A Face In the Crowd (1957): Snake Oil Politics

This mid-fifties film by Elia Kazan (screenplay by Budd Schulberg) ) stars Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal in a remarkably prescient story - a tale of hypocrisy, greed, and politics that resonates in our current celebrity oriented, media-driven political world  sixty years after its release.

Marcia Jeffries (Neal), a sophisticated college educated Northern girl, is prospecting for interesting stories from the inmates of a small town Arkansas jail, tales that she hopes to broadcast from the village radio station. You know, the human interest angle.  Marcia happens upon Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes (Griffith), a guitar-pickin’ drifter, loquacious storyteller and cornpone charmer - kind of a redneck Will Rogers.  She springs Lonesome from the hoosegow, gets him in studio and when he lets loose, he’s an immediate hit. He’s fresh, uninhibited, and loaded with topical observations and folksy “wisdom”.  Pretty soon he’s got a following. And sponsors. Soon after that, he’s invited to New York and gains a national audience. He’s got a hit TV show. People love him because he tells it like it is, unfiltered and unvarnished. He’s a national sensation.

Lonesome ain’t so lonesome anymore. The media love him. Politicians seek him out. Lonesome sells I'm not just an entertainer. I'm an influence, a wielder of opinion, a force... a force!” he proclaims. Is Lonesome going over to the dark side? There are shades of Huey Long here, not to mention a certain contemporary presidential aspirant.

and then he sells out. He loves the money, and he loves the power of his new celebrity. He’s also shrewder than he sounds. “

The movie moves briskly. The supporting cast includes young Lee Remick (in her first film) and Tony Franciosca. All the performances are excellent, and Andy Griffith, in his first film, is just mesmerizing.  (Walter Matthau, in one of his earliest movie roles, is tasked with being the moralizing voice, and lays it on pretty thick, but we’ll let that pass. It was a fifties thing.)

Though the movie is quite entertaining, its point was disturbing in the 1950s and continues to be so now – maybe more so: how can such a large swath of the public and of the electorate let themselves be so easily manipulated and swayed – again and again - by the charm of a charlatan, a fawning media and the cynical advertising machine?  

 A Face In The Crowd,  an overlooked classic, is well worth a look-see.

126 minutes.

Available streaming from Amazon Video, iTunes, and (a bit pricey) on Xfinity OnDemand; plus on DVD from Netflix