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starring: Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, Michael Murphy, Andrea Marcoviccidirected by: Martin Ritt
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786303686769
Format: Color, NTSC
ISBN: 6303686761
Label: Sony Pictures
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Release Date: August 06, 1996
Running Time: 95 minutes
Sales Rank: 3004
Studio: Sony Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: September 17, 1976
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
The Front is both a comic delight and perhaps the most graceful act of show business revenge in cinema history. Written by, directed by, and starring various talents blacklisted during the McCarthy-era witch hunts of the 1950s entertainment industry, the film stars Woody Allen as Howard, a cashier and bookie approached by blacklisted television-writer Alfred (Michael Murphy) to act as a 'front,' i.e., the alleged author of Alfred's works. The scam proves hugely successful. Soon Howard is fronting for several other banned writers, taking a cut from every sale to the networks, and basking in praise (and romantic attentions) for his prolific talent. It all unravels when congressional investigators dig into Howard's past for Communist ties and squeeze him to name others with supposed links to the Red Menace. The Front is charming, tragic, heroic, and briskly intelligent, featuring a heartbreaking performance by Zero Mostel and directed by Martin Ritt (Hud). --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Just Say No!
The various blanket infringements on the rights of American citizens and others since the criminal events of 9/11 hardly represent the first time that the American government has seen fit to curtail those rights. The Palmer Raids roundup of reds, radicals and foreigners in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution at the tail end of World War I comes to mind. As done the subject of this film, the red scare against communist and other labor radicals after World War II with the onset of the Cold War ... Read More
Rating:  - When Hollywood went amnesiac...
I'm so glad to see all those praising reviews, and just one which tells us a little more about it...
What can we say ? Communist sympathisers in the 50s depicted in the film didn't know a thing about stalinism... they all were about helping out poor people... then why not helping Eastern Europe ? Didn't those people deserve to be helped ? But no, there was no such thing as communist Europe, all those poor dumb people were liberated by the Red Army who had the politeness to stay and help ... Read More
Rating: - "Take care of yourself. The water is full of sharks."
The McCarthy-inspired Blacklist in the late 40s and 50s is such a shameful incident in America's history that film and TV has largely steered clear of the subject altogether: you can count the films dealing with it directly on the fingers of one hand, so it sounds like damning with faint praise to say that the rarely revived The Front is the best of them all. That it's the `Woody Allen film' that time forgot hasn't helped it's reputation, but in truth, although many regular Allen collaborators from co ... Read More
Rating: - a chilling black comedy......
THE FRONT, starring Woody Allen, Michael Murphy and Zero Mostel, is an engaging, brilliant, well-written piece that examines the plight of Blacklisted writers and other creative artists who were stifled and forbidden during the age of McCarthyism and the Witch Hunt. Many in their industry were forced and strongarmed to "name names" of people with supposed Communism and anti-American behavior (those who might pose a threat to this supposedly democratic nation of ours). There were numerous eloquent, intelligent ... Read More
Rating: - The Front
Martin Ritt's restrained but powerful film is a searing indictiment of the corrosive, cowardly effects of McCarthysim, a time the director lived through. It's a sort of bitter victory (or sweet revenge) that Mostel was cast, as he was an early victim of the same blacklist. The inimitable Zero steals the show as the tragic Hecky, but Woody is also fine in a fairly straight role. A vivid recreation of a dark moment in our history.
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