A Face in the Crowd

This film shows what a fine actor Andy Griffith truly is, and what roles he could have mastered had he not chosen the Mayberry path instead.

Directed by Elia Kazan, the political drama and satire of commercialism "A Face in the Crowd" is the story of Lonesome Rhodes (Griffith), a charismatic guitar-playing drifter who is discovered by radio executive Marcia Jeffries (the husky-voiced Patricia Neal) while in jail on a public drunk charge. He catapults to radio and TV stardom under the guise of being an aw-shucks homeboy who loves his fans. In fact, Lonesome Rhodes is a slimy, greedy, egotistical, manipulative womanizer with underhanded political aspirations and nothing but contempt for his gullible audience. The film was far ahead of its time in its theme and telling, and Andy Griffith gives a blazing performance that rivals Burt Lancaster's in "Elmer Gantry" (for which Lancaster won an Oscar). That this film wasn't even nominated for any awards is very surprising.

I also am saddened that it's never been released on DVD; it's one of the best of its kind I have ever seen, and was certainly Griffith's plum role and best performance. With a stellar supporting cast, including Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Tony Franciosa and a beautiful Lee Remick in her first film role, "A Face in the Crowd" is a must-see film, and should eradicate any opinion you may have that Griffith was only capable of his wholesome TV roles of Sheriff Taylor and Ben Matlock.

I just saw this movie very late the other night, and I must say WOW! Like the rest of you, I saw "A Face In the Crowd" on a regular VHS edition, but it wouldn't matter which edition I saw it in because this was one of the few movies recently that made the jaw of this movie snob literally DROP with amazement over how daring, how edgy, and how much mastery this movie had over the film-making craft.

I'm beginning to realize that in the 1950's there was a short period of time (1955-1960, say) where the world of Broadway and the theater, Television, and Hollywood came together, and the careers of people like Rod Serling, Sidney Lumet, and "A Face In the Crowd"'s own Budd Schulberg were started. The best screenwriters in the movie business became innately aware of the increasing importance and influence of the new media form Television, while the best directors (like Elia Kazan), many of whom had directed numerous plays, knew how to cull the talents of Broadways hottest and most gifted performers, and at least for a couple of years, managed to get some awesome performances out of them. That's why I view this movie in the same sort of category as "The Sweet Smell of Success", that ever so sour and bitingly satiric parable on the corruption of American glamour and fame, and how publicity is just as much of a curse as a blessing. The performances in that film are like few others in the same era, and I think its no coincidence that "A Face In the Crowd" came out the same year as the other film. The main scribes of both those films, Clifford Odets and Budd Schulberg, were experienced with TV work by the time they penned their masterpieces (though Schulberg could also claim as his masterpiece 'On the Waterfront').

So anyway, I suggest to all who can hear me and have a love enough for this film to want to see it given the presentation it deserves, that we all write to the Criterion Collection and other DVD distributing companies and ask, no DEMAND that a restored, cleaned up version of "A Face In the Crowd", with as many special features as can be rustled up, be released as soon as possible. It's like writing your congressman, except instead of asking for a new factory of national park, we're asking for the wider availability of a piece of art that has gone with far too little acclaim for far too long. Who's with me?!?

Elia Kazan will always be remembered as one of the most important directors of his era. With great movies like A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront, he forever established his position in cinema history. A Face in the Crowd is one of his lesser known movies that flopped at the box office when it was initially released, and was completely ignored by the Academy. It only got some following much later, when it was released on DVD, which is a shame since A Face in the Crowd doesn't greatly differ from Kazan's more popular movies. To correct this historical injustice, I decided to review this movie and spread the word about it as much as I can.

The movie opens with a young woman, named Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal), visiting the prison in her small town. She is doing a radio show called 'A Face in the Crowd' during which she talks with everyday people, transmitting their stories. In the prison she meets a man who calls himself 'Lonesome' Rhodes (Andy Griffith) – a hobo arrested for drunk and disorderly behavior. She tapes him for her show and the episode becomes a huge hit. Marcia and her uncle, who is the owner of the local radio station on which 'A Face in the Crowd' airs, offer 'Lonesome' a job on the radio station. He accepts and soon becomes a sensation with the local populace – and eventually, with the whole country.

A Face in the crowd is what you may call a movie ahead of its time, and that's maybe why it wasn't recognized when it was initially released. It deals with topics like the media, celebrities, propaganda and politics. And in this day and age, when we are surrounded by the internet and the mass media, A Face in the Crowd may seem more actual than ever. A Face in the Crowd is essentially about a corrupted man who has a gift for public relations, and uses this gift as means to an end – the end being his own benefit. I think every last one of us knows at least one politician, public personality or celebrity who is just like that. A Face in the Crowd is a dark, frighteningly realistic movie which is brilliantly directed and masterfully paced. It runs for over 2 hours but never feels dull or boring.

