so subliminal—messages in their work that would somehow sway large swaths of the population to forsake the joys of Capitalism for more nefarious socialist tendencies.

The HUAC reached its zenith in the 1950s, probably augmented by the well publicized inquiries in the senate led by Joseph McCarthy. But several years previously the hammer had come down on Hollywood when ten left leaning film industry professionals were blacklisted for not answering some of the Committee’s questions, or for refusing to name their so-called collaborators. Hollywood took a two-tack approach to confronting this challenge to their sovereignity. They increased the blacklist surreptitiously to include anyone who had ever flirted with leftist causes like Communism, and they also put out a slew of patently jingoistic and (to contemporary eyes, anyway) often hilarious anti- Communist films like My Son John and The Red Menace. And so with all of this in mind, and the aforementioned fact that the HUAC was no laughing matter, isn’t it almost shocking that formerly blacklisted artists Martin Ritt and Walter Bernstein would choose to deal with this sad era in an almost wryly humorous way in their 1976 film The Front? The Front was generally well received critically upon its release (though some critics felt its humor marginalized the horrors of that time), buoyed by a rare appearance by Woody Allen in a film he had neither written nor directed, but it tanked at the box office. Looking back on The Front now from the vantage point of almost forty years, the film is a rather odd mish mash of cheeky humor and bathetic, almost maudlin, drama, but it’s a worthy film which sheds a little light on the desperate plight of people wanting to work in an industry that had quite suddenly turned against them.

Howard Prince (Woody Allen) is a two bit gambler who works at a diner. He’s surprised one day by his old friend Alfred Miller (Michael Murphy), a guy who has gotten out of the old neighborhood and made a name for himself as a television writer. Alfred confides in Howard that he’s just been blacklisted and can no longer get work, though no one in a hiring capacity will come right out and state that there’s a blacklist. Alfred asks Howard to be his “front”; Alfred will continue to churn out scripts, but Howard will submit them under his own name. For his trouble, Alfred will give Howard 10% of the proceeds, which Howard sees as an incredibly easy way to make money to support his gambling habit.

Howard soon becomes the go to guy for a producer named Sussman (Herschel Bernardi), and he just as quickly attracts the attention of Sussman’s script editor Florence Barrett (Andrea Marcovicci), who assumes that Howard is a rare genius able to crank out one stunning story after another. Howard swallows whatever incipient scruples he might have had and begins romancing Florence. Over and over again the film plays with Howard’s inability to write anything, putting him in jeopardy a couple of times (like a last minute rewrite when a gas company sponsor doesn’t want a Holocaust story to show prisoners being gassed to death). Walter Bernstein’s script deals with this all surprisingly cheekily, with a slightly wry but acerbic sense of humor.

The film is somewhat more lachrymose in its treatment of a supporting character named Hecky Brown (Zero Mostel). Hecky is one of Sussman’s biggest stars and acts in several of “Howard”’s dramas, but he also has a history of Communist affiliations. The film nicely depicts the abhorrent practices that were in vogue during this era where whole institutions were built up to investigate various artist’s backgrounds to make sure they were acceptably “clean”. Brown runs afoul of one of these organizations, and the film drifts into a moment of tragedy that frankly is tonally somewhat at odds with the bulk of the film.

The Front has noble intentions, but they tend to be undercut at least slightly by the lightweight, somewhat superficial, treatment this important subject is given. Utilizing Mostel’s character as a lone example of the worst that could happen to one of the victims of the blacklist may make dramatic sense, at least in the shorthand which often passes for “true life” portrayals in film, but it fails to adequately convey the havoc that was wreaked on countless individuals who suddenly found themselves unable to work. Coupled with the film’s otherwise slightly comedic tone, The Front almost seems to be saying, “Well, no big deal”, when its final credit roll of formerly blacklisted artists would argue exactly the opposite.

The film still is hugely enjoyable, if taken on its own terms. Allen makes a winningly fussy and neurotic hero, and Marcovicci is suitably patrician and elegant as Florence. The supporting cast is wonderful, and The Front offers Mostel a showcase for his decidedly unique talents (he was widely touted as a likely Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actor at the time, but that unfortunately never materialized). The Front may rely a bit too much on a façade itself, but lurking just beneath the surface is a very disturbing subtext.

The Front Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Front is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.84:1. This is a somewhat soft and grainy looking transfer that also occasionally suffers from low contrast, something that becomes problematic in some dimly lit interior scenes like the opening sequence in the diner where Howard works. Overall, though, colors are nice, if just slightly faded looking. Director Martin Ritt and his cinematographer Michael Chapman tend not to indulge in a lot of extreme close- ups, which may prevent fine detail from popping more consistently, but there is some nice detail evident in things like the tufted fabric of Alfred's sweater vest or the sleek silk of Florence's dress during her dinner out with Howard. There does not appear to have been any digital tweaking of any kind here, and the appearance of the film remains nicely organic and natural looking.

The Front Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Front's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono which suffices perfectly well for this film's dialogue driven ambience. There is some nice attention paid to delivering the sounds of a busy Manhattan cityscape in some sequences, or the bustle of a television studio producing a live drama in others, but mostly this is a fairly quiet, intimate film that doesn't really stretch the sonic boundaries much. Fidelity is excellent and there is no damage of any kind to report.

The Front Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Andrea Marcovicci, Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman. This was Marcovicci's first film (she received a Golden Globe nomination as "Best Acting Debut"), and she has a bevy of nice anecdotes which she shares here, including the differences in temperament between Woody Allen and Zero Mostel, and a horrifying but humorous recounting of needing to be blown dry by a hair dryer during one important scene where she had perspired too much. Her insistence that Woody doesn't like to be touched may have a bit of an unintended irony considering recent news which has resurfaced).


• Isolated Score Track. Dave Grusin's score is presented via DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. As with other releases, this does not include source cues.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:53)

The Front Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I personally have a somewhat less sanguine reaction to the whole blacklisting era than evidently Ritt and Bernstein did, despite the fact that I wasn't born until well after the worst of it had passed. But having seen the havoc it wreaked not just in people I knew, but people I was actually related to, makes me less able to easily laugh it all off than others perhaps are. Even cutting The Front some slack for its oddly comedic stance on the subject, Bernstein himself doesn't even maintain a consistent tone, delivering a melodramatic subplot involving Hecky Brown that makes for a frankly depressive counterweight to the film's generally amiably humorous demeanor. Still, this is an important subject, and it's notable that The Front was one of the first films to be bold enough to take it on head first. This Blu-ray features generally nice looking video and sounding audio, and comes Recommended.