Movie Review: A Face in the Crowd

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening...whenever it is that you've found this entry!  Today I'm back with my first movie review in a while.  I'm going to be watching the 1957 flick "A Face in the Crowd".  It stars Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal and Anthony Franciosa.  "An Arkansas drifter becomes an overnight media sensation. As he becomes drunk with fame and power, will he ever be exposed as the fraud he has become?"  As of March 26 2017 it has an IMDB rating of 8.2.  That is a pretty high mark lets see if it stands up to that rating...or if it is...just another face in the crowd! (I will be here all week, don't forget to tip your waitress)

• Unless it is Matlock the only way to watch Andy Griffith is in black and white
• An angry Andy Griffith is very weird looking
• This lady, Patricia Neal, is kind of strange looking
• It is VERY weird to have a non-nice Andy on screen, especially since all the mannerisms are Sheriff Andy
• Lonesome Rhodes is a decent singer
• Wow racism was alive by then!
• Clean him up?  He is on radio not the TV!
• I like his suitcase!
• It is so weird that it is Andy but it isn't!  Everything is the same except he is a kind of a jerk!
• Wait...he fought the sheriff and won?
• Girl Friday joke I like it
• Lonesome behaves like I do doing customer service
• Whoever wrote Lonesome was brilliant!  I wonder how much was the director and how much was Andy
• "Nothing is illegal if they don't catch you!" BRILLIANT!  
• Budd Schulberg wrote this and in this case he did an amazing job!
• I wonder if Donald Trump watched this movie?
• Telling your wife to mind your own business, that is trouble brother!
• What is it about sleazy characters I enjoy
• Wholly shit!  My lovely future bride just pointed out that Walter Matthau is in this flick!
• Wow this movie is long yet doesn't seem it
• I saw on IMDB that Marlon Brando turned down this role.  I don't know if he could have done this as well as Andy did
• This Vitajex is SO 50's/60's!  IT IS AWESOME!
• I wonder if Trump/Obama/The President has the same thoughts as Lonesome on the balcony scene, I know I would!
• Lonesome is such the opposite of Sheriff Andy it is awesome!
• Did that guy just died!
• Lonesome is awesome, the way he turns it against everyone else.  I'm envious of him!
• And this movie officially become long!
• Lonesome Rhodes is the smartest person I've seen on screen for a while!
• Seriously it is amazing how much what Lonesome says fits today
• Oh no, she isn't going to!  Ruined everything!
• Nice shot with the reflection and all
• That'd be a tough blow to deal with

This was a very good flick.  I would give it a 7/10.  

It had a few flows, the biggest being that it was long.  It was just over two hours and drug at spots and felt repetitive at a few spots.  They had Lonesome do his country bumpkin routine a few too many times for me.  Also I felt the side story with the wife was not needed.  We already knew that Lonesome wasn't a good guy.

Obviously the biggest thing about the flick is Andy Griffith isn't Sheriff Andy.  But as I said above the mannerisms are basically him.  The language is the same.  The verbiage is almost the same even! Everything but the words coming out of his mouth!  It was awesome and bizarre at the same time.

The storyline was great and fit the modern times and really any times.  The idea that a charismatic person can dupe people into trusting them.  It happens over and over again in history.  My first thought was the line from 1776:  "Most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor."

Worth watching this flick if you can find it, I enjoyed and will probably be watching it again in the future.  Until next time....Abyssinia!