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| Director Martin Ritt |
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| Writer Walter Bernstein with Woody Allen |
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| Walter Bernstein |
THE FRONT B+ USA (95 mi) 1976 d: Martin Ritt
What if there were a list? A list that said: Our finest actors weren’t allowed to act. Our best writers weren’t allowed to write. Our funniest comedians weren’t allowed to make us laugh. What would it be like if there were such a list? It would be like America in 1953. —movie poster
Among the only films to deal honestly with the Hollywood Blacklist, with Robert Rossen’s Body and Soul (1947) being made by the very people who were eventually blacklisted, while Red Hollywood (1996) is more of a documentary film, yet this film is distinguished by the fact it carries a certain credibility, having also been written and performed by people who were themselves blacklisted, each one identified in the end credits, including the year they were blacklisted. The script is written by Walter Bernstein, a legendary screenwriter who lived to be over 100 and may be remembered for his longevity in the industry, as his screenplays have covered the period from the 1940’s to the 2000’s, where he may be the longest-working writer of produced films and television programs in history. Bernstein got his start in the late 40’s working with Robert Rossen shortly before the House Un-American Activities Committee conducted hearings on the alleged Communist influence in the motion picture industry, with an intent to purge the subversive elements through blacklists, a devastating abuse of power that prevented targeted individuals from ever working again for nearly a decade because of alleged Communist or subversive ties, where people were hauled before the committee to name names, badgered and humiliated into taking a pledge of loyalty that was little more than a publicity stunt before television cameras, as the committee already had all the names. Yet this was part of the postwar patriotic fervor that led to the paranoid overreach of McCarthyism, aka the Red Scare, when Senator Joseph McCarthy’s name became synonymous with Red-baiting political extremism, portraying freedom versus Communism as a life or death matter in the most apocalyptic of terms, where every Communist was viewed as a Soviet agent infiltrating the fabric of American society, reaching a fever pitch between 1950 and 1954, characterized by playwright Lillian Hellman, integral in the fight against fascism both at home and abroad, and twice the recipient of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for the best play of the year, yet she was blacklisted in 1949, describing this era as “the time of scoundrels.” Anyone thought to have radical political views in general was investigated, arrested, imprisoned, fined, fired from their jobs, and barred from future employment in their fields, as people lost their careers, their friends, and sometimes even their families. Ordinary people were encouraged to spy on their friends and neighbors, like going to actor’s union meetings, writing down the names of everybody there and turning them in, reporting any suspicions of “subversive” activity. It was a terrible time, with plenty of hatred developing, leading to family divisions, and in some instances to suicide. Bernstein was blacklisted in 1950, and was not credited with any work again until 1958, reportedly sleeping on director Martin Ritt’s couch during the McCarthy era, yet throughout the 1950’s he managed to continue writing for television, both under pseudonyms (Paul Bauman) and through the use of fronts, non-affected individuals who allowed their names to appear on his work, with the producer typically having to explain to his bosses that the author was a literary hermit and recluse who shied away from being seen in public, which would explain why you never saw them. Bernstein unapologetically joined the Communist Party in 1939 as a college student at Dartmouth, a time when roughly half of the Communist Party members in America were Jewish, an extension of Yiddish culture, the labor movement, and the Jewish Left, extremely popular with newly arriving Jewish immigrants, coming from a long history of fleeing persecution, and part of a burgeoning socialist movement from the Great Depression to the war. Many forget that McCarthyism targeted education as well, as it’s important to remember that 90% of the teachers blacklisted from working in public schools due to alleged subversive activities were Jewish, as were six of the original Hollywood Ten. Bernstein served in the Army during the war, writing dispatches as a war correspondent from multiple war fronts that he compiled into his first published book in 1945, Keep Your Head Down. After the war, however, what had formerly been tolerated was suddenly criminalized, writing his published memoirs years afterwards in 1996, Inside Out, A Memoir of the Blacklist, Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist - Google Books, providing his own perspective on the so-called menace of the Communist Party in America, which was, by that time, a small and beleaguered organization wielding little influence, where the only time most citizens even became aware of their existence was viewing Presidential candidates on the ballot every four years, never once becoming a factor or posing a threat to democracy.
