A Face In The Crowd

A Face In The Crowd
1957 - Warner Brothers
Directed By Elia Kazan



SYNOPSIS

A radio host named Marcia (Patricia Neal) seeks out real people for her show on a rural Arkansas radio station and decides to visit the local jail. There, she meets a man she dubs "Lonesome" Rhodes (Andy Griffith.) Soon he gets his own show on the station singing, telling stories and sharing his folksy wisdom. It's a smash and he moves on to do a TV show in Memphis. That goes over big and soon he's in New York and has the biggest show on television. He has the ears of powerful wealthy men and senators. His rising megalomania alienates all those around him.



MY THOUGHTS

There are three things you can always guarantee when watching an Elia Kazan film, amazing performances, great cinematography, and a great script.

Kazan somehow gets more out of his actors than any other director in every film of his I've seen. Each role is totally believable and seem totally real, without a fault.
What he does with Andy Griffith (in his film debut) is stunning. This isn't your TV Andy Griffith. He retains the same folksy charm you'd see in any episode of the Andy Griffith Show or Matlock... but when the power goes to Lonesome's head, Griffith becomes a totally different animal. He's practically frightening, which is never a word I would have ever associated with Andy Griffith.
Patricia Neal is equally outstanding in an understated performance. Walter Matthau also turns in an excellent supporting performance as a disenchanted TV writer for Rhodes.

The cinematography is superb and often evokes a film noir feel, especially after the story gets darker the further it goes along.

Budd Shulberg wrote the film. It was his second collaboration with Kazan (On The Waterfront was the first.) It's amazing how the story was structured around Marcia's feelings for Lonesome. When she meets and gets to know him and immediately takes to him, so does the audience. As the relationship is tested we become unsure of Lonesome, then when she turns on him, so do we.

My only fault with the story is that it seems to move almost too fast. We're never given a time reference. It seems like Rhodes is only on the radio for just a few days, then on the air in Memphis for a few days before New York. Much of it is done with montage, which makes it seem even faster. At that excessive speed, it feels like it's trying to be a satire or a farce. By the time it's over, you realize it's not trying to be either of those.

But that fault wasn't enough to derail this excellent study of how television could/did change politics and advertising... and this turned out to be one of Elia Kazan's best films.