Walter Bernstein, scriptwriter who skewered McCarthy-era blacklist in ‘The Front,’ dies at 101 Adam Bernstein Walter Bernstein, a scriptwriter who was blacklisted in the 1950s for his Communist Party membership and two decades later skewered the McCarthy era in “The Front,” a film that starred Woody Allen in a rare semi-serious role and earned an Oscar nomination for best screenplay, died Jan. 23 at his home in Manhattan. He was 101. The cause was pneumonia, said his wife, literary agent Gloria Loomis. Mr. Bernstein first published in the New Yorker at 20 and distinguished himself as a combat correspondent during World War II with the military weekly Yank. His best-selling book of war dispatches, “Keep Your Head Down” (1945), was lauded for its expertise with dialogue and propelled a film and TV writing career that lasted into his 90s.