Hollywood was a company town. The cold war was starting, and with it the blacklist, but it was not affecting me and, secure in wish fulfillment, I did not really believe it would. Winston Churchill had made his Iron Curtain speech at Fulton, Missouri. The Hollywood Ten were summoned before the House committee, but the committee members seemed only stupid; I understood their bigotry but not their power. Who, really, could be on their side? I also knew the Communist Party was no menace. After all, I belonged to it. The charge that we wanted to overthrow the government by force and violence was ludicrous. Nothing I had ever done or intended or even thought was designed for that. No one I knew in the Party even dreamed of it. Our meetings might have been less boring if they had. I took for granted that I could be both radical and accepted, since that had always been the case.
Made by the director of Edge of the City (1957) and Hud (1963), Martin Ritt was known for making socially conscious films, and was himself blacklisted in 1951, largely for his connection to the Federal Theatre Project, a New Deal theater company that provided jobs for struggling artists during the Great Depression, hardly a threat to anyone, nonetheless the blacklist forced him to earn a living as an acting instructor until he could find work again. Some of those blacklisted chose exile in Europe as the only way to avoid a subpoena. In Paris, directors Jules Dassin, John Berry, Ben and Norma Barzman, and screenwriter Lee Gold, among others, made films for television, allowing them to earn a livelihood, though they were exploited by producers, paying rock-bottom prices for uncredited work. Blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo won Academy Awards under a pseudonym for ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953) and THE BRAVE ONE (1956), while Michael Wilson did the same for THE BRIDGE OVER RIVER KWAI (1957), making a mockery of the blacklist, with Trumbo receiving official credit for EXODUS (1960) and Spartacus (1960), officially breaking the blacklist. Of unique interest here is the casting of Woody Allen as Howard Prince, aka “the Front,” one of the rare instances when Allen worked in a film that wasn’t his own, but he had only made a handful of movies at that time and was still a relative unknown, coming after LOVE AND DEATH (1975) and a year before his breakthrough film Annie Hall (1977), featuring the same squirrely, anxiety-ridden character that appears in his own films. What he brings is a comedic element, very funny, especially early in the film, but as his character grows inherently more aware of the circumstances surrounding the blacklist and the impact this is having on some of his friends, he grows more serious, having a terrific punchline near the end of the film, literally coming out of nowhere, changing the entire perspective of the film, like something only Billy Wilder would write. But it’s extremely hard to balance comedy with such a serious subject, something only a few films can do, overshadowed that same year by Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976), which drew all the attention and critical praise, especially the Oscar-winning Paddy Chayefsky script. Unfortunately, this film has faded from the public consciousness, with many in the younger generation who have never even heard of the blacklist, as it’s not something taught in schools, and is instead something of an embarrassment in our nation’s history, a stain on our legacy, supposedly promoting freedom and democracy, yet, as this film shows, the government can also wrongly target innocent people with impunity. The Hollywood blacklist ruined the lives of thousands, destroying their careers and livelihood, often without proof, or just based on rumors, turning friends and colleagues against each other. Despite a lack of any proof of subversion, more than 2000 government employees, mostly black postal workers, and nearly 3800 seaman and dockworkers, also mostly black, lost their jobs as “poor security risks” during the government crackdown, left in an absurdly Kafkaesque limbo having no legal recourse, never informed why they lost their jobs, as blacklists were never officially acknowledged, with apologists, Ronald Reagan among them, who continued to proclaim the blacklist never happened. It even drove Charlie Chaplin into exile, the iconic Little Tramp, who was responsible for founding the same motion picture industry that ultimately rejected him, moving his family to Switzerland where he remained until his death, accused by Senator Joseph McCarthy of being a Communist, informed in 1952 after a promotional tour in England that he would be arrested if he ever returned, only setting foot in America 20 years later to accept an honorary lifetime achievement award at the Academy Awards in 1972. You can’t make this stuff up, as it’s too absurd to believe, where the investigatory hearings, working closely with J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, ultimately uncovered nothing, as there never was any Communist infiltration, only innocent lives destroyed, yet it actually happened, and this is one of the rare films to take the subject seriously – with Woody Allen, of all people, who has ironically suffered his own brand of blacklisting, accused of sexually molesting an adopted 7-year old daughter, charges he has vociferously denied from the outset thirty years ago, and was never charged, as evidence was inconclusive, but eventually the #MeToo Generation caught up to him, unable to work in the industry anymore, as potential sponsors bolted out of fear.
