“I hear you just wrote the ending to my book.”
A Face in the Crowd is one of those films that might be destined to be considered constantly provocative and predictive of the future. Before ever seeing it or knowing anything about it, I’ve heard people compare its main character Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, played by a young Andy Griffith, to Donald Trump and some others. In truth, Trump is not the first egotistical rich person to get high on his own farts, and the movie has more to say than just that one should look out for these types. While the film does have value and meaning in these “messages”, with those messages automatically pushing it to a higher quality of storytelling than that which has nothing to say, the cost of this is how often certain characters are just one thing.
Larry is initially all rebel and all wacky, before eventually being all asshole when need be for the story. It’s hard to say if he’s going too far with his brashness, as him going so far is seemingly the point. Patricia Neal as Marcia Jeffries and Walter Matthau as Mel Miller are more absurd than even him. Mel often has a sly remark on the tip of his tongue and Marcia is always reacting to Larry in an audience-insert role. Especially seeing as she isn’t shown having anything going on in her life outside of Larry, she comes off as a caricature. Both are just different ways one might observe or think about someone like Larry. There’s even a time when Mel is waxing lyrically, only for the scene to unnaturally fade before he’s done talking. His words are more syrup than substance.
The pacing by contrast is excellent. The movie starts as a pseudo-adventure, with us following Marcia try to make more of her show and something for Larry, then quickly things get out of hand for both her and the film, being more eclectic. Marcia becoming less involved at this point leads to the issue of the story focusing more on its social commentary than being a proper story. We’re now focused on the new and intimidating plotlines that relate to Larry. Just as life is busy for him, the story is busy with him typically trying to overconfidently power through problems. Arguably this all could have been trimmed down, though the dominating presence of it all helps communicate what the narrative’s trying to say. The movie doesn’t spare showing what a wealthy lifestyle affords someone: influence, (illegally) young women, and notably compromises in one’s values. The quickness makes this slideshow easy to watch, other than the occasional slow point.
The ending asks a little much of these plain characters, with the score taking everything to a slightly comical and overdramatic level. Just as this movie is more about documenting a type of person, the ending should carry that style of merely capturing something that apparently needs to be seen. The “big” performances generally serve to remind you you’re watching a drama and add a level of fakeness. Admittedly, even Larry as a whole seems cartoonish, but you can also say that about real people, especially some politicians. Seeing real people like this does weaken the impact of the picture, as does the blatant allegory of something like the laughing machine, showing the weakness and unoriginality of this affair. A more sophisticated comment about the subject would help a lot. Maybe watching this movie at the time would be more meaningful? As is, it does have some things going for it, mainly in not knowing what will happen next and the acting not being focused on enough to matter. If it was about thirty minutes shorter and the ending more in keeping with the rest of the plot, it wouldn’t be obvious that we’re short on tricks and it’d be easier to focus on the punchy pace.
SPOILERS
The ending seems more directed at the audience than any character. Mel’s dialogue in particular details this, coming off as quite silly in the context of the film, essentially with him telling off Larry. However, it does communicate a truth of human nature. Many people only care about someone’s image, especially their positive image, without worrying too much about any scandal. The real crux is time, with many stars relegated to more and more distant memories. Just as much as the picture criticizes someone like Larry for being so mean to people, it criticizes the average person. The reason why people like Trump persist is because of the fallibility of anyone to hold accountable the types that show no respect for them or at least others, especially the less fortunate. They’ll also empower someone to influence politicians just because of easy manipulation tactics, like showing support to women and people of color and having a unique personality. Some might note how at the end Larry calls his black workers a racial slur, which suggests his support of them may have been a conscious facade, if not then something that can be retracted at whim.
There’s