A Face in the Crowd (1957)

"I'm not just an entertainer. I'm an influence, a wielder of opinion, a force... a force!"

Director: Elia Kazan

I can hardly call these reviews if we're going to consider by definition that to mean feedback with a healthy mix of praise and aversion. Everything I've watched thus far is gold.

In my lit/film class we were talking about how Jean Shepherd's short Red Ryder Nails the Hammond Kid” (what "A Christmas Story" was adapted from) presents an honest portrait of American times (in that case, of the later years of the Great Depression, told with quite the somber charm). So the same is the case for "A Face in the Crowd", done with the same dualistic quality of being both entertaining, lighthearted, and charming but also sad and disquieting in the overall tone it contains.

For starters, Lonesome Rhodes gets his start on the radio, participating as "a face in the crowd" which plays off finding interest in ordinary people. As a devoted follower of "This American Life" on NPR it was all I could do to keep from swapping Marcia's face for Ira Glass's and Lonesome's for some Tom Waits-infused David Sedaris or Sarah Vowell.



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.


More Animal, More Hungry Ghost
(After Rashomon and A Face in the Crowd)

The Bandit Tajomaru and Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes jump from the greatest Kyoto Hotel.

the airplanes go fast
faster than you would expect
the air tastes of dirt

"It looked like they were rising in reverse," one witness said.

he's lost all patience
for chord and sword sales
and where is Marcia

"Rising and rising."

she answered the door
the whole place was a shitshow
but she let me in

"Laughing the whole way."

tell me of her legs
you said the light made them snow
some elegant bull

The Bandit Tajomaru and Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes take the elevator to the fortieth floor.

think the smell of pine
that is what I saw of them
just a lighted glimpse

The Bandit Tajomaru and Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes have a drink, grappa and whiskey, respectively.

I can't remember
if she even noticed me
she was on a horse

They share the whiskey.

They share the women.

They chase both.


Marcia was gone then
and there I was with her name
back in Arkansas

"It was like making love to something borrowed, something with a wig," said an anonymous woman of Rhodes.

and what were you then
I could make do without her
so what about you

Little is known of the Bandit.

I'm not a crime man
couldn't take the big time game
monsoon mobster shit

The Bandit Tajomaru and Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes work a two-man show about giving and receiving. Their hook is the atom bomb.

I should have lost thumbs
or given up this dry life
who knows what I did

The Bandit Tajomaru and Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes meet in the greatest Little Rock hotel. They have a drink and talk about the people they have been.