I saw a great movie this weekend at SIFF Cinema’s current political (non) science series (they’re showing a batch of political dramas in the run-up to Election Day, including The Candidate, All The President’s Men, Bob Roberts, The Parallax View, and Bulworth.)
On Saturday night, they played Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg’s A Face in the Crowd, an unbelievably prescient 1957 epic about mass media, demagogue populism, corporate power, and behind-the-curtain political wizardry.
Piggot Arkansas girl-reporter Patricia Neal (foxy!!) discovers Andy Griffith, a guitar-playing alcoholic hobo, when she shows up at the local jail to tape a spot for her weekly slice-of-life radio interview show, “A Face in the Crowd.”
Neal is mesmerized by Griffith’s salt-of-the-earth wisdom and, christening him Lonesome Rhodes, offers him his own morning show. Griffith is an immediate hit. Using his subversive, folksy charisma—he sympathizes with beleaguered rural housewives, needles the stuffy sheriff, and even pulls a public prank on the station’s owner—Lonesome becomes a beloved local radio personality. Meanwhile, Neal, a prudish college-educated girl, is quietly falling head-over-heels in love with this yahoo.
Soon, Lonesome Rhodes is scooped up by a Memphis TV station. Neal decides to go with him.
Foreshadowing! When he’s given a hero’s sendoff at the Piggot train station, Neal catches Rhodes badmouthing the crowd under his breath.
In Memphis, Rhodes’ populist wit and high jinks antagonism toward the show’s corporate sponsor, a local mattress company, catapults him into regional stardom.
Next, with the help of a scheming sycophant at the TV station, Lonesome Rhodes lands a national TV gig in New York City. From the Big Apple, Lonesome Rhodes becomes a coast-to-coast sensation, spouting his off-the-cuff rhetoric while pimping, this time in earnest, for the show’s corporate sponsor, Vitajex—a placebo vitamin that he skillfully transforms into a best-selling over-the-counter Viagra-type drug. (The sexual candor in this late-50s movie is startling.)
Griffith’s power-hungry character (Sarah Palin with a guitar, except he’s frighteningly bright) is soon a mover in the political machinations of Vitajex’s CEO (retired WWII General Haynesworth) who wants to get right-wing Senator, Sen. Worthington Fuller, elected President.
Rhodes, whose show has morphed from a musical comedy hour into his own soap box nativist political talk show, makes Fuller—whom Lonesome has coached in made-for-television folksiness—into a regular guest.
Suddenly, it’s not clear if Haynesworth is Fuller’s kingmaker—or if Griffith’s Rhodes, increasingly unhinged on power, sexual affairs, and alcohol, is.
Neal, who’s becoming aware that Griffith is a monster, but sticks with him on his rise from Arkansas to NYC for the money, eventually sabotages him by surreptitiously turning up the sound levels as the credits roll at the end of his program, catching Griffith ridiculing his slavish audience. (It’s an off-mic moment, and in 1957, I guess screenwriter Schluberg still thought off-the-mic moments could have an impact.)
When the hard hats, old ladies, families, and suits watching the program overhear their hero’s dark side, they turn on him, and Lonesome Rhodes is ruined.
When my friend invited me to the movie, I was psyched. I’d never seen it before, but I’d heard all about it. Ahead of its time. Prescient. Brilliant. And that’s all true.
I texted back: “Is that the Andy G. as Sarah Palin movie?”
And indeed, it is. But, hate to break it to you, the cult of personality stuff is total Obama as well. There’s even a scene when Haynesworth, espousing about “capsule slogans” recommends hyping the “Time for a change” sound bite.
You cannot watch this movie without getting creeped out by everything that’s going on today, mostly Re: Palin, but a little Re: O too.
One thing that stops this movie from being 100% prescient is this: In 1957, I don’t think it was possible to conceive of Lonesome Rhodes as the candidate himself—which is really the creepiest implication of the movie. In the world of 1957, the candidate still had to be the stentorian, elitist senator relying on an endorsement from the pop star. Rhodes’s ascension to kingmaker was apparently a scary enough conceit. Little did they know…
Patricia Neal also co-starred in The Day The Earth Stood Still, which also has some prescient qualities regarding the present state of things.
Isn’t queue spelled……
@2,
yes. thanks.
In a campaign where virtually EVERY candidate has declared themselves to be about “change,” I’m not so sure you can pin that one on Obama.
As for any resemblance to the film scenario, remember, if you will, that Barack Obama is an incredibly mainstream candidate, Harvard-Law-educated, ten years a professor of Constitutional law at University of Chicago, who worked his way up through state politics to a national seat. There is nothing of the “media creation” about him–he is a rising star not because he’s crafted a false front (see Sarah Palin), but because he really is one of the smartest, best-prepared, and promising young politicians of our time.
