You can’t say we weren’t warned. Nearly 60 years before the
disastrous 2016 presidential election, Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd warned of a big-mouthed, small-minded,
adoration-addicted TV personality who would catch the ears of middle and
Southern America with his off-the-cuff babble to ultimately help push a
conservative agenda.
The difference between real-life clown Trump and fictional
one Lonesome Rhodes is that Rhodes did not get his start as an utterly immoral
monster with a silver spoon in his mouth. In fact, he gets his start as a
penniless drifter happy to be left alone, take shelter in jail cells, and whack
his guitar and wail some pretty funky country-blues numbers. When the host of A Face in the Crowd—a radio show
spotlighting regular folk—discovers Rhodes at a county jail, she sees bigger opportunities
for his out-sized personality. His own radio show follows, and when he gets his own
TV program, his first act is to put an African American woman on screen—a
radical act in 1957 recognized by his show’s viewers—to solicit donations to
rebuild her burned home. Such flashes of benevolence melt as Rhodes metamorphoses
from popular media star to populist demagogue, his appeal is recognized as a
potential political tool, and his initially obnoxious behavior turns deplorable
in a way that should resonate intensely with viewers tuned into the political
environment of today.
The casting of Andy Griffith as Lonesome Rhodes will also
strike contemporary viewers differently than it probably did in 1957 before Griffith
become the beloved star of his own beloved series. Leering, slovenly, boorish,
nasty, opportunistic, and shrill, Rhodes is everything Sheriff Andy Taylor is
not, and Griffith is stunning in the role. Patricia Neal is even more
impressive as Marcia Jeffries, the radio personality who leads Rhodes’ career
into a dark place and comes to deeply regret doing so. A short yelp she expels
after hitting bottom with Rhodes is probably the realest thing you’ll witness
in a pre-sixties film.
Aside from its prescient socio-political observations and
great performances, A Face in the Crowd is
also a terrific source of surprises. Who knew Andy Griffith had so much soul?
Who knew that Lee Remick (who has a brief role as Rhodes’s young bride) was
such an expert baton twirler? Who knew that something as psychedelic as the
Vitajex commercial sequence could exist in a movie with such a Rock-A-Billy
aesthetic?
A Face on the Crowd has
a lot going for it, and considering its contemporary political relevance, it is
a smart choice for the Criterion Collection, which presents the film with
clarity, strong contrast, and a healthy grain. There are only three significant
supplements, but they are all reasonably substantial. A new interview with Elia
Kazan-biographer Ron Briley largely deals with the dichotomy between Kazan’s
infamous decision to cooperate with HUAC without regret and the fact that he
made some of the most socially conscious films of his time (Face in the Crowd screenwriter Budd
Schulberg also sang for HUAC). In another interview, Andy Griffith biographer
Evan Dalton Smith provides a look at the film’s star from his early career as a
stand-up comic to his superstardom on The
Andy Griffith Show. A half-hour documentary on the main feature called Facing the Past— which includes
interviews with Griffith, Neal (the only talking head who does not defend all
that sleazy cooperation with HUAC), and Schulberg—has also been ported over
from Warner Brothers’ 2005 DVD.
