Movie Review: A Face in the Crowd

 This movie left me with so many questions…

A Face in the Crowd is Andy Griffith’s first ever movie.  After watching I have a desperate need to know who the hell watched it and decided, “You know what, he’ll make a good sheriff one day.”  At least the plot of the movie couldn’t get any simpler: Power corrupts, bitches.

The whole thing starts in a county jail, and no, Andy Griffith was not the friendly sheriff.  He was the exact opposite of that: mean, drunken prisoner, Lonesome Rhodes.  Little does Lonesome know it’s his lucky day when a manipulative pushover of a woman named Marcia decides to use him for a radio program and records him without him knowing it.  Question the first: Isn’t a crime to record someone without their knowledge, especially if used for broadcast?  Well, it didn’t matter because Lonesome became so popular the radio hired him.

It was on the radio that Lonesome learned that he had a power.  Not a superpower, it’s not that kind of movie.  No, what Lonesome had was the power of Power.  He could get people to do what he wanted.  He used this power to get a TV show in a bigger city, and brought Marcia along for the ride.

But the more powerful Lonesome got, the more people he met who could abuse Power just as good as him, and it became an all out power struggle.  One such example is a seventeen year old who won a baton competition he was judge of, and then became his wife in Mexico.  Questions the second, third, and fourth: At what age could someone sign a marriage certificate back then?  Is a Mexican marriage legal in the States?  Who the hell takes a seventeen year old to Mexico when you have other plans to begin with?

Lonesome does pretty much get America licking his feet, but as they say, the bigger they are….  It’s not a spoiler if I don’t finish that thought.  People can gripe all they want, but I never actually said it.  I will go as far to say that I’m not sure that the protagonist – or anyone, really – went on to learn their lesson.

Maybe it all ended how it began.

I would give this movie three stars.  I like it.  It has rewatchability.  It makes you go, “What the Fishcakes?”  It’s definitely unique.  But the characters are not three-dimensional, and they don’t grow… They’re kind of static.  It’s definitely a plot driven movie.  And to think, in a few years, Andy Griffith would grow up to be the sheriff of Mayberry.  Seriously, watch this movie – keeping in mind that it’s his first movie ever – and I dare you to not question how that worked out.

 Pretty good for a “WTF” movie.