The Front

The Front (1976) is an American comedy-drama directed by Martin Ritt — watch it online on iFILM. Woody Allen plays Howard Prince, a cashier and compulsive gambler who agrees to put his name on television scripts written by a blacklisted friend in exchange for ten percent of the fee.

The story is set in the early 1950s, when television writers suspected of left-wing sympathies were shut out of the industry. Alfred Miller (Michael Murphy) is one of them: talented, unemployable, desperate. Howard is neither talented nor particularly principled, which makes him the perfect front. The arrangement works until producers want the writer in the room, a script editor named Florence (Andrea Marcovicci) catches Howard's attention, and Zero Mostel — in a role that cuts far deeper than the comedy around it — plays a blacklisted comedian with everything to lose. Director Ritt and several members of the crew had themselves been on those lists years earlier.

Part satire, part elegy — a film that uses laughs to get at something that wasn't funny at all. Stream The Front (1976) online on iFILM.