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A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Rate:
10
Viewed:
9/26
9/26:
What a total shock that A Face in the Crowd didn't receive a single Oscar nomination.
It's absolutely Best Picture material with one of the greatest performances ever given by Andy Griffith in his
screen debut. Budd Schulberg's writing is so good that it predicted the future of TV and radio personalities.
Evangelists can't be discounted, either, having been the first to achieve fame despite their dubious backgrounds.
Even it foretells the rise of Bill Clinton who happens to be an Arkansas native.
Eventually, two films were produced that capitalized the wave of hucksters to earn accolades:
Elmer Gantry and Network.
But make no mistake: Lonesome Rhodes was there first before Elmer Gantry and Howard Beale. Even Marcia Jeffries,
who's superlatively played by Patricia Neal, had realized she created a two-faced monster with too much power.
By listening to Norman Arbuthnot (Ron Perlman) explain how it is in
The Last Supper, you can quickly realize it's all for show. That took
so long for Lonesome Rhodes to reveal everything, but Marcia had to do it surreptitiously which makes
his character and thus the film all fascinating to watch. Of course, Mel Miller (Walter Matthau) was never
fooled for a minute, having seen right through him and his weird hyena laugh. The following is the genesis
of the short story written by Budd Schulberg:
"During their drunken exchange, the younger [Will] Rogers had expressed bitterness about his father, stating
that the elder Rogers 'was so full of shit, because he pretends he's just one of the people, just one of the
guys' whereas privately he associated only with high society."
All in all, A Face in the Crowd is a top three film of 1957.