Reflecting American Dreams and American Nightmares
Thoughts on Elia Kazan’s 1957 masterpiece, A Face in the Crowd.
Before Andy Griffith became the just and quietly confident Andy Taylor, sheriff in the fictious town of Mayberry, he had a major role in Elia Kazan’s 1957 film A Face in the Crowd. The film is a brutal satire of American entertainment and politics, and of the strange and unlikely ways they are intertwined.
Griffith plays a drifter, Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, passing through Pickett, a fictional small town in Arkansas. As the film opens, Rhodes is in jail, arrested for being drunk and disorderly. He doesn’t have much to his name, and even that may be fake. In his suitcase is a bottle of booze and a few shirts. His most prized possession is his “Mama Guitar.”
In Bud Schulberg’s original story, Rhodes is described as “big” and “western.”
…He’s kind of big all over, like a husky fullback three years after he broke training. He’s got a ruddy, laughing face, the haw-haw kind. He must be well into his thirties, but he’s boyish. He stands there in an unpressed brown suit and cowboy boots, shifting from one foot to another, shy-like, though something tells me deep down he is about as shy as a bulldozer.
This isn’t too far from the way Griffith portrays Rhodes. Although not originally part of the story, Kazan made Rhodes into a musician, using Griffith’s natural talents. Added to those gifts is Lonesome’s homespun wisdom. He’s a hobo sage, affirming the small town living of good and honest folk. This strikes a chord of familiarity for fans of Andy Taylor and Mayberry but it’s also jarring because in A Face in the Crowd, Griffith’s Rhodes character is a madman, drunk on power, and obsessed with his ability to influence people in any way he pleases.
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New Spanish subscriber here. Thank you, Emina. Looking forward to reading more of your work, specially Edward G. Robinson's biography.