A Face in the Crowd (1957)

An Arkansas drifter becomes an overnight media sensation. As he becomes drunk with fame and power, will he ever be exposed as the fraud he has become?

Director:

Elia Kazan

Writers:

Budd Schulberg (story), Budd Schulberg (screenplay)

Stars:

Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Andy Griffith	...	Larry 'Lonesome' Rhodes
Patricia Neal	...	Marcia Jeffries
Anthony Franciosa	...	Joey DePalma
Walter Matthau	...	Mel Miller
Lee Remick	...	Betty Lou Fleckum
Percy Waram	...	Gen. Haynesworth
Paul McGrath	...	Macey
Rod Brasfield	...	Beanie
Marshall Neilan	...	Sen. Worthington Fuller
Alexander Kirkland	...	Jim Collier
Charles Irving	...	Mr. Luffler
Howard Smith	...	J.B. Jeffries
Kay Medford	...	First Mrs. Rhodes
Big Jeff Bess	...	Sheriff Big Jeff Bess
Henry Sharp	...	Abe Steiner

Storyline

"A Face in the Crowd" charts the rise of a raucous hayseed named Lonesome Rhodes from itinerant Ozark guitar picker to local media rabble-rouser to TV superstar and political king-maker. Marcia Jeffries is the innocent Sarah Lawrence girl who discovers the great man in a back-country jail and is the first to fall under his spell.

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Plot Keywords:

television | politician | personality | crowd | politics | 

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Taglines:

POWER! He loved it! He took it raw in big gulpfuls...he liked the taste, the way it mixed with the bourbon and the sin in his blood!

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Genres:

Drama | Music

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Marlon Brando turned down the role of Lonesome Rhodes.

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Goofs

When introducing his new bride, Lonesome's jacket goes from being buttoned, to being open, and back to being buttoned again.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Earl Wilson: Oh, Miss Jeffries!
[as he jogs over to the KGRK network's station wagon]
Earl Wilson: Good morning Marcia! Well, I think we have just what you're lookin' for; we always get a good haul on the Fourth of July.
[in reference of her periodic head-hunting for local broadcasting talent on her radio show: A Face in the Crowd]
Marcia Jeffries: Good! Come on, let's go.
[they then drive over to the town jail]

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Connections

Referenced in What's My Line?: Lee Remick (1963)

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Soundtracks

Mama Guitar
(1957) (uncredited)
Music by Tom Glazer
Lyrics by Budd Schulberg and Tom Glazer
Sung by Andy Griffith

User Reviews

Skewering Indictment of Television Comes Blazing Thanks to Peak Work from Kazan, Schulberg, Neal and Griffith

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.

Details

Official Sites:

Warner Bros.

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 June 1957 (USA)

Also Known As:

Budd Schulberg's A Face in the Crowd

Filming Locations:

240 Central Park South, New York, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Newtown Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

126 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1