Nathan's Movie Collection: A Face in the Crowd (1957)
"I'll say one thing for him, he's got the courage of his ignorance."
Note: Most of these movies have been around for a considerable amount of time, so assume there will be spoilers all throughout. Also, it’s impossible to talk about this movie without bringing up Donald Trump, so just know that there will be mention of him. What I’m trying to say is, everyone be cool and don’t send me any weird comments or messages. One Substack account is not going to destroy your love or hatred of the former President.
I’ve thought it over for a minute. I am open to healthy and respectful dialogue, so please send your messages to NathanTalksTrumpWithEveryone@hotmail.com. I haven’t registered it yet, but you can get ahead and get a jump on it if you want.
This movie comes from one of my favorite genres: The Sweaty Bummer 1. Other examples of the Sweaty Bummer include Goodfellas, Boogie Nights, and most recently Babylon. It’s usually a dark comedy where the first half is everyone having fun and riding high2 and the last half is everything going down the tubes3. As you can see from my last two selections, I do like movies with happy or at least hopeful endings. But sometimes, a downer ending is the best possible conclusion.
The only drugs in this movie are power and Vitajex, a male enhancement product. Also, whatever Andy Griffith was on. The movie is A Face in the Crowd.
I have my buddy Chris to thank for turning me onto this one. When I decided to try watching more Films, he was the one putting older titles on my radar. He gave me his copy of Le Samourai, which is the best way to get twenty-something white dudes into foreign films. Thank you, Chris, for opening my mind and further enabling this hobby.
A Face in the Crowd starts with a radio journalist, Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal), finding a drunk named Larry Rhodes (Andy Griffith) in a jail where she’s recording a show segment. She nicknames him “Lonesome” Rhodes before he makes up a song on the spot and sings it into the mic, blowing everyone away with his raw energy. This leads to him getting his own radio show, which gets so popular it leads him to television. He’s a folksy, energetic performer who isn’t afraid to stick it to businessmen and politicians. If you can believe it, fame and success do not make him a better person. Chaos ensues.
When I finally got around to A Face in the Crowd, Chris had sold me on watching Andy Griffith play against type. I grew up watching The Andy Griffith Show episodes on VHS, so I spent most of the movie with my jaw on the floor. It was also so prescient about the world today, I stopped the film to comment on its foresight to my wife. Here’s a transcript of our conversation:
NATHAN: Ashley, I’m watching Andy Griffith in 1957, but I might as well be watching Donald Trump in 2016!
ASHLEY: I can’t hear you. I’m in the kitchen.
[NATHAN stands up and walks into the kitchen where ASHLEY is using a very loud cake mixer]
NATHAN: I said I’m watching-[unplugs the cake mixer]-I said I’m watching Andy Griffith in 1957, but I might as well be watching Donald Trump in 2016! Elia Kazan directs from a script by Budd Schulberg that basically sees into the future! Though this film may have been released nearly sixty years ago, it has a lot to say about our world today–
[NATHAN runs away as ASHLEY throws the mixer at his head4]
The point I’m making is that as soon as Trump became inevitable, people familiar with A Face in the Crowd were tripping over themselves to point out the similarities between him and Lonesome Rhodes. There’s been a lot of ink spilled about this movie, Trump, and media criticism in general by very smart people so before I continue, I’ll point to two of them. There’s Jake Tapper with “Why Americans Fall for Grifters.” Then there’s April Wolfe who wrote the essay for the movie’s Criterion release. Both excellent.
Most of the fun comes from watching Andy Griffith use his charm and wit for evil5. It’s a “Little Guy taking on the System” story where the Little Guy is a narcissistic sociopath. These movies usually start with an idealistic protagonist who is slowly corrupted throughout the movie. What I like about A Face in the Crowd is that we know from the start that Lonesome Rhodes is a scumbag. But he’s a charming scumbag, so he’s going to get pretty far before anyone wises up.
While Trump was on the brain the first time I watched this, he’s not the reason I keep coming back to this movie. I’m a preacher’s kid so growing up I saw this kind of lunatic over and over. A firebrand preacher who “tells it like it is”6 and knows how to whip a crowd into a frenzy. I was a shy kid, so I was fascinated by the courage it took to work a crowd like that. Now that I’m older, I realize it was less “courage” and more “unbridled ego.”
