A Face in the Crowd (1957) Review

 

A Face in the Crowd (1957)

A Face in the Crowd follows Marcia, who interviews an inmate named Lonesome Rhodes, only for his personality & power to grow with each subsequent appearance on the airwaves, making him a man who speaks for the people..or does he?

This is an extremely prophetic movie, in that the themes and character of “Lonesome” Larry Rhodes oddly rivals that of certain people today, speaking the ‘truth’ and being the voice of the common man, while really being a self absorbed personality who doesn’t believe half of the common man garbage he spews out on a daily basis. He takes advantage of his ignorant and downtrodden fanbase because he knows he could sell them manure straight from a cows ass and they would eat it out of the palm of his hand.

A character progression that really caught me off guard at first because even I was caught up in the rhetoric and how real this felt for the time, with him giving even minorities a platform that was uplifting and revolutionary. But it confirms the age old saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Here is man we root for and want to make it big and want him to get the girl in Marcia. As soon as he gets that though, a massive question is posed. Has he really been like this all along, or has the power changed him? His downfall though is poetic, with through all of this, it’s a hot mic that catches the real him, something that has happened to many of the modern people this film has gone on to foretell.

We get a solid cast, featuring Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau, Patricia Neal, and Andy Griffith. Griffith really captures the essence of Lonesome, already being viewed as a man for the people, and so his turn as the boisterous TV personality is quite fitting. Neal also brought such a giddy hope, with her broken Marcia a stark turn from the innocent young women we met at the beginning.

A Face in the Crowd, directed by the legendary Elia Kazan, is a movie that for the time, was groundbreaking in it’s social themes of the common man, while pulling the curtain back on the con-artists of the airwaves who could influence people with the snap of a finger, a theme that is all too relevant today.

8.1/10