A Face in the Crowd

Plot synopsis:
In late 1950s America, a drunken drifter, Larry Rhodes (Andy Griffith), is plucked out of a rural Arkansas jail by Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) to sing on a radio show at station KGRK. His raw voice, folksy humor and personal charm bring about a strong local following, and he lands a television show in Memphis, Tennessee under the stage name "Lonesome" Rhodes, given to him on a whim by Jeffries.
With the support of the show's staff writer Mel Miller (Walter Matthau) and Jeffries, the charismatic Rhodes ad libs his way to Memphis area popularity. When he pokes fun at his sponsor, a mattress company, they initially pull their ads—but when his adoring audience revolts, burning mattresses in the street, the sponsor discovers that Rhodes' irreverent pitches actually increased sales by 55%, and returns to the air with a new awareness of his power of persuasion. Rhodes also begins an affair with Jeffries and proposes to her.
An ambitious office worker at the mattress company, Joey DePalma (Anthony Franciosa), puts together a deal for Rhodes to star in his own show in New York City. The sponsor is Vitajex, an energy supplement which he ingeniously pitches as a yellow pill which will make men energetic and sexually powerful. Rhodes' fame, influence and ego balloon. Behind the scenes, a woman (Kay Medford) turns up claiming to be his legitimate wife, he berates his staff, and betrays Jeffries by eloping with a 17-year-old drum majorette (Lee Remick) whose baton-twirling act he features on his next TV program. The onetime drifter and his new bride move into a luxury penthouse. When Rhodes says he will "give" 10% of his share to Jeffries, she furiously reminds Rhodes that "A Face In the Crowd" was her idea, saying that she should have always been an equal partner, and now she demands to be one, and also demands it all be on paper. Rhodes agrees.
Ultimately, Rhodes' ascent into fame and arrogance begins to turn on him. DePalma threatens to reveal Rhodes' own secrets if the affair with the young wife is made public, claiming that he and Rhodes are now part of the same corruption. Rhodes is stuck with his business partner, but cruelly dumps his cheating wife.
Rhodes arrives at Marcia's home, on a rainy evening, telling her that he has created an organization which he wants Marcia to be a part of called "FIGHTERS FOR FULLER." Rhodes tells Marcia that it was she who had made him a monster; in the middle of the night while Rhodes is sleeping, Marcia takes a taxi to the studio.
The final blow is delivered by the one who has loved Rhodes the most and been most injured by his selfishness: Marcia Jeffries. At the end of one of Rhodes' shows, the engineer cuts the microphone and leaves Jeffries alone in the control booth while the show's credits roll. Millions of viewers watch (in what initially is silence) their hero Rhodes smiling and seeming to chat amiably with the rest of the cast. In truth, he is mocking Fuller, then going off on a vitriolic rant about the stupidity of his TV audience. In the broadcast booth, Jeffries reactivates his microphone, sending his words and laughter over the air live. A sequence of television viewers is shown to react to Rhodes' description of them all as "idiots, morons, and guinea pigs".
Still unaware that his words have gone out over the air waves (with thousands of angry calls to local stations and the network headquarters), he departs the penthouse studio in a jovial mood and prophetically tells the elevator operator that he is going "all the way down". As the elevator numbers go down to 0, the show's popularity is plummeting as well. DePalma is already meeting with a young entertainer who could become Rhodes' replacement.
Rhodes arrives at his penthouse, where he was to meet with the nation's business and political elite. Instead he finds an empty space, except for a group of black butlers and servants, by whom, in desperation, he demands to be loved. When they fail to respond, Rhodes dismisses all of them. Rhodes calls the studio and Jeffries listens to him rant as he threatens to jump to his death from the penthouse. Jeffries, who has been silent, suddenly screams at Rhodes, telling him to jump and to get out of her, and everybody's, life.
Miller angrily dares her to face Rhodes and tell him the whole truth. They go to the penthouse and find Rhodes drunk and disconnected from reality. He shouts folksy platitudes and sings at the top of his lungs while his longtime flunky Beanie (Rod Brasfield) works an applause machine—Rhodes' own invention—to replace the cheers, applause, and laughter of the audience that has abandoned him. When he vows to get revenge on the TV studio's engineer, Jeffries admits it was she who betrayed him. She demands he never call her again, and Miller tells Rhodes that life as he knew it is over.
Miller bemoans the fact that Rhodes is not really destroyed at all. Both the public's and the network's need for Rhodes, will, "after a reasonable cooling off period" of remorse and contrition, he predicts, return Rhodes to the public eye, but never to his previous height of power and success. Rhodes ends up screaming from the window of his penthouse for Marcia Jeffries to come back as she leaves in a taxi with Miller, who assures her that Rhodes won't kill himself, while a Coca-Cola sign continuously flashes off and on.

