A Face in the Crowd
This program is presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive screening series From John Doe to Lonesome Rhodes: Anti-fascism From the Archive. Learn more at cinema.ucla.edu.
“What do I get out of this?” asks Andy Griffith’s “Lonesome” Rhodes of Patricia Neil’s radio producer touring an Arkansas jail for local musical talent. In his rise to fame and influence, Rhodes’ narcissistic motivation remains the same throughout A Face in the Crowd (1957), no matter what Everyman platitudes people project on him. Radio gets him started but television is the new medium that vaults him to the pinnacle of political power. With McCarthyism still in the air, director Elia Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg pitch a darker take on populism than Frank Capra’s in Meet Doe Joe, but they still share a faith in the American public’s natural resistance to authoritarian appeals that, for all the film’s prophetic bone fides, feels naive in retrospect.
Director: Elia Kazan. Screenwriter: Budd Schulberg. With: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa.
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is a division of UCLA Library, and presents its public programs in the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer, among other venues. For more information about the Archive, visit cinema.ucla.edu.
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