"A Face in the Crowd" You've got to see this movie if you haven't.

[alphafemale]

I can't believe this isn't seen more often.

By Elia Kazan.

Andy Griffith in a stunning role.

Also with Patricia Neal, Walter Mattheau and Lee Remick.

[Hissyspit]

1. I have an English teacher friend who shows it in his film class quite often.

That and 'Ace In The Hole' aka 'The Big Circus.'

[RNdaSilva]

2. Saw it many, many years ago.

Is it making the rounds on DirecTV? TCM? FMC?

A very different role for Andy Griffith.

[lame54]

3. Andy Griffith is great in this movie

[Frank Cannon]

4. He should have received an Academy Award for it

It is a stunning portrayal that is 180 degrees from Andy Taylor.

[alphafemale]

5. I happened to read something about it and got it on Netflix.

I've never seen it on one of the cable movie stations that I know of.

[mucifer]

6. One of my favorite movies.

It rips apart television and it's influence on politics. The interesting thing is that the movie came out as tv was in it's infancy.

[salin]

7. this reads like historic irony

I had never heard of the movie, but your description struck me as deeply (and sadly) ironic, given Kazan's role in the blacklisting hearigs before HUAC - which ruined careers, turned redbaiting into a sport - in part due to television's role of amplifying the "dramatics" of Sen. McCarthy.

[mucifer]

8. it's true. You gotta see the film. It's really well done. And bizzare considering Kazan's politics.

[salin]

9. In the past, I probably still would have avoided

a Kazan film. But I have done some reading on that era and find the whole thing tragic - and think that we were not that far away, several years ago, from having conditions move to that point again (remember then Atty General Ashcroft's proposed TIPS program?) - and have a different understanding. I will look for the film - and if I can find it, I will see it. Thanks.

[alphafemale]

10. It's one of my favorites now. I got it from Netflix on a whim.

I was absolutely stunned. It is incredible.

[kskiska]

11. The movie is actually based on Arthur Godfrey

For you youngsters, Godfrey was king in the golden age of television. He started in radio, the transitioned to TV. He was the folksy redheaded host of a daily morning program where he did monologues, chatted with a cast of regulars, played his ukelele, sang, and joked about the sponsor's products. He also had a Monday prime-time program, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, on which new talent competed to win via an audience applause meter. He also had a Wednesday prime-time variety show, Arthur Godfrey and His Friends. He ruled the airwaves. He appeared to be a friendly, next-door neighbor sort of guy, but behind the scenes he was a tyrant who ruled with an iron fist. His implosion began when he fired Julius LaRosa, a singer on his program, telling him he "lacked humility." After that he engaged in a series of firings. It was all downhill from there once the media turned on him.

Andy Rooney used to work for him.

From Wikipedia:

As the media turned on Godfrey, two films, The Great Man (1956) starring Jose Ferrer, who also directed and produced, and Elia Kazan's classic A Face in the Crowd (1957) starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal, were inspired by Godfrey's increasingly controversial career. The Great Man, adapted from a novel by TV writer Al Morgan, centered on a tribute broadcast for Herb Fuller, a Godfrey-like figure killed in a car crash whose genial public demeanor concealed a dissolute phony. "Face" creator Budd Schulberg maintains his story was actually inspired by hearing that Will Rogers, Sr., was far from the man of the people he claimed to be. Nonetheless, certain elements of the film, including its protagonist Lonesome Rhodes (played by Andy Griffith) spoofing commercials on a Memphis TV show he hosted, were clearly Godfrey-inspired. The research by Kazan and Schulberg included attending an advertising agency meeting about Lipton Tea.