The Front 4K 1976 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

The early 1950s. Alfred Miller, a talented television screenwriter who has been blacklisted for sympathizing with communist ideas, loses his job. He turns to a friend and asks him to act as a front man on television. Howard is a loser and a gambler. The promised 10% of the fee won’t hurt him. Very soon, the young writer Howard becomes popular. And since he’s a complete layman when it comes to literature, he has to teach himself. A brilliant idea occurs to Howard: why not represent a couple more disgraced writers?

Review 4K Movie

First of all, I was surprised that there are actually movies out there where Woody Allen is just an actor, not a director. And here he’s also playing a guy who can’t write screenplays, who’s playing a guy who can.

It was a bit annoying that the main character only changes his mind in the final seconds. You can’t say the same about his physicality, gait, and overall mannerisms, though, when—during a single upbeat song playing in the background—money, suits, and an apartment suddenly appear at Howard’s place. This montage really shakes things up and brings a fresh energy to the film, which up until then had relied heavily on dialogue.

You realize that the character’s entire brazen nature is now on full display when he brings the script to the producer in the very same folder he just received from the real author on the street, and the folder is labeled “Private” in large letters.

And immediately after, as if to punish the protagonist, comes the scene where Howard is seated at the typewriter. Here, it’s not just the main character who’s caught off guard; I myself began to wonder: is he loading this blank sheet into the typewriter correctly? The effect of total immersion. After all, in essence, Howard, just like me, is seeing this marvel of technology for the first time. The closest thing to a typewriter he’d ever dealt with before was a cash register, where he put cash at the beginning of the film. So here, too, the most he can do is insert a piece of paper. Next comes a creative crisis. Here, even the protagonist’s name becomes significant. Only now it’s no longer “Howard,” but “How art?”—sitting there, unsure of how to create.

The surreal ending, with the committee members frozen in a freeze-frame as Howard walks away, having just told them to go to hell, creates an effect reminiscent of the finales of Tarantino’s *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood* and *The Hateful Eight*, with an intoxicating sense of the triumph of historical justice. And a touch of bitterness is added by the realization that in real life, things were far from ending—and ending—so happily and heroically.

And the end credits, listing the dates the filmmakers were blacklisted, hint that this was also a strong—albeit delayed—message from them personally to the federal agents gathered around the long table.
And a lesson for future generations. At the time of filming, many young people no longer remembered the existence of the Blacklists. Actor Zero Mostel, who played the main victim of this system here, was particularly concerned about this.

In the paranoid side of this story, with the surveillance and observation, I liked the moment in the bookstore.
I only noticed the agent in the background at the very end of the conversation, even though he had been in the frame for the entire scene. Here, the masterful control of the audience’s attention is achieved through the cinematographer’s focus, the engaging dialogue itself, and the way the actors bring it to life.

The film is criticized for not delving deeply enough into the theme of McCarthyism. What I saw here was precisely the impact of such a system on the little guy from the outside, and how the system of persecuting dissidents feeds off these very little people. The paradox is that Howard seems to be helping the victims of the Blacklist, but in reality, he is quite content with the status quo in the industry. After all, as long as there is a Blacklist of screenwriters, he can profit from them. And the very principle of “Name one person—and sleep soundly” is more reminiscent of some kind of pyramid scheme. Except that this pyramid scheme ultimately takes away not only people’s earnings, but also their lives.