A Face in the Crowd (1957, Elia Kazan) (Patreon)

63/100

Undeniably ahead of its time, recognizing early on the ways in which a charismatic demagogue could employ the very mass-media apparatus that sustains him to create an irreverent outsider persona. Its most fascinating aspect is also its most dated: This was an era when TV and radio personalities doubled as advertisers, pitching products on the air (check out Rob and Laura Petrie hawking Joy, for example—not in a stand-alone commercial, but as a sort of addendum to an episode), and "Lonesome" Rhodes inadvertently discovers that jovially denigrating his corporate sponsors not only solidifies his truth-telling image but also somehow boosts sales. Not sure I buy that, frankly, but it makes for a provocative thought experiment, and Kazan's decision to cast Andy Griffith seems downright clairvoyant—you'd absolutely want someone who'd soon become TV's embodiment of small-town goodness and decency in this role. Patricia Neal, on the other hand, radiates so much quiet strength and intelligence that it's hard to swallow her falling for such an narcissistic charlatan*; Marcia really needed to exhibit the sort of deeply rooted self-loathing that William Holden courageously embodies in Network, or to have married Rhodes primarily out of ambition rather than love. Their romantic relationship never seems credible, even as the pragmatic outgrowth of their professional relationship, and the introduction of Lee Remick's baton twirler winds up muddying the moral clarity of Marcia's climactic decision. There's a version of this film in which the question of whether she acts out of conscience, personal pique, or some combination of the two would be productively ambiguous...but that version wouldn't conclude with Walter Matthau proclaiming categorical victory for the average American's bullshit meter. ("We get wise to 'em. That's our strength." Do we, though? Is it?) A Face in the Crowd clearly influenced Broadcast News—same basic triangle—but while I've always been disappointed by Brooks' shoulder shrug of a non-ending, that's preferable to a finale in which Aaron congratulates Jane on having exposed Tom's ignorance and gives a stirring speech** about how the public will always ultimately reject glib personality in favor of substance. Which is more or less what we get here. Given how ruthless Kazan would be just three years later in Wild River, it's hard not to interpret the way that he and Schulberg chicken out as further justification for their HUAC testimony—an insistence that McCarthy was gonna get his regardless of what they said to protect themselves. Not as skillfully integrated as it was in On the Waterfront, and also, as our current national nightmare demonstrates, quite wrong.

* Especially if you've seen her spectacular performance in Hud, opposite Paul Newman as a similarly toxic hunk who's in a much greater position of power over her emotionally conflicted character. 

** Aaron kinda does give that speech, actually—his hilarious but earnest "Tom is the devil" monologue—but it's not the film's final word, and, crucially, is half-pathetic rather than entirely noble.