Opening with wonderfully nostalgic and amusing newsreel footage from the early 1950s (coupled with Frank Sinatra's buttery vocal on "Young at Heart"), director Martin Ritt quickly makes his intentions clear that these innocent signposts of the era belied a much different feeling in the climate of the country: creeping paranoia on the show business front, in Senator McCarthy's gorgon-like attempt to make America "pure". Woody Allen plays a New York City deli-cashier who helps out three TV writers, blacklisted for being Communist sympathizers, by letting them use his name on their scripts...but when the critical kudos arrive, the witchhunt closes in. Despite some very funny asides, the panic of the time is highly palpable, and "The Front" isn't a light-hearted vehicle for Allen by any means (nor does it become overly-messagey). Expertly written by Walter Bernstein and directed by Ritt (both blacklist victims for real). Woody very fine in a non-farcical performance. *** from ****
Review of The Front