The first Hollywood film to tackle the blacklist, made just a year after HUAC was abolished in 1975, the dreamlike opening features Frank Sinatra singing "Young At Heart" 💖Frank Sinatra YouTube (2:36), a million-selling hit in 1953 that includes clips of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s wedding, bombing raids on Korea, a family entering a backyard air raid shelter, with other noted dignitaries, including General Douglas MacArthur, Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe, Rocky Marciano, Miss America 1952 (Colleen Kay Hutchins), and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. This eloquently sets the stage for where we are, a period when artists, writers, directors, and others were rendered unemployable, with Allen as Howard Prince starring as an ordinary diner cashier who moonlights as a bookie for extra cash, seemingly always in debt, until he’s visited by an old friend, left-leaning television writer Alfred Miller (Michael Murphy), who has just lost his job due to Communist sympathies that he openly acknowledges in a meeting with Howard, which was a Hollywood first, like a punch to the gut, never before having the audacity to be up front and open about it. Bernstein acknowledged in interviews (4_books - QC) that he wasn’t blacklisted for nothing, as it wasn’t an accident. Together they concoct a plan for Howard to put his name on Miller’s scripts for 10 percent of the selling price, becoming the blacklisted writer’s “front.” While Miller is concerned about Howard’s naïveté, that he doesn’t really know what he’s getting himself into, he’s nonetheless a well-meaning friend, attracted to a steady source of income, claiming how hard can it be? Miller has been the hugely successful writer of a dramatic anthology series entitled Grand Central, produced by Phil Sussman (Herschel Bernardi, blacklisted in 1953) and hosted by former vaudeville comedian Hecky Brown (Zero Mostel, blacklisted in 1950). Yet the storyline veers elsewhere, with Howard having a roving eye for the ladies, in particular Sussman’s idealistic script editor, Florence Barrett (Andrea Marcovicci), a Connecticut girl who judges him by the quality of his work, overwhelmed by his principles and human insight, claiming “In my family the biggest sin was to raise your voice.” Howard’s immediate retort, “In my family the biggest sin was to buy retail.” Howard immediately develops a swelled head, basking in the glory of this newfound sense of importance, seeing dollar signs in his future, broadening his enterprise to include fronting two more of Miller’s friends, Delaney and Phelps (Lloyd Gough, blacklisted in 1952, and David Margulies), who in reality represent blacklisted writers Walter Bernstein, Abraham Polonsky, and Arnold Manoff, yet foolishly he begins to believe he’s actually part of the creative process. Never taken seriously before by such important and influential people, always relegated to the economic fringe, much like the imposter Sabzian in Kiarostami’s Close-Up (Nemaye Nazdik) (1990), this gives him a newfound sense of power and authority that he never dreamed possible, suddenly paying off all his debts, buying new clothes, and moving into an upscale apartment. This inflated cachet works wonders with Florence, dropping her old boyfriend for him, where his sense of importance on the set is staggering, with people constantly referring to his judgment, as there are times they need an immediate rewrite, but instead of getting to work, he mysteriously disappears (meeting secretly with Miller), only to return with the precise changes needed. It’s like a fairy tale life, where he’s suddenly the golden boy, a position only made available because he’s not on a blacklist. Ritt very calculatingly reveals what’s going on behind the scenes in the offices of the Freedom Information Services, a supposedly patriotic, right-wing organization working for the networks that spies upon and does background checks on everyone in the industry, like a detective agency, run by a team of investigators led by Francis X. Hennessey (Remak Ramsay), with portraits of J. Edgar Hoover and Chiang Kai-shek on the walls, where anyone not given a clean bill of health is instantly fired. It’s astounding the amount of power and influence they hold within the industry, especially for a relatively small operation, working completely behind the scenes, accountable to no one except the industry moguls, skewed by extremist political views that were hardly reflective of the viewing television audience.
