Word: allene
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...comic tendency that cheapens and detracts from its political message. Complicating the problems embedded in the script are two extremely talented comedians who find themselves cast in straight dramatic roles which cannot suppress their seemingly irrepressible knack for "getting a laugh." Because it's impossible to watch either Woody Allen or Zero Mostel without expecting a humorous line sooner or later, and because the film's script occasionally obliges them with quips that serve only to destroy the actors' commendable efforts to render their roles serious and believable, The Front fails to fulfill its potential as a film of consequence...
Howard Prince (Woody Allen), A bumbling, inept creature who works as a cashier, is approached by Alfred Miller (Michael Murphy), an old school friend and television script writer who has been blacklisted by the networks. Unable to find employment or have his works accepted for production, Miller asks Prince to serve as a "front" for him. Under Prince's name, Miller's excellent scripts are submitted and readily accepted by the same people who refuse to deal with Miller because they consider him a Communist sympathizer. Soon Prince, now skimming ten per cent profit, begins to front for two other...
...directly involved in the blacklist turmoil failed to create a more moving film. Certainly for all of them The Front was a painful labor, but it also must have been a labor of love, filled with lofty purpose and deep emotion. Why, then, such a mediocre product? Although Allen and Mostel turn in excellent performances, neither are quite right for their roles. Allen particularly does not fit in a movie of this type. He is the classic nebbish, but the very qualities that contribute to his comic genius detract from the solemnity of the film. The mere sight...
...weak. Bernardi performs well, but the other actors are stiff and deliver their lines with little feeling. Marcovicci in particular damages what could be some of the movie's better scenes. She speaks mechanically, as though reading her part for the first time. Her love scenes with Allen are spoiled by the combination of abominable acting and typical one-liners that belong in Play It Again, Sam, not in a serious film...
...find Frank Konstantynowicz, a slick playmaker, and his backcourt mate Bob Allen, a towering guard of 6 ft. 4 in. who can still shoot the lights out. They're joined by a host of burly forwards like Mark Hadley, Andy Duda, Peter Clancy, and Roger Crosier, who has been forced out of action by an injury so far this season...