Change Your Image
ptjlmbaldwin
Reviews
The Front (1976)
Could've been great...should've been better...
I had heard about "The Front" many years ago but had only recently had the opportunity to see it. The recommendation to see it came from a book which detailed the films that the author thought, in hindsight, SHOULD have been awarded "Best Picture" ("Rocky" won in 1976).
There is so much talent here, both on screen and off--and yet the sum is not greater than its parts. One would think that a film about the 1950s entertainment blacklisting written and produced by those who not only lived through it but were also adversely affected by it would be thoughtful, serious, complex and sober...or satirical, ascerbic, and horrifying.
Instead the film, as a whole, comes off as a "TV movie of the week" with a feel of having been put together by those who only heard about the blacklisting debacle fifth-hand. There is an occasional glimpse of the lives that were ruined: Zero Mostel's downward spiraling character and his suicide is easily the best element in the film, for example.
But the focus is not on the blacklisted characters themselves but on Woody Allen's character, a schlub who with turtle-like drive tries to deflect the ramifications of his willingness to act as a "front" for three of his friends, all blacklisted writers, until all of a sudden, with literally 30 seconds left in the film, he has a change of heart: he believes! And he goes to jail a conquering and celebrated hero (who gets the girl) in a sappy ending this subject matter doesn't deserve.
Furthermore, everyone is mostly reduced to a two dimensional portrayal: the network executives, the token girlfriend, the blacklisted writers themselves AND the agents leading the persecution resulting in the blacklistings. Granted the producers had an axe to grind against those who initiated the witch hunts...but if you're going to have an enemy the audience can take seriously, don't make them cardboard cutouts: that's what comic books are for.
I wanted to like this film. But the irony is that the "Front" refers to writers not able to produce great works due to censorship based on their political philosophies--yet none of the characters would submit this screenplay in real life. Unfortunately, the real life victims did.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Ummm...did the filmmakers even read the book?
Here's the good: "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" is a great musical number. Full of whimsy with just a touch of smart-aleck-ness. The Vogons, modeled after bureaucratic Middle-aged British folks is genius.
Now the bad: everything else.
The overriding problem with the movie is that it fundamentally misunderstands the character of Arthur Dent, who is THE central character. In the books, Arthur is basically a grown-up Charlie Brown. The misfit who never kicks the football, who never gets to talk to the little red-haired girl and who never wins the ball game. Arthur is the misfit on earth who becomes a greater misfit in the cold, lonely cosmos.
I have read all five volumes of the Hitchhiker's trilogy and though it starts out great and ends up badly written, the character of Arthur Dent is consistent: the Universe IS out to get him.
Here comes the spoiler to the movie (and to the books). Jump past the next paragraph if you don't want to know what happens.
In the movie, they change the character of Arthur Dent. Radically. You have an empowered, boring Arthur Dent as opposed to an incompetent, interesting Arthur Dent. In the movie Arthur gets the girl, gets the earth back, gets the Heart of Gold spaceship, gets to correct every wrong choice he ever made, gets to speak eloquently and ends up the triumphant hero. In the five book trilogy, he gets no girl, no spaceship, no earth, has no eloquence, his problems get severely compounded and he ultimately dies. Thus ends the spoiler paragraph.
The filmmakers (including the recently deceased Douglas Adams, who wrote the books) seem to misunderstand the tension between Arthur and everyone else. The movie, rather than exploring the delicious, neurotic fractures of Arthur's mind, instead goes for the wackiness of a Zapod Beeblebrox channeling Geo. W. Bush, a John Malkovic character manifesting general creepiness and everyone else muttering their lines as if they didn't understand how to properly deliver them. What could have been a brilliant picture becomes a disjointed mess. Even the final gag line of the film, spoken by Marvin the Paranoid Android, was totally blown by the writers.
Folks, heed my advice. Read "Hitchhikers".Read "Restaurant". Read "Life, Universe and Everything". Then stop. Don't read the last two books. And don't watch this film. You will have all the best elements of this amazing sci-fi franchise and none of the worst.