Tags: romantic, satire, storytelling

Review:
I'm beginning to realize that in the 1950's there was a short period of time (1955-1960, say) where the world of Broadway and the theater, Television, and Hollywood came together, and the careers of people like Rod Serling, Sidney Lumet, and "A Face In the Crowd"'s own Budd Schulberg were started.
The best screenwriters in the movie business became innately aware of the increasing importance and influence of the new media form Television, while the best directors (like Elia Kazan), many of whom had directed numerous plays, knew how to cull the talents of Broadways hottest and most gifted performers, and at least for a couple of years, managed to get some awesome performances out of them.
So anyway, I suggest to all who can hear me and have a love enough for this film to want to see it given the presentation it deserves, that we all write to the Criterion Collection and other DVD distributing companies and ask, no DEMAND that a restored, cleaned up version of "A Face In the Crowd", with as many special features as can be rustled up, be released as soon as possible.
Directed by Elia Kazan, the political drama and satire of commercialism "A Face in the Crowd" is the story of Lonesome Rhodes (Griffith), a charismatic guitar-playing drifter who is discovered by radio executive Marcia Jeffries (the husky-voiced Patricia Neal) while in jail on a public drunk charge.
The film was far ahead of its time in its theme and telling, and Andy Griffith gives a blazing performance that rivals Burt Lancaster's in "Elmer Gantry" (for which Lancaster won an Oscar).
With a stellar supporting cast, including Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Tony Franciosa and a beautiful Lee Remick in her first film role, "A Face in the Crowd" is a must-see film, and should eradicate any opinion you may have that Griffith was only capable of his wholesome TV roles of Sheriff Taylor and Ben Matlock..
I just find it hard to believe that Andy Griffith received no kudos or award nominations for his role as Lonesome Rhodes in this movie.
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.
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.
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.
Anyway, re: politicians, "A face In the Crowd" was a prescient warning of the dangers of that new media, thus akin to those who subsequently capitalized on its propaganda value and the *science* of people's weakness of mistaking "image" for truth!But Kazan was not simply a great director; he was perhaps the most socially conscious of all Hollywood directors!!
And he was one of the great actors' directors; hence, why you never saw an Andy Griffith act like in this film again!
She finds the boisterous drunken drifter Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes (Andy Griffith) that plays guitar and tells jokes becoming the show a great success.
But he changes his personality with arrogant attitude toward his collaborators and disrespecting his audience in the beginning of his fall."A Face in the Crowd" is a masterpiece directed by Elia Kazan with a great story about the power of the television.
'Lonesome' Rhodes is portrayed by Andy Griffith in his first movie performance ever.
Andy Griffith later went to start in the very popular sitcom 'The Andy Griffith Show', and since his character in the sitcom was much different from his 'Lonesome' Rhodes character, he managed to show his amazing acting range – which makes makes his performance in A Face in the Crowd even more astonishing.
In this film "A Face In The Crowd" Kazan works very closely with Bud Schulberg, (he was the writer of this movie).
The film "A Face In The Crowd" is a spectacular movie, the acting is superb, the performers include; Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Tony Franciosa, Lee Remick,and Walter Mathiau (Mathiau's diatribe about the ratings gambit at the end of the film was philosophically gripping).
Demagoguery today sells like hot cakes and A Face In The Crowd presents a haunting take on how television serves as the perfect conduit for its propagation.The film revolves around a fast talking country boy named Lonesome Rhodes who goes on to become a television sensation who is sought after by advertisers, business magnates and politicians.
But she really scores with it as Griffith's forgotten wife who even when tipsy knows exactly how much of a piece she can get on his celebrity.A Face In The Crowd is written by Budd Schulberg who along with Elia Kazan were friendly witnesses at the House Un American Activities Committee.
I won't reveal it, but think back to that much imitated ending from another Elia Kazan masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire.A Face In The Crowd is a very relevant film today considering the influence some of these pious country types have in the religious right of today..
Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes of "A Face in the Crowd" starts out as a loud, brashly charming ex-convict, to small-time radio celebrity, to beloved TV star, to a powerful media conglomerate.
"Andy Griffith made his stunning movie debut as 'Lonesome Rhodes', a big ol' teddy bear whose meteoric rise to TV fame is paralleled by his plunge into booze, sex and political corruption.
Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Anthony Franciosa and film-debuting Lee Remick are other faces you'll remember in this captivating 'Crowd'." As usual, Kazan elicits memorable performances from his cast.
Neilan was best known for his collaborations with Mary Pickford - like "Stella Maris" (1918) and "Daddy-Long-Legs" (1919) - his presence as "A Face in the Crowd" is an unexpected, but welcome, anomaly.This film must have seemed overblown in the relatively quaint 1950s, but time has increased its worth - along with a starring performance elevated in hindsight (when you compare Mr. Griffith's scummy "Larry Rhodes" to his lovable "Andy Taylor").