I’ll say it:
John McCain is tanking big time. And tonight’s debate won’t save him.
Yeah, they were really into that kingmaker stuff back in the stuffy ’50s. Now, the king crowns himself, like Napoleon did. We have all kinds of Napoleons and Napoleonesses running around here.
“There’s even a scene when Haynesworth, espousing about ‘capsule slogans’ recommends hyping the ‘Time for a change’ sound bite.”
Say, that’s Rossi’s slogan! He’s a rightwinger, too! And he’s a brainwashed robot, too! You sure this movie isn’t called “The Manchurian Candidate”?
@4,
Yes. Yes. I know the Obama story. It’s mostly the rock star stuff that reminded me of Obama.
The movie is more an indictment of the GOP right wing populist template (Schulberg and Kazan were lefties), but you can’t watch this movie without cringing a little about the O phenomenon as well.
Mostly, though, the real prescient thing about the movie is its portrayal of mass media and political marketing.
That’s a cool review Josh. Thanks. Makes me want to see that now.
Rog–
NOV hit $39.60 earlier today. Did you sell like I told you?? Of course not. Now it’s DOWN $5 from the high.,,while you were spewing BS, you lost thousands in value you numbskull.
Get your priorities straight.
I’m still holding just 2,000 shares of Wells Fargo. It was down .65/share. But I have a ton of dry powder. No buys today. Too volatile!
Looking at Apple now UNDER $90 and NOV around $31.
Roger Rabbit…you ain’t lookin’ very smart these days.
Hey Everybody!
Puddy, Goldy & I were at the wake of a mutual friend…it was an open casket.
We talked earlier that we would each toss a $100 into the casket when we walked by.
Goldy, being courteous…or so we thought had Puddy go pay his respects first. Puddy did and tossed in the $100. Goldy then insisted I go next. I thanked him, paid my respects and tossed in my $100.
THEN I TURNED AROUND AND WATCHED GOLDY WRITING A CHECK FOR $300, TOSSING IT INTO THE CASKET AND PULLING OUT OUR 2-$100 BILLS!!
Oh vay!
If you want to see a good movie, see An American Carol.
A comedy that doesn’t pretend to be a documentary.
A Face In The Crowd is fantastic. Most of us only know Andy Griffith as the sheriff of Mayberry or Matlock, but he really is a great actor.
He was kind of the Robin Williams of his time — a comedian (“What it was, was football” is still hilarious after 50 years) who began acting in comedies (No Time For Sargents) on Broadway and Hollywood before giving some shockingly good performances in dramatic roles. He turned in another nice performance last year in Waitress.
All that aside, what are your other picks for great political movies?
Here’s my quick list of realistic political movies:
1. All The Kings Men (the original, not Sean Penn’s travesty)
2. A Face In The Crowd
3. All The President’s men
4. Advise And Consent
5. Primary Colors
6. Bob Roberts
Under the rubric of political fantasy, I’d throw in:
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
Manchurian Candidate
Dave
Dick
Is this a joke?
It would be hard to believe that even someone like goldy that begs for donations would do that.
If true, why didn’t you and puddy take the cash from goldy and throw it back in the casket?
4 ‘There is nothing of the “media creation” about him–he is a rising star not because he’s crafted a false front (see Sarah Palin)’
Huh? And here I figured that just because she’d recently had a kid…
NO–
I have several unnamed & totally unreliable sources that confirm this really happened.
One of them was the dead guy in the casket who will certainly vote for Gregoire!
@13 and Josh, ‘Being There’ with Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine and Melvyn Douglas is also a good political movie. It is a film that might actually be more relevant today than when it was released in 1979.
Hey ArtFart@15: Weren’t you one of the HA morons who accepted the Daily Kurse Friday entry (now removed of course but is in the conservative blogosphere) that Trig was Bristol’s baby and not Sarah’s?
Now you “change that tune”? What a shithead!
Cynical @ 11: That’s an old joke, I’m sure I heard it at least 20 years ago.
rhp–
I know, me too.
But a Jewish buddy of mine told it at a Party the other day so thought I would resurrect it.
Pretty appropo considering Goldy is an Atheist (Jew by Race..not religion) and much more likely to be the guy puttin’ the check in the casket.
You tards are going to vote for Obama and he
bowled what, a 39? He’s not even close to being
a man. What a fucking dweeb. I keep thinking
that mole on his face is gonna start something.
Ah, um, um, ahh, ahhh, um, ahhh.
If he’s a good democrat he’ll vote 3 times for the queen.