The Glenn Beck Movie Was Made in 1957 -- It's A Face in the Crowd

Success, as Woody Allen observed, only makes you more of what you already are.

If you don't believe that, just consider the case of Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, the main character in A Face in the Crowd.

When we first see him, he's a drifter doing short time in an Arkansas jail. He's cheerful, handsome, and, in a good ole boy way, mildly charismatic -- he's Andy Griffith, in his first movie role.

Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) shows up. She's got a radio show called "A Face in the Crowd." Its premise: Everyone has talent. And here's Larry Rhodes, strumming his old "Mama Git-tar." Of course this Sarah Lawrence graduate is going to switch on her tape recorder while he sings an original song called "Free Man in the Morning."

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Romance follows. An audience follows. And before you can say "Glenn Beck," he's got a national TV show and bigtime sponsors.

Just one little problem: This is not the Andy Griffith of "Mayberry R.F.D." He's not a drifter because he's had bad luck but because he's a blowhard, an egomaniac and a fraud. And the train he's riding always has the same destination: a crude populism that's really a front for a right-wing agenda. Listen:

Lonesome Rhodes: This whole country's just like my flock of sheep!
Marcia Jeffries: Sheep?
Lonesome Rhodes: Crackers, hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers -- everybody that's got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle. They don't know it yet, but they're all gonna be 'Fighters for Fuller'. They're mine! I own 'em! They think like I do. Only they're even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for 'em. Marcia, you just wait and see. I'm gonna be the power behind the president -- and you'll be the power behind me!

Maybe the suckers can't grasp his contempt for them -- millions of people like a Strong Man, no matter how stupid he is -- but they do grasp another trait that's standard equipment on guys like Lonesome. That's right, women. In quantity. So Lonesome passes over Marcia to marry a high school cheerleader (Lee Remick, in her film debut). No bets on how long he'll be faithful to her....

Instead of spoiling the final act, let me just note that this 1957 film was written by Budd Schulberg and directed by Elia Kazan -- the team that created On the Waterfront That 1954 film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director. A Face in the Crowd? Zero.

The difference wasn't just that Americans knew the film was loosely based on Arthur Godfrey, a lovable television host with a big dark side. I suspect it was also the subject matter -- the conning of the mass audience. Because the thing is, people -- and Americans in particular --- love being conned. Given the choice between a simple lie and a complex, ambiguous truth, they'll vote for the lie. And they won't thank you if you puncture their balloon.

I can't think of a better time to watch A Face in the Crowd.

 

 

Comments

[BurtR]

Lee Remick was the sexiest woman.

[ProfessorDuh]

Eye of Newt and bling of Palin,
That GOP sure is ailin'.
By the prodding of the dumb,
something wicked this way comes

[EscapeTireTube]

Lonesome Randi Rhodes. Lonesome? Yes, no ratings.

[janejoad]

I have this movie in my DVR library. When I was a kid, I hated this movie. I could never watch Andy Griffith because of the impression his character in the movie made on me, as an adult I watch this movie 3 or 4 times a year and I show it to anyone who is willing.

[mark331blue]

Isn't one of the classic qualifications of the great artists, i.e. Kazan and Schulberg, the ability to recognize timeless character types? Beck, like so many demagogues before him, is the last to recognize the similarities, however. He could never be so aware of his own place in the world as to speak as insightfully as the Griffith character did about who it is he influences, and how.

[heronpoint]

Godfrey's son was a neighbor of our some years back. An interesting combination of 'gruff around the edges' while being very generous towards us on many occasions. I do remember one (perhaps the only one) comment he made about his father; when he called his father, he would reply "What's on your alleged mind?" For some reason that sticks with me......

[illinoisan]

I'd say the Dauphin and the King in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn are even more apt an allusion but George Bush and Dick Cheney already took on those roles most precisely.

[DrunkenTromboneMaster]

I'm 27 and I had never heard of it. But I accidentally stumbled upon it last year on TCM or one of those classic movie channels. I was blown away. Great flick!

[pfc1369]

The great Walter Matthau also has an important role in this classic.

Griffith's performance is one of the most powerful ever filmed.

He came to his alma mater UNC-Chapel Hill when I was a student, not too long after the film came out, and said playing Lonesome Rhodes took so much out of him, was so demanding, that he promised his family he'd never take on such a role again.

And he never did.
Though of course he went on to have a very long and memorable career playing far, far milder characters.

[saami]

Dead on! I had forgotten that film, but it is Glen Beck clear as day.

[ChelleAgain]

Whoa? Where's the credit too Olbermann on this one? He's said it too often to not have the observation credited to him.

[3fingerbrown]

Here's an good primer on Shulberg and Kazan's model for Lonesome, Arthur Godfrey, and the incident that began his downfall. A fascinating slice of early TV history. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9F7DteF5D0

[KillgoreTrout43]

Thanks, that was enlightening. I remember seeing Godfrey on several tv shows back then.

[telebob59]

Glenn Beck...Lim­baugh...Mo­rton Downey, Jr....Joe Pyne...all owe something in their appeal and success to the formula so prophetically laid out over half a century ago by Kazan & Schulberg and brought spectacularly to life by Andy Griffith. For about 15 years now, "A Face In The Crowd" has become one of my very favorite films; I've watched it time and again recommending it to anyone who appreciates real drama in the cinema (as opposed to 'modern' photoplays with doomsday scenarios featuring too many explosions, facile CGI effects, gratuitous violence and the like). I also point to the prescient subtext when turning others on to this much-neglected masterpiece. I first became acquainted with "Face" when Dwight Yoakam mentioned it while appearing on Whoopi Goldberg's old early 90s talk show. It seems Dwight had written a tune based on the Lonesome Rhodes character, whom he went on to describe as a "myopic megalomaniac" -- the very alliterative words I had used to describe the owner of a radio station where I once worked. As Walter Matthau's character says in the closing scene, "once we get wise to them, that's our strength."

[grailknight]

Olbermann has been calling Beck Lonsome Rhodes for months.

[Melissa]

Olbermann is soo jealous of the FOX lineup all he can do is talk about them as he throws paper at the screen, while he watches his ratings go down the tank.,

[WilliePilgrim]

It IS a great piece of work, for all the reason already mentioned and more, and yet I also agree with those who don't really see it as a case of equivalence but more like a parable revealing how populism is often enough just another road to the all desirable controll of power by those seduced by its gleam and the belief it will make everything better. It's seductive and as we understand as we mature, seduction is almost by definition an emotional/­instinctua­l response to something we really desire and replaces reason with some kinda crazy love that defies objective reality or misinterprets it to fit what the emotions want it be. That so many people will go for it, Jesse is pretty well spot on, we'll believe the lie before we're do the heavy lifting required to understand how complex reality can be, which we need to negotiate it. This of course is not just a right wing thing and history is filled with examples of ideals leading our leaders believing in and staring at a wonderful map, admiring how beautiful it is in the rearview mirror and not paying attention to the road ahead.