Although "Oscar" and others were then giving director Kazan the back of their hand, it should be noted that, even before moving to TV's "Mayberry", Griffith was awarded "Best Actor" of 1957 by "Film Daily" (also, Kazan and the film were listed respectfully, at #3 and #7, for the year)."A Face in the Crowd" is spottily brilliant; and, mainly, it falls apart during Act III.
Unfortunately, the megalomaniacs this film portended are no longer stopped by inappropriate behavior.******** A Face in the Crowd (5/28/57) Elia Kazan, Budd Schulberg ~ Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Lee Remick.
A FACE IN THE CROWD can proudly count itself as one of those few.Featuring the one-two punch of a dazzling script by Budd ("What Makes Sammy Run?") Schulberg, based on his own short story, and directed by the controversial and monumentally talented Elia Kazan ("On The Waterfront", "A Streetcar Named Desire"), the K-O blow is landed with a shocking jab to the solar plexus, from someone the audience may have considered a very unlikely source: Andy Griffith.
I would add that (since I'm writing this in March 2017) it seems to be art predicting life, because the character and story of Lonesome Rhodes is so much like the rise to power of entertainer, Donald Trump.
Much has been made of how Andy Griffith supposedly played against character here, but if one analyzes his later TV role as Matlack, the seemingly cuddly but razor sharp southern lawyer, one can easily see the similarities.In any event, his performance in this stellar movie was Oscar-worthy.
Elia Kazan directed this prescient satire of television and politics that stars Andy Griffith(his film debut) as guitar playing hobo 'Lonesome' Rhodes, who is in and out of jail when he meets Marcia Jeffries(played by Patricia Neal) a network executive who is amused by his easy charm and extroverted nature, and puts him first on the radio, then television, where he becomes an overnight sensation, and uses his growing influence with the public to gather more power and riches, which alarms Marcia's colleague Mel Miller(played by Walter Matthau).
Way ahead of its time in terms of how an entertainer(or politician!) can manipulate and fool a gullible public to do and believe what they want, though the more astute viewer will see right through Rhodes' obvious act and superficial charm, and Andy Griffith lays on the act a bit too much after awhile, to the picture's detriment.
I doubt if anyone who sees Patricia Neal and Griffith can forget the power of this Elia Kazan film..
Alec Guiness won Best Actor for his marvelous role in "River Kwai" -- but Andy Griffith certainly gave an equally power performance in "Crowd", and did not even receive a nomination.
Deserves wider recognition, because as a study of power and populism it's up there with "Citizen Kane".No, Elia Kazan didn't have Orson Welles' dazzling technical brilliance (though there's a wonderful natural feel of being onstage with the performers throughout), but he was very much an actor's director and brings some spectacular performances to the screen here.I'm a child of the early '60s, so I grew up with The Andy Griffith Show, Mayberry RFD, and Matlock.
Andy Griffith is Lonesome Rhodes, just "A Face in the Crowd" in this biting 1957 film brilliantly directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg.
The film also provides an early role for pretty Lee Remick, as a drum majorette who catches Lonesome's eye in Texas.As the put-upon, codependent Marcia Jeffries, Patricia Neal gives a beautiful, anguished performance as a woman who loves a bad man in spite of herself.The most interesting scenes have to do with a product Lonesome is hawking - Viajex, which for all the world sounds like an early form of Viagra.
Uproariously Funny -- But Not Because It Wants To Be. A vicious, criminal southern drifter with a warm, friendly singing style becomes a TV and radio star with disturbing political ambitions in this overblown and melodramatic fifties satire.Two things spoil this ambitious and admittedly still relevant dark comedy about the negative power of media celebrities.First of all, whatever you've heard from other reviewers, Andy Griffith is terrible -- and I mean William Shatner terrible -- as the psychotic, power-mad hillbilly, Lonesome Rhoads.
For her sake, I give this movie four stars.A FACE IN THE CROWD is a magnificent train wreck -- the satire is crude, the underlying snobbery is repellent, but the career-crushing grandstand performance by Andy Griffiths makes it a lot of fun..
That would be Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd, a pitch-perfect story about a small-town, guitar-playing wanderer who is discovered by a little radio station and soon is hitting the big time.
Walter Matthau also makes good use of his screen time as a level-headed TV writer, and Anthony Franciosa slicks up the screen as an even more ambitious manager who is taking Larry to the top.Once again, Elia Kazan shows his enormous talent of working with actors as well as condoning their actions and feelings onto the screen.
It's been done before, but not as masterfully as in "A Face in the Crowd".Before his immortal TV sitcom role, Andy Griffith gives a volatile performance as Larry Rhodes, a guitar-playing hobo who has an undefeatable taste for women and booze.
And finally, egotism, and Andy Griffith turns in an indelible performance as "Lonesome Rhodes".A drunken bum from Arkansas who gets a shot at being a radio commentator.
In watching "A Face in the Crowd," one should note that the next picture he made was "No Time for Sergeants," with a character as good, friendly, selfless and innocent as this movie's Lonesome Rhodes presents the total opposite.
The urbane lifestyle of Hollywood presented no obstacles for him, and he was apparently completely at-home in this locale, very different from his "roots." But however much Schulberg took Lonesome Rhodes from actual personalities - and however much from his own talented, fertile imagination - this character and Andy Griffith's marvelous performance are classic.
A FACE IN THE CROWD (1958) *** 1/2 Andy Griffith gives the performance of his career as a homespun country bum/bumpkin whose unique gift of gab captures the eyes and ears of producer Patricia Neal who makes him a national treasure and after his meteoric rise on television realizes all the possibilities of creating a monster run amok.
Yes, it presages such later explorations of television as "Network." But these segments seem dated and heavy-handed.The early scenes are beautiful:  The always divine Patricia Neal discovers Andy Griffith -- absolutely brilliant throughout the movie -- in prison and, sort of a la John and Alan Lomax, records his singing and then puts him on her local radio program.He gets a bit of a swelled head, she falls for him.
All this is fine.Then it gets overblown and out of hand.The character Walter Matthau plays is extremely annoying, with his ability to cut through the hype and his own pious speeches, which seem to be speaking for the writer.Then, the final scenes, in which the Griffith character is undone and wants to be taken back into the arms of Neal, who is still ambivalent about whether t take him, are powerful.Though I abhor censorship and cutting, and don't therefore advocate that this ever, ever be done, the movie would be better if it were about half its length, with the critique  of America and Americans excised from its middle..
Andy Griffith gives a perfect performance as Lonesome Rhodes.
But as time goes by, his burgeoning greed and egotism begin to take over, possibly irrevocably.Griffith turned in a top-notch performance here, as did supporting players Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Lee Remick and Walter Matthau.
The cast was top notch, headed by Patricia Neal and Anthony Franciosa.Yet it was the casting of then relative "newcomer" Andy Griffith in the lead role of Lonesome Rhodes that was the pivotal character in this film.
The great Patricia Neal plays a local radio producer who finds Lonesome Rhodes - the Andy Griffith character in the local drunk tank.
Using the direction of the infamous Elia Kazan, and words by Budd Schulberg, "A Face in the Crowd" transformed from a personal struggle with fame into a political statement of power.
Walter Matthau and Anthony Franciosa have capably performed secondary roles but the film belongs to Andy Griffith.
***SPOILERS*** Years ahead of its time movie in how the American public can be manipulated, like it is today, by a smooth talking demigod who uses the electronic media of radio & televising to fool it into thinking that he or she, with women now so prominent in US politics,is the greatest kindest and most of all righteous person that ever walked the face of the universe.
That's until feeling invincible as well as all powerful he slips up and is exposed like the main character of the movie Larry Lonesome Rhodes, Andy Griffith, and forced against his will to face the hard reality, or Karma, of his sleazy and immoral actions.Discovered at a jail house drunk tank by local radio personality Marcia Jeffries, Patricia Neal,in rural Arkansas the home of the former Prsident of the United States William Jefferson "Slick Willie" Clinton Larry right away with his boyish good looks so impressed her in his folksy delivery and skill of playing the guitar the Marcia quickly saw in him a combination of a Will Rogers and Hank Williams and puts him on the radio as soon as he dried himself out.
Not Just A Good Ole Boy. An early warning about the power and peril of mass media, "A Face In The Crowd" introduces us to Lonesome Larry Rhodes (Andy Griffith), a drifter who becomes a demagogue.
It's a fine, funny movie with powerhouse performances, if undercut by a moralizing tone.Rhodes, you see, is beloved by millions for his folksy ways, but we know better right away when we are introduced to him in an Arkansas jailhouse where Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) is trying to round up participants for her "Face In The Crowd" radio feature.
This steam roller of a movie may just leave you wondering why no one ever seems to talk about it or remember it all these years later....Elia Kazan made one of those films that feels like it could have been made today with few changes.
Marcia Jeffries, (Patricia Neal) meets this drifter in jail named Lonesome Rhodes, (Andy Griffith) because she is a radio personality who wants to visit the jail and find some local talent and a human interest story to put on the air.
The movie was an adaptation of Budd Schulberg's story, "The Arkansas Traveler." Andy had the part of the lead character, Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes.
I love to watch Andy Griffith work the Lonesome Rhodes character along with everybody else in the movie.
I saw this film for the first time about 7 years ago and was blown away by the amazing performance by Andy Griffith.