(I should stop and say that while there are a lot of preachers who would’ve done us all a favor by going into standup comedy instead, I also grew up around and continue to spend time with ones who take their faith seriously and are incredible church leaders and speakers. My parents genuinely loved pastoring and teaching and were never focused on becoming celebrities or building a church empire. Alright, back to the movie.)
While the credits are rolling over the end of his talk show with the mics muted, Rhodes starts trashing his loyal viewers, something we’ve seen him do earlier in the movie behind closed doors (“They think like I do, only they’re even more stupid than I am..”). Marcia runs into the sound booth and turns the sound on, broadcasting his rant to all his loyal viewers.
There’s a great sequence where Rhodes is going down the elevator after his show. As the elevator is descending to the ground floor, it’s intercut with scenes of advertisers calling to pull their endorsements. Get it? The elevator is going down. Just like his career. As this is happening, we see his old manager meeting with a hot new talent named Barry Mills, played by a young Rip Torn(!), who comes off as less volatile than Rhodes, which is a very funny thing to say about a character played by Rip Torn.
By the time we get to the end of the movie, Rhodes is drunk in his penthouse throwing a tantrum and threatening to jump, something you’d expect from a bully that’s finally been cornered. Walter Matthau plays Mel, a staff writer on Rhodes’ show who starts sounding the alarm on Rhodes early on. He has this amazing monologue after Rhodes defiantly declares that he isn’t through:
Suppose I tell you exactly what's gonna happen to you. You're gonna be back on television. Only it won't be quite the same as it was before. There'll be a reasonable cooling-off period and then somebody will say: "Why don't we try him again in an inexpensive format. People's memories aren't too long." And you know, in a way, he'll be right. Some of the people will forget, and some of them won't. Oh, you'll have a show. Maybe not the best hour or, you know, top 10. Maybe not even in the top 35. But you'll have a show. It just won't be quite the same as it was before. Then a couple of new fellas will come along. And pretty soon, a lot of your fans will be flocking around them. And then one day, somebody'll ask: “Whatever happened to, a, whatshisname? You know, the one who was so big. The number-one fella a couple of years ago. He was famous. How can we forget a name like that? Oh by the way, have you seen Barry, a, Mills? I think he's the greatest thing since Will Rogers.”
One of Rhodes’ hangers-on, Beanie, is playing an applause machine in the background of the ending scene as Rhodes is ranting and storming around the penthouse. He pushes the waitstaff around and because they’re black, he calls them something I don’t plan on typing here7. It's the only time in the movie where he says anything like this, but it's not the most surprising reveal that he's also a racist. It's one of those things you kind of assumed the whole time.
When I started working on this, I was going to write that the ending feels a little too unrealistic because these creeps never get punished that swiftly. Then the Dilbert guy lost 80% of his income after sharing his thoughts on race relations in America. Even if Scott Adams turns it around, this will always be the funniest thing he’s ever done.
On the one hand, it’s a little cathartic watching Lonesome Rhodes [car honk] around and find out. On the other hand, these guys are a dime a dozen, so there’s always one next line ready to take over.
A Face in the Crowd, ladies and gentlemen!
I use the word “Sweaty” because the characters are usually high out of their skulls making terrible decisions. It’s a bad name and I’m open to other suggestions.
Mainly because of the drugs.
Whatever the reason, drugs are involved.
Just for the record, I’m just joking around. It was a blender.
This is part of another genre I like to call Obsessive Weirdos. The other movies for me are Taxi Driver, All That Jazz, The King of Comedy, and There Will Be Blood. I don’t like what this suggests about me.
This will always get under my skin. I don’t think there’s anything noble in being a person proclaims to “tell it like it is.” There’s a weight that comes with saying something blunt that will hurt someone’s feelings and I’m more impressed with the people who hold that power carefully rather than assault everyone they meet with it. I think if we get these stubborn a-holes to “tell it like it is” to a mental health professional, we might be able to stop global warming.
Important to note: all the black characters in this movie are shoe shiners, maids, waitstaff, etc. and barely have any lines. While the movie is unquestionably on their side while Rhodes is abusing them, it doesn’t really hold up when you look at it next to how they’re depicted in the rest of the movie. I’m well aware that I’m critiquing a movie from 1957. There’s a lot of reasons why it’s important to mention these details when discussing the movie and we can talk about it together over at NathanTalksTrumpWithEveryone@hotmail.com.
Never heard of this one. Gonna give it a watch.. On what you call sweaty bummers, i recently rewatched American Made but i had to turn it off half way in, can't stand when the good times stop rollin'.