SPOILER: Woody Allen acts but does not direct this excellent depiction of the McCarthy Era blacklisting in "The Front."

He plays his typical neurotic way until he is asked to front for blacklisted writers. The money comes in and all is well for Allen.

We meet the people that he is fronting for. We also meet Zero Mostel, in an excellent supporting role, as a blacklisted comedian, Hecky Green, who begs for work and throws himself out a window as a result.The scene where Allen is afraid to attend his funeral, since the FBI is taping who is entering the funeral parlor, is memorable.

Allen is asked to appear before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee to name names. What he said in that scene will forever be etched in the minds of movie-goers.

A marvelously, well-acted movie on one of the greatest tragedies in our nation's history. This movie dealt with how blacklisting ruined the lives of so many people in the entertainment industry.

Walter Bernstein, who was blacklisted in real life, wrote the screenplay for this film. No wonder why it was so good. He wrote from personal experience and therefore from the heart.

It seems almost impossible to believe that in the early Fifties there was such a thing as a blacklist. The best summation of this whole situation I ever heard was that there is no use blaming the various people in the film and television industry who worked at their craft, in front or behind the camera. Blame the studio heads who just knuckled under to a bunch or corrupt politicians who were looking to exploit the situations.

Players went to the stage where the blacklist did not exist or to foreign countries to work. But writers submitted a lot of work under pseudonyms. So Woody Allen playing his usual schlepp role is approached by a friend he goes way back with to become a front, to take credit for writing scripts for 10% of the salary. Woody who has a real gambling problem with Danny Aiello looking to break his legs for unpaid debts decides this could prove lucrative and some other writers start using him as a front as well.

Of course he does come to the thought police at the House Un-American Activities Committee and eventually responds to the whole business in a singularly appropriate manner. If some of the bigger fish in Hollywood had done the same, there would never have been a blacklist. As it was the blacklist kind of ran out of steam in the Sixties, but not before a lot of lives had been ruined.

One of those lives was Zero Mostel who gave a farewell performance as comedian Hecky Brown who was blacklisted as was Mostel in real life. Mostel in fact gave said singular response in real life and it cost him. But not as much as his character in The Front.

Mostel was one of many involved in The Front who were blacklisted back in the bad old days. I'm glad Zero and the rest lived long enough and outlasted the blacklist to make this wonderful entertaining and educational film about a really bad time.

Woody Allen acts in a film that he did not direct. While he did this early in his career, at this stage it was unusual. I imagine this was an opportunity to tell Hollywood off for what it did during the McCarthy era (see "Trumbo" if you get a chance). Woody's character is a kind of ghost writer, a "Front." He assists blacklisted writers in getting their work produced. They have been labeled communists. He works away, successfully, but then his integrity works its way into his being. What can he do stop this without sacrificing his work. There were these "Fronts" around and it allowed Hollywood not to stagnate any further. This film has an incredibly fine conclusion. This movie caught me by surprise.