Monday, October 24, 2016

A Face in the Crowd

From A Face in the Crowd (dir. Elia Kazan, 1957). Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) asks Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes (Andy Griffith) a question:

“But how does it feel?”

“How does what feel?”

“Saying anything that comes into your head and being able to sway people like this?”

“Yeah, I guess I can.” [Pauses .] “Yeah, I guess I can.”
Lonesome Rhodes is a product, really, made for radio and television. He refuses to follow scripts. His people, as he describes them:
“Rednecks, crackers, hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers, everybody that’s got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle. . . . Only they’re even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for ’em.”
And there’s more. A Face in the Crowd is disturbingly prophetic.

comments: 2

Daughter Number Three said...

Yes, great movie. I saw it maybe five years ago when Glenn Beck was at his height, and to my mind was the modern analog. How wrong I was.

Michael Leddy said...

See? Neither of us even had to mention the name of the person we’re both talking about. That’s how clear the resemblance is.