- published: 17 Feb 2015
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The Front is a 1976 film drama about the Hollywood blacklist during the age of live television. It is written by Walter Bernstein, directed by Martin Ritt and stars Woody Allen and Zero Mostel.
Because of the blacklist, a number of artists, writers, directors and others were rendered unemployable, having been accused of subversive political activities in support of Communism or of actually being Communists themselves.
Several people involved in the making of the film — screenwriter Bernstein, director Ritt, and actors Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, and Lloyd Gough — had themselves been blacklisted. (The name of each in the closing credits is followed by "Blacklisted 19--" and the relevant year.) Bernstein was listed after being named in the FBI-published Red Channels journal that identified alleged Communists and Communist sympathizers.
In the early 1950s, in New York City, restaurant cashier and small-time bookie Howard Prince (Woody Allen) has a friend who writes for television. Because the friend, Alfred Miller (Michael Murphy) has been blacklisted, he asks Howard to sign his name to the TV scripts.