A FACE IN THE CROWD

"A Face in the Crowd" is one of Elia Kazan's largely forgotten films, (it never achieved the success that "A Streetcar Named Desire" or "On the Waterfront" did). It's a sour and not very pleasant picture but it's brilliantly done. It's the story of 'Lonesome' Rhodes, a drifter first seen in a county jail. You could say Lonesome is a cross between Will Rogers, Woody Guthrie and Joe McCarthy; in other words, he's not as homespun as he first appears. He's played by Andy Griffith who, you might say, had a face built for radio. Griffith may not have had the looks of a young Brando or Newman but he had all of their charisma in spades and under Kazan's intuitive direction he gives a superb performance. He's matched every step of the way by Patricia Neal, magnificent in a career-best performance, as the homely Southern belle who first discovers Lonesome while Walter Matthau, Anthony Franciosa and Lee Remick are all terrific as satellites in Lonesome's orbit. It was written by Budd Schulberg who dissects the media and all its power with a razor sharp intensity to match Paddy Chayefsky and "Network", at least up to its final stretch when it loses its satiric edge and dissolves into melodrama. It was also completely ignored by the Academy.