A Face in the Crowd

viewed July 2, 2000 on VHS   Full Details

The 1950s just don't get enough credit when it comes to films of hard-hitting social criticism that also manage to be highly entertaining.  The reason may be that most of these films failed miserably in the box office, but have somehow kept a place in the hearts and minds of discerning film critics and historians.  These were courageous films that dared to find fault in a society driven by capitalist affluence and middle-class normalcy.  A Face in the Crowd, a commercial disaster when it was first released, is a visionary film, with incendiary insights into the power of the media that are pertinent now more than ever.  

Andy Griffith gives a very uncharacteristic but intensely charismatic turn as Lonesome Rhodes, a vagrant who with the help of a well meaning radio broadcaster becomes the voice of the American Everyman.  With his words of wisdom, spun Will Rogers' style, and his repertoire of catchy country and blues tunes, in short time he surges through Southern radio and television straight to national prominence, both as a pop entertainer and political pundit. Rhodes scores a major coup as the salesperson for Vitajex, a useless tonic pill that he remarkets as the Viagra of its time.  Rhodes becomes the media consultant to the next presidential candidate, with his own eyes set on the White House.

Griffith's performance is the major marvel of the film, as if he were the evil brother of his small town, fishin'-hole lovin' TV personality.  His character is obviously brilliant, in the same uncanny way as a wild animal preying through the jungle.  Rhodes' media instincts are in every way basic: he molds his persona with a paradoxical blend of working class values and primal sexual charisma.  His character seems to foretell the rising prominence of southern politicians, with their easy-going, easily marketable folk personalities, in the national political plain.  

Though the ending suffers from the heavy-handed didacticism that seems typical of most socially conscious films of its age, the impact of the film's truths still lingers. The direction, perhaps feeding off Griffith's primal energy, has a great spirit of fun driving throughout it, even as Griffith's character strays irredeemably from its randy wholesomeness to utter corruption.  Budd Schulberg's script still crackles with sharp cynical insights mixed with raunchy humor.  It touches on so many of the phenomenon engendered in the '50s whose influence have rippled into the present: media-driven politics a la Kennedy, sexually-driven pop culture a la Elvis, and it is fun to watch the whole way through.

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