A Face in the Crowd

"A Face in the Crowd" (1957) is Elia Kazan's American drama — watch online on iFILM. Radio producer Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) pulls a guitar-strumming drifter named Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) out of a rural jail. He has raw magnetism. She puts him on the air.

Within months Rhodes goes from county curiosity to national TV sensation, his folksy grin selling everything from mattresses to senators. Walter Matthau plays the journalist watching it happen with dawning horror, while Marcia slowly realizes the monster she helped build. What makes the film uncomfortable is how little Kazan exaggerates.

Shot in 1957, at the very birth of television as a political instrument, the picture reads now like a blueprint rather than a warning. Griffith — best known for playing gentle sheriffs — here turns menacing without losing the smile. Stream "A Face in the Crowd" (1957) on iFILM.