Howard Prince is a small-time schnook in fifties New York who becomes a front for a TV scriptwriter friend blacklisted by the anti-communist House Un-American Activities Committee. The scam works and Howard is making a good commission so he starts fronting for more writers, until the authorities start to investigate his associations ...
The notorious Senator McCarthy blacklist witch-hunts of the late forties and early fifties are surely the most shameful aspect of America's rich literary history, and make for great dramatic subject-matter in this thought-provoking and entertaining film. As with many good political stories, at its core is an apolitical central character who only wants to be happy and get ahead and isn't interested in the issues, but who gradually becomes polemicised by what he experiences and chooses a side. Allen is an inspired but unusual choice for the lead (he didn't write or direct and his character is far removed from his neurotic-comic image) and he is ably supported by an excellent supporting cast, particularly Mostel's star turn as the lovably pathetic in-too-deep showbiz clown Hecky Brown. Ritt, the talented director of Edge Of The City and Hud amongst others, was blacklisted in 1951 (as was writer Walter Bernstein and actors Mostel, Bernardi, Gough and Shelley) and his film is both serious and light-hearted, which makes its depiction of the persecution of careers and golden years wasted all the more potent. This theme is bookended by a bittersweet rendition of Sinatra singing Young At Heart, and stunningly encapsulated by a brilliant effects shot in the penultimate scene, when Allen tells the committee where to go and they are literally frozen in time as he walks out the door. It's well worth reading up on the HUAC blacklists, particularly on the writers like Dalton Trumbo (who managed to win an Oscar using a pseudonym whilst blacklisted), who were nicknamed The Hollywood Ten, and there's another good movie on the subject, Guilty By Association, with Robert DeNiro. Many great artists were pilloried, both by the authorities and by liberal peers who ostracised the conformists, notably Herbert Biberman and his wife, Gale Sondergaard, Edward Dmytryk, Cy Endfield, Sterling Hayden, Elia Kazan, Ring Lardner Jr., Joseph Losey, Lionel Stander and Sam Wanamaker. Beautifully shot by Michael Chapman, this is a fine drama about a permanent stain on the literary world of the Land of the Free.
The notorious Senator McCarthy blacklist witch-hunts of the late forties and early fifties are surely the most shameful aspect of America's rich literary history, and make for great dramatic subject-matter in this thought-provoking and entertaining film. As with many good political stories, at its core is an apolitical central character who only wants to be happy and get ahead and isn't interested in the issues, but who gradually becomes polemicised by what he experiences and chooses a side. Allen is an inspired but unusual choice for the lead (he didn't write or direct and his character is far removed from his neurotic-comic image) and he is ably supported by an excellent supporting cast, particularly Mostel's star turn as the lovably pathetic in-too-deep showbiz clown Hecky Brown. Ritt, the talented director of Edge Of The City and Hud amongst others, was blacklisted in 1951 (as was writer Walter Bernstein and actors Mostel, Bernardi, Gough and Shelley) and his film is both serious and light-hearted, which makes its depiction of the persecution of careers and golden years wasted all the more potent. This theme is bookended by a bittersweet rendition of Sinatra singing Young At Heart, and stunningly encapsulated by a brilliant effects shot in the penultimate scene, when Allen tells the committee where to go and they are literally frozen in time as he walks out the door. It's well worth reading up on the HUAC blacklists, particularly on the writers like Dalton Trumbo (who managed to win an Oscar using a pseudonym whilst blacklisted), who were nicknamed The Hollywood Ten, and there's another good movie on the subject, Guilty By Association, with Robert DeNiro. Many great artists were pilloried, both by the authorities and by liberal peers who ostracised the conformists, notably Herbert Biberman and his wife, Gale Sondergaard, Edward Dmytryk, Cy Endfield, Sterling Hayden, Elia Kazan, Ring Lardner Jr., Joseph Losey, Lionel Stander and Sam Wanamaker. Beautifully shot by Michael Chapman, this is a fine drama about a permanent stain on the literary world of the Land of the Free.