A Face in the Crowd

Elia Kazan's A FACE IN THE CROWD tells the story of Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith), a drunk and drifter from the rural South. Early in the film, he's plucked from obscurity by an ambitious young radiowoman (Patricia Neal, in an extraordinary performance), and his unique combination of charisma and bull$#!^ eventually make him a nationwide success. It's a solid setup for a movie, and it sports great supporting performances from Neal, Walter Matthau as an increasingly disillusioned writer, and Anthony Franciosa as a hustler with his eye out for the main chance. Unfortunately, the setup doesn't pay off in a satisfying way.

I recently argued about the nature of screenwriting with a dear friend (Come on over to my place, where the fun never ends!). He posited that the first thing the screenwriter needs to do is outline the themes he wants to address, then create characters who embody those themes.

"The good screenwriter will give those characters enough hooks to make them interesting," he said, "to give them the feel of real people."

I argued that such an approach to screenwriting leads to characters that are little more than wind-up toys. Real characters, like real people, go places you don't expect them to go; they develop into complete personalities that are much more than the personification of themes or ideas. A FACE IN THE CROWD strikes me as an example of my friend's theory of screenwriting. Every character here is the embodiment of something: ambition, selfishness, conscience, greed, naivete, or what have you, and not a single one of them feels like an actual human being. Add to this Griffith's braying, scenery-chewing performance, and you get a movie that leaves audiences watching the clock.
A FACE IN THE CROWD is sold as an overlooked masterpiece. Well, it was "over" a lot of things: overwritten, overacted, and overwrought. Overlooked? No, I think it's just where it should be.