A Face in the Crowd (1957) is a motion picture starring Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal and Walter Matthau, directed by Elia Kazan. The screenplay was written by Budd Schulberg, based on his short story "Your Arkansas Traveler".
The story centers on a drifter named Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes (Griffith, in a role starkly different from the amiable "Sheriff Andy Taylor" persona), who is discovered by the producer (Neal) of a small-market radio program in rural northeast Arkansas.
In 2008, A Face in the Crowd was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
In late 1950s America, a time during which television was rapidly replacing radio as the most popular entertainment medium, Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, while coarse and abusive in private, possesses a charm that quickly endears him to rural listeners after Marcia Jeffries (Neal), a small-town radio personality, discovers him in the county jail of the fictional town of Pickett in northeast Arkansas and lands him a radio show.
A talent scout invites him to appear on television in Memphis, Tennessee, where Rhodes is introduced to Mel Miller (Matthau), a bookish Vanderbilt University graduate who writes his scripts. Rhodes makes a name for himself by insulting his sponsor — to the delight of his adoring audience. Rhodes's sponsor, whose company sells mattresses, relents in canceling the show when he discovers that Rhodes's antics increased sales by 55%.
An opportunistic "office boy" (portrayed by Anthony Franciosa) acts as an agent and lands Rhodes a contract in New York City, where he stars in his own national television program and becomes the national TV spokesman for Vitajex, an innocuous dietary supplement. A frenetic montage of Rhodes's hyperbolic ads for Vitajex, suggesting it has Viagra-like powers, is one of the film's most memorable sequences, highlighting the presumed gullibility of the American public to a persuasive con-artist.
Rhodes' fame, influence and ego grow. He is called in as an adviser by national political campaigns, rudely instructing candidates how to gain the public's trust and suggesting himself for a Cabinet-level post. Rhodes uses his TV program to give exposure to his presidential candidate of choice, while mocking the man in private to his various sycophants.
Jeffries increasingly feels betrayed, first when discovering that he was not yet technically divorced from his first wife, then when Rhodes elopes with a teenaged baton twirler. Miller intends to write a book showing the world what kind of man Rhodes really is.
In the tradition of classical tragedy, Rhodes is undone by Jeffries, who, despite building his stardom and falling in love with him, brings down his kingdom. Rhodes is shown smiling and waving to the camera while in the control room, Jeffries and the technical staff hear him mock his viewers as "idiots", "morons" and "guinea pigs". Aware she helped create the monster, Jeffries pushes switches that throw Rhodes's comments on the air. Furious fans call the network. In a symbolic moment, an unaware Rhodes's popularity is shown plummeting as he rides an elevator going down.
The story ends with a meltdown at Rhodes's penthouse apartment, as Jeffries admits she betrayed him and Matthau predicts his future: that Rhodes is finished. An uncredited Rip Torn is shown as "Barry Mills", the next Lonesome Rhodes waiting in the wings. Rhodes ends up threatening to kill himself and pleading for Jeffries to come back.
Real-life inspirations
It is possible that Schulberg built the musical side of the Rhodes character on that of Tennessee Ernie Ford who, in the wake of his hit record "Sixteen Tons", had a popular weekly half-hour program on NBC called "The Ford Show". Despite a lengthy struggle with alcohol, Ford's personality was nothing like the manipulative, megalomanaical Larry Rhodes.
Other aspects of the Rhodes personality were clearly inspired by 1940s and 50s CBS radio-TV star Arthur Godfrey. The scene where Rhodes, on TV in Memphis, spoofs his sponsor echoes Godfrey's reputation for kidding his. Godfrey claimed he would not advertise products he did not believe in, and routinely ridiculed both the sponsor's stodgy ad copy and occasionally, the company executives. The more Godfrey did this, the more sales increased. Arthur Godfrey's immense popularity began to deflate following his 1953 on-air firing of singer Julius LaRosa, which opened the gradual exposure of his less-lovable, often controlling off-camera personality. Though he remained on radio, TV and even films for several years afterward, Godfrey's mass appeal and popularity were never the same. At one point Rhodes telegraphs Jeffries that he's going to miss a broadcast and requests Godfrey fill in for him.
Rhodes' mocking of his audience, assuming he was off the air when in fact his audio was fed back onto the airwaves, is taken from an alleged incident in which a children's program host on New York's radio station WOR, "Uncle Don", is said to have thought he was off the air. He supposedly said, "This is Uncle Don, saying good night (good night). We're off. Good, that will hold the little bastards." However, despite repeated inquiries and research, there is no proof that this incident ever took place.[1]
The film marked the debut of actress Lee Remick, who plays a teenage baton-twirling champion from Arkansas, one of Rhodes' love interests whom he marries instead of Marcia Jeffries. To underscore the sway of television media in America, Kazan cleverly incorporated several cameos by popular "talking heads", including: Sam Levenson, John Cameron Swayze, Mike Wallace, Earl Wilson, and Walter Winchell.
Some have suggested that the Rhodes character may have been inspired in part by John Henry Faulk, a country comedian who was long blacklisted as a result of the "Red Scare". Schulberg, however, has admitted basing a significant part of the character's facade on that of Will Rogers, adding a distinctively un-Rogers-like level of amorality and cruelty.
In Richard Schickel's 2006 biography of director Elia Kazan, Schulberg explained that he had met Will Rogers, Jr., who was running for Congress. The younger Rogers told Schulberg how his father socialized with the very establishment types he mocked in his public pronouncements, adding that his father was actually a political reactionary in private life.
Two cast members had genuine ties to the country music field. Big Jeff Bess, who portrayed the Sheriff, was a Nashville-based country music performer on radio station WLAC there, leading a group called "Big Jeff and His Radio Playboys", who recorded for Dot Records and included guitarist Grady Martin. Bess was, for a time, the husband of Tootsie Bess, longtime owner of Nashville's famous downtown bar Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, a hangout for country entertainers.
Rod Brasfield was a popular Grand Ole Opry comedian in the 1950s, known for his own performances and onstage comic banter with legendary Opry comic Minnie Pearl.
Cast
Critical reception
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave the film a mixed review. Though he applauded Griffith's performance ("Mr. Griffith plays him with thunderous vigor..."[2]), at the same time, he felt that the character overpowered the rest of the cast and the story. "As a consequence, the dominance of the hero and his monstrous momentum ... eventually become a bit monotonous when they are not truly opposed."[2] Crowther found Rhodes "highly entertaining and well worth pondering when he is on the rise", but considered the ending "inane".[2]
Cultural references
Keith Olbermann of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann often refers to fellow opinion broadcaster Glenn Beck as "Lonesome Rhodes".
References
External links
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Films directed by Elia Kazan |
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