The tone of the film shifts considerably, growing much darker with a renewed focus on Hecky, already under investigation by the committee, where in a desperate act to save himself he’ll agree to anything, with Hennessey instructing him to name names and to spy on Howard, bringing the quietly introspective Woody Allen and larger than life Zero Mostel together in the same scenes, which are positively riveting, and historical, as both share similar backgrounds, Borscht Belt comedians who became much bigger stars, with Mostel’s performance the real stand-out of the film. The heartbreaking aspect is that as much as Howard’s career trajectory took off, Hecky’s started to tumble, as he is quietly removed from his job by the network and forced to capitulate to Hennessey in order to survive. He invites Howard along for a job back in the Catskills where he got his start, hoping to extract some useful information, but comes up empty, and is instead exploited by a resort owner (Joshua Shelley, blacklisted in 1952) to work for a pittance, knowing he has no other options, and then cheats him out of half his fee, where in the ensuing argument the owner kicks him out, calling him a “commie son of a bitch!” This humiliation takes its toll, with Howard growing more serious, developing a conscience about what’s going on around him, with the film exploring the real impact, illuminating the terrible personal tragedies experienced by those who were blacklisted, not only robbed of their livelihood, but their dignity as well. In a perfectly executed single shot, the most heartbreakingly tender moment of the film reveals Hecky in his darkest hour, one of the many souls crushed under the weight of a manufactured threat. This would end up being Mostel’s final onscreen performance, where much of his story is borrowed from actor Philip Loeb, a friend of both Zero Mostel and Walter Bernstein, who was labeled a communist for his union activities, dropped from the cast of an enormously popular TV show, The Goldbergs (1949-57), driven to debt and despondency, and committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills in a room at New York’s Taft Hotel. His suffering is made all the more poignant by the knowledge that much of what Hecky goes through was drawn directly from Mostel’s own experience. Woody Allen is also most convincing watching from a distance as events take a darker turn, becoming painfully real in ways that feel unimaginable. When Howard is himself hauled before the committee, supposedly a mere formality, never expecting difficulties, yet when he’s asked to name Hecky as a subversive collaborator, the moral dilemma is written all over his face, where the impact of the finale is an absurd twist into the surreal, reminiscent of the final turn of Kubrick’s black comedy DR. STRANGELOVE OR: WHY I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964), with black and white newsreel footage both opening and closing the film to the same Sinatra tune, creating a wonderland fantasia fused with real events that actually happened. For those who think the concept of blacklists is a thing of the past, it’s worth noting that governments and police authorities use cameras to identify subjects of political rallies and demonstrations, while also singling out journalists, where the Attorney General can compile a data base of subversive organizations and oppositional views, once again placing names on lists. Employers also target union activities, discharging employees for activism while hiding their real intentions, also singling out those who dare speak up over safety issues, not only discharging them, but actively making sure they would never find similar work elsewhere (On the blacklist: how did the UK's top building firms get secret ...). In the NFL, after being singled out by President Trump, the billionaire owners conspired to prevent social activist quarterback Colin Kaepernick from ever playing in the league again (for kneeling during the national anthem), effectively blacklisting him from future employment. In a hyper-suspicious Cold War atmosphere of allegiance and loyalty oaths, it was a particularly shameful and ugly time in our country, when insinuations of disloyalty were enough to convince many Americans of a sinister plot infiltrating the country, allowing narrow-minded politicians to become fear mongers preaching hate and fear, reaching out to blind followers – mirroring what we’re seeing on the American political landscape today.
The Front, by Martin Ritt (1976) entire film on YouTube (1:34:46)