In a character study movie like this one, the actor portraying the character plays a very important part in the quality of the movie. 'Lonesome' Rhodes is portrayed by Andy Griffith in his first movie performance ever. He did an astonishingly great job and, like I said before, it's a shame that the Academy overlooked this movie, especially his performance. Andy Griffith later went to start in the very popular sitcom 'The Andy Griffith Show', and since his character in the sitcom was much different from his 'Lonesome' Rhodes character, he managed to show his amazing acting range – which makes makes his performance in A Face in the Crowd even more astonishing. Patricia Neal also did a very good job in portraying the character of Marcia Jeffries. Overall, A Face in the Crowd is an amazing movie, made by talented people, which doesn't deserve to be just another face in the crowd – it deserves to be more popular.

Rating: 8/10 Read more at http://passpopcorn.com/

One of the best pictures I've seen to date. Griffith had the part of the womanizing, opinionated, lazy, loud mouthed bum down pat. In fact, the entire cast was superb in this dynamic, gripping, and in the first half, uproariously funny drama which clearly shows how ego can not only destroy the egotist but those close to him. This film is an equal to Griffith's fine performances as Horton Maddock in "Savages" and Howard Pike in "Hearts of the West". 4 stars.

There are two major things that I find quite fascinating as I watch this 1957 classic. The first is the prophetic, hyper-realistic portrayal of television as a pervasive medium encroaching upon people's lives in ways unheard of back in the 1950's. The second is Andy Griffith's pull-all-the-stops performance as drunken hobo-turned-media sensation "Lonesome" Rhodes. For those who know Griffith only for his homespun TV portrayals, you will be surprised how remarkably he shows the venal underbelly and high-octane charisma of a character miles away from kindly, soft-spoken Sheriff Andy Taylor.

Master filmmaker Elia Kazan and writer Budd Schulberg, collaborating for the second and last time after their brilliant "On the Waterfront" three years earlier, tell the story of Rhodes, a burgeoning pop-culture phenomenon thanks primarily to the efforts of Marcia Jeffries, a young radio program host who discovers him sprawled in a hangover on the floor of a rural Arkansas jail. He mesmerizes the local radio audience with an improvised country song about his predicament, "Free Man in the Morning", and this marks the beginning of his meteoric rise all the way to his own weekly national TV program. As he capitalizes on his folksy charm and empathetic manner, he becomes a power-crazed tyrant behind the scenes. A corporate tycoon wants to use Rhodes' influence to sway a Presidential campaign in his favor, and Rhodes' megalomania moves him lockstep into a Citizen Kane-like form of paranoia.

It all seems exaggerated but it's brilliantly observed much like a film that covered the same themes twenty years later, Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky's "Network". However, even with strong doses of black comedy sprinkled throughout, Kazan and Schulberg use more melodramatic elements in their skewering until the near-Shakespearian climax when Rhodes' comeuppance takes on a grandly theatrical fervor. In a way, it seems a shame that Griffith never got another chance to bring out his dark side on the big screen. While sometimes wildly undisciplined in his film debut, he dexterously shows the cunning and charisma of his character to a level that makes his national celebrity utterly credible.

Showing his amazing facility to elicit stellar work from a wide variety of actors, Kazan assembled a strong cast to back him up starting with Patricia Neal, who is just as devastating as Marcia, a woman torn between ambition, decency and her fateful attraction to Rhodes. An impossibly young Walter Matthau shows the beginnings of his cynical screen persona as Mel, a crafty television writer who de facto becomes Marcia's conscience. In their film debuts and making indelible impressions, Anthony Franciosa and Lee Remick play Joey, an office lackey who turns into Rhodes' immoral agent, and Betty Lou, a teenaged baton twirler seduced easily by Rhodes' power, respectively.

If the film has one flaw, it's that it runs on a bit long for the parable it tells especially since Rhodes' moral ambiguity is pretty much settled in the first half of the story. Nevertheless, this movie is essential viewing as it not only shows a powerful early indictment of television (and supports Marshall McLuhan's mantra, "The medium is the message") but provides another example of the under-appreciated artistry of Kazan and Schulberg. The 2005 DVD has unfortunately no commentary track but one strong extra, a half-hour 2005 featurette, "Facing the Past", which spotlights Kazan's polarizing testimony in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the threatening role of television in the 1950's, both major factors in making the film. Griffith, Neal, Schulberg are interviewed. There is also a widescreen version of the original film trailer.