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Satirical drama

A Face in the Crowd

Year
1957
Director
Elia Kazan
Length
Not established

A charismatic drifter discovered on local radio learns how quickly intimacy can be manufactured for a mass audience.

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Language
English
TenseFunnyBleak Great first watch · Easy Satirical drama

Edited by Monocurator

A FACE IN THE CROWD in oversized black lettering on citron-yellow paper, with a silver microphone grille and cobalt broadcast arcs. 1957.

Image: Monocurator · source · Original Monocurator artwork

Who is Lonesome Rhodes?

Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, played by Andy Griffith, is the entertainer at the centre of A Face in the Crowd. Marcia Jeffries discovers him while recording a radio programme in an Arkansas jail. His appeal carries him from local broadcasting into television, advertising and political influence. Criterion’s film guide introduces that rise through Marcia’s part in creating his public identity.

Marcia Jeffries Patricia Neal
The radio producer who discovers Rhodes and helps shape his career.
Joey de Palma Anthony Franciosa
The agent who turns Rhodes’s popularity into business opportunities.
Mel Miller Walter Matthau
The television writer whose growing scepticism gives Marcia another view of Rhodes.

Was Lonesome Rhodes a real person?

Rhodes is a fictional character drawn from Budd Schulberg’s short story. Kazan and Schulberg also researched advertising agencies and television stations. AFI’s production history records real influences on the character, including broadcaster Arthur Godfrey. The film builds its own story from that world of entertainers, sponsors and political ambition.

Why does the microphone change the ending? Ending spoilers

Marcia turns on Rhodes’s microphone while he believes the broadcast is over. Viewers hear him sneer at the audience he normally flatters. Sponsors withdraw and his planned party empties out. Later, the sound of recorded applause accompanies him in his penthouse. AFI’s synopsis follows this reversal from the studio to the deserted celebration.

The microphone exposes the gap between his public affection and private contempt. The applause carries that idea further: he can still command the sound of admiration after losing the people who supplied it. Yet Mel predicts that Rhodes may eventually return to television. April Wolfe’s Criterion essay draws attention to that uncomfortable prospect. Exposure has broken this performance’s hold; the appetite for a persuasive new performance remains.

What to expect

Andy Griffith’s performance makes charm, resentment, and appetite operate at the same temperature. Kazan and Budd Schulberg trace how media access turns a supposedly authentic voice into commercial and political power.

How to ease in

Watch the audience grow around Lonesome Rhodes. Each new microphone changes not only his reach but the kind of person everyone around him must become.

Heads-up

A quick, non-exhaustive note Includes emotional abuse, sexual exploitation, racism, political manipulation, alcohol misuse, and public humiliation.
Momo's Note May contain spoilers Who is Momo? →
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I am frightened less by the public mistaking performance for sincerity than by the professionals who recognise the performance and decide its usefulness matters more.

— Momo

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Credits & versions

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