Review of A Face in the Crowd (1957) by Max M — 18 Jul 2009

Director Elia Kazan and writer Budd Schulberg's masterpiece about power and image on television, still packs as much of a whallop today as it did upon it's release in 1957 - probably more so (excluding the fact that the film did lousy business on it's initial theatrical run).

Andy Griffith, in an astonishingly strong debut, plays Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, an obnoxious, hard-drinking, wanderer with a penchant for telling it like it is, who is plucked from obscurity by small-town radio personality Marcia Jeffries (the great Patricia Neal) for a local morning program. Rhodes' folksy demeanor and home-spun philosophies on life quickly make him a regional celebrity and eventually a national icon, which ultimately turns him into a power-mad megalomaniac.

With television still a fairly new technology of that time, it is quite amazing how strong an understanding that Kazan and Schulberg had of the power that it could and would have over the nation and the world. The swaying of public opinion; the fabrication of a televised image versus it's reality - which leads to the making or breaking of a politician. These were ideas that were hardly being considered at this point in time - now they are a way of life.