A Face in the Crowd (film)
| A Face in the Crowd | |
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| Directed by | Elia Kazan |
| Produced by | Elia Kazan |
| Screenplay by | Budd Schulberg |
| Based on | "Your Arkansas Traveler" by Budd Schulberg |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Tom Glazer |
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| Edited by | Gene Milford |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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Running time
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125 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
A Face in the Crowd is a 1957 film starring Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal and Walter Matthau, directed by Elia Kazan. The screenplay was written by Budd Schulberg, based on his short story "Your Arkansas Traveler", from the collection, Some Faces in the Crowd (1953).
The story centers on a drifter named Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes who is discovered by the producer (Neal) of a small-market radio program in rural northeast Arkansas. Rhodes ultimately rises to great fame and influence on national television.
The film launched Griffith into stardom, but earned mixed reviews upon its original release. Later decades have seen reappraisals of the movie, and in 2008 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
In late 1950s America, a drunken drifter, Larry Rhodes (Andy Griffith), is plucked out of a rural Arkansas jail by Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) to sing on a radio show at station KGRK. His raw voice, folksy humor and personal charm bring about a strong local following, and he lands a television show in Memphis, Tennessee under the stage name "Lonesome" Rhodes, given to him on a whim by Jeffries.
With the support of the show's staff writer Mel Miller (Walter Matthau) and Jeffries, the charismatic Rhodes ad libs his way to Memphis area popularity. When he pokes fun at his sponsor, a mattress company, they initially pull their ads—but when his adoring audience revolts, burning mattresses in the street, the sponsor discovers that Rhodes' irreverent pitches actually increased sales by 55%, and returns to the air with a new awareness of his power of persuasion. Rhodes also begins an affair with Jeffries and proposes to her.
An ambitious office worker at the mattress company, Joey DePalma (Anthony Franciosa), puts together a deal for Rhodes to star in his own show in New York City. The sponsor is Vitajex, an energy supplement which he ingeniously pitches as a yellow pill which will make men energetic and sexually powerful. Rhodes' fame, influence and ego balloon. Behind the scenes, a woman (Kay Medford) turns up claiming to be his legitimate wife, he berates his staff, and betrays Jeffries by eloping with a 17-year-old drum majorette (Lee Remick) whose baton-twirling act he features on his next TV program. The onetime drifter and his new bride move into a luxury penthouse. When Rhodes says he will "give" 10% of his share to Jeffries, she furiously reminds Rhodes that "A Face In the Crowd" was her idea, saying that she should have always been an equal partner, and now she demands to be one, and also demands it all be on paper. Rhodes agrees.
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