Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd

July 4, 2004 by Dennis Baker 

Elia Kazan’s second collaboration with screenwriter Budd Schulberg after ON THE WATERFRONT (1954) is a corrosive attack on the ascendant medium of television. Andy Griffith, in his film debut, plays Lonesome Rhodes, a charismatic guitar-picking hillbilly who rises from radio performer to TV star to all-around celebrity and power-mad demagogue. Patricia Neal and Walter Matthau prove instrumental in building the Rhodes legend but are rudely disillusioned by the dark private side of their public hero. Hyperbolic, energetic, and in many ways positively prophetic, A FACE IN THE CROWD is both an indictment of the television business and a broader cautionary tale about the cult of personality in postwar America.

Based on the short story “Your Arkansas Traveler” by B. Schulberg. Producer: Elia Kazan. Screenplay: Budd Schulberg. Cinematographer: Harry Stradling. Editor: Gene Milford. Cast: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau, Lee Remick. 35mm, 125 min.

I am not one for old movies, but I saw this one in my acting class last year. It was good! It is Andy Griffith as you have never seen him. It is playing Friday August 20 2004 at 7:30PM at UCLA Film and Television Archive. I would see it again, but I am performing that night. So if you are not coming to my show that night (because you are coming another night), go see this movie.

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