A Face in the Crowd Movie Review

"This whole country's just like my flock of sheep! Hillbillies, hausfraus - everybody that's got to jump when someone else blows a whistle! They're mine!" This quote taken from the mouth of main character "Lonesome" Rhodes mirrors the idea that many Americans have of our politicians and leaders when it comes to the mindset we feel they all share and is also the main theme of this movie. People need or have someone that tells them how to live their lives and how they should feel about certain topics of discussion. This is exactly how Lonesome sees Americans (sheep) and uses that to manipulate their emotions and thoughts as he increasingly hungers for more control and more power throughout the film.

This 1957 film A Face In The Crowd stars a well known actor by the name of Andy Griffith who plays Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, a drunk hobo found sleeping in a jail cell with nothing but his guitar and a hangover. Through the story, Lonesome becomes a TV show success for his unorthodox methods of humor and his "telling it how it is" mentality. Some of the aspects of Lonesome's personality such as his ridiculing and mocking of corporate sponsors is believed to have been based on that of the 1950's CBS radio-TV star Arthur Godfrey who was synonymous for the same type of kidding of his shows sponsors.

To give you some background to the story, it begins with a radio journalist, Marcia Jeffries who visits a local jail to give what she calls the "A Face in the crowd" portion of her show where she interviews regular, everyday people to give her audience some true to life stories and situations. This jail cell is where she finds Larry Rhodes who is willing to play his guitar and sing on the show only if he is promised to get out of jail the following morning. His song becomes popular quickly among listeners and shortly after he is asked to be on the show again. His popularity grows so rapidly that pretty soon he find himself with a TV show simply telling it how it is in his own style. His acceptance and popularity quickly puts him on top of the charts and the surge of power goes to his head. He starts to want to control everything around him, including politicians. But does this power hungry man of television become too much for his country or does his own greed become too much for himself?

I think this movie was definitely "two thumbs up" for its time period, but not for the year 2006. It lags the necessary appeal to be highly ranked in the movies of today. Some of my biggest problems with the movie is the repetition that the characters have, for example, Lonesome's obnoxiously loud laugh that made me want to choke him from the second he started doing it. Another example would be the character Marcia Jeffries', played by Patricia Neal, inability to deal with situations, it got to the point where it actually frustrated me. Aside from the characters that troubled me, I found the movie itself was repetitive in that it seemed to continually move forward in the same manner. What I mean is, the plot would just keep with Lonesome wanting this and that so he would get it while hurting someone in the process, then that repeats again and again but in a slightly different manner each time. It just seemed like the movie did not have enough change in it to keep my interest. As a viewer in the year 2006 watching a movie made in 1957, the type of character that Lonesome Rhodes is is still very relatable. I personally believe that there are many figure heads and leaders that need and want the kind of power Rhodes got and love to pull the strings of the puppets that are the people. I thought the plot of the movie was great, but the film simply lacked the ability to keep my interest. The idea that a jobless, homeless drunk can become a super power among entertainment and politics is genius, showing how a man with nothing that needs nothing can become so greedy with power and fame, this encompasses the idea of why so many people of power are easily corrupted. I think that the movie should definitely be watched by many, but perhaps a remake of the movie would make it more of a movie of today's caliber and relevance would be for the best. I give the movie a two and a half out of five rating.