Daily Archives: June 17, 2016

A Face in the Crowd
Directed by Elia Kazan
Written by Budd Schulberg
1957/USA
Newtown Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Marcia Jeffries: You put your whole self into that laugh, don’t you?

Lonesome Rhodes: Marcia, I put my whole self into everything I do. [/box]

This is must-see viewing during any U.S. political campaign but is fantastic any time.

Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) has just graduated from Swarthmore and is aiming to take her uncle’s Arkansas radio station to new heights.  She has started a morning program called “A Face in the Crowd” in which she does man-in-the-street interviews.  This particular Fourth of July day she decides to do her program from the local jail.  The inmates aren’t too eager to participate.  Finally, the sheriff wakes up a guitar-playing drunk and offers to let him out the next day if he will perform.  Taking the bait, the inmate (Andy Griffith) sings and joshes on the radio.  Marcia dubs him Lonesome Rhodes and recognizes his charisma and talent.  The station gives him his own show.  Lonesome sets about attempting to seduce the reluctant Marcia.

Lonesome swiftly builds quite a following with his down-home humor and straight talk.  He is uncontrollable however and throws out his advertising copy, frequently belittling the sponsor.  Despite this, ratings and sales of the sponsored products continue to rise until Lonesome makes another smash hit on TV in Memphis.  He begins to realize he has his audiences in the palm of his hand.  Marcia surrenders.

Lonesome’s show moves on to New York where he becomes much sought-after as an advertising and campaign consultant.  His vices and ego start spinning out of control.  With Walter Matthau as a disillusioned scriptwriter, Lee Remick as a sexy teenaged baton twirler, and Anthony Franciosa as an office boy turned agent.

I love this scathing expose of mass media.  You can’t help wondering what some of our candidates talk about when the cameras and microphones are turned off.

The performances, particularly by Griffith and Neal, are perfection.  Griffith was never seen like this before or since and is a positive revelation.  He can actually be quite sexy and he has the hypocrite nailed.  Apparently, the man himself was more like his TV persona, however.  I’ve never seen Neal give a bad performance and here, coming off a 4-year break from acting and nervous breakdown, she is particularly vulnerable and affecting. Highly recommended.

Andy Griffith, Lee Remick, and Anthony Franciosa made their film debuts in A Face in the Crowd.

Trailer

Monkey on My Back
Directed by Andre de Toth
Written by Paul Dudley, Anthony Veiller, and Crane Wilbur from biographical material
1957/USA
Edward Small Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Rico, Drug Pusher: Start scratchin’. You see, you don’t seem to understand. I’m risking ten years of my life with every move I make. I wanna get paid for it. And if I don’t, my friends will break your wrists.[/box]

By 1957, we had seen this story before.  We would go on to see it many more times.

This is a biopic and told mostly in flashback as ex-boxing champion Barney Ross is admitted to the withdrawal ward of a Veterans hospital for morphine addiction.  He sits in his sparsely furnished room and reflects on his life.

He starts out more or less addicted to being a big shot.  Barney Ross (Cameron Mitchell) wins fight after fight and generally cashes in doubly by betting on himself.  He also makes extravagant wawers on the ponies and any other event on which he can get odds.  He loves making lavish presents.  Finally, a girl catches his eye in the chorus line.  Cathy turns out to be a down-to-earth single mother.  They fall in love but Cathy fears marrying such a big spender.

She proves herself right.  Barney’s luck changes.  He quits fighting after losing the title and opens a saloon.  But his continued gambling and lavish spending eventually puts him out of business.  Before that happens, Cathy gets disgusted and walks out on him.  At age 33, Barney joins the Marines.

Cathy marries Barney shortly he is shipped to the hell of Guadalcanal.  After heroic action to save a comrade, he contracts malignant malaria.  Military doctors treat his severe headaches with morphine.  He is returned to the States where he does further service selling War Bonds.  The father of the man he saves gives him a great job at an advertising agency.  Then the doctors cut off his morphine.

The rest of the film follows Barney’s gradual destruction by his habit.

This movie is OK but nothing special.  I like Cameron Mitchell but I did not quite believe his withdrawal scenes.  I don’t know whether that should be laid to the actor or the director.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34VnBeQPr7E

Trailer

He Who Must Die (Celui qui doit mourir)
Directed by Jules Dassin
Written by Ben Barzman, Jules Dassin, and André Obey from a novel by Nikos Kazanzakis
1957/Italy/France
Indusfilms/Prima Film/et al
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God. — Proverbs 14:31, NIV[/box]

Not all religious allegories work as well as this one.

The story takes place in the 1920’s when parts of Greece were still occupied by Turkey.  As the film opens, we see a village burning and villagers grieving somewhere in Greece.  Nothing is left for them here after many of the men have been massacred and all their homes destroyed.  They set off singing to find a new home under the charismatic leadership of Priest Fotis (Jean Servais).

We move on to a prosperous village where Greeks have reached an accomodation with the Turks.  Each year the village puts on a Passion Play.  Priest Patriarcheas (Gert Fröbe) casts the parts.  He picks the son of the wealthiest man to play the Apostle John, the postman to play Peter, the town prostitute Katerina (Melina Mercouri) to play Mary Magdalene, one of her reprobate customers as Judas and a stuttering shepherd  to play Jesus.

The dispossessed villagers arrive in town.  Patriarchais and the wealthy man tell the villagers that they will never get rid of these “beggars” if they help them.  Finally one of the women collapses dead and Patriarchais declares that the people have cholera and no one should go near them.  Fotis knows these people have plenty of uncultivated land and takes his flock into the hills nearby where they continue to starve.  He refuses to move on.

Finally, the villagers playing Jesus and John go up to the hills.  They discover the people there do not have cholera and need help.  The greed and fear of reprisal by the establishment makes Patriarchais fight them every step of the way.  The tragedy plays out a lot like the Passion Play.

The story is simple but very moving and well filmed by Dassin.  The message is timeless. Unfortunately, the print on YouTube does not measure up in quality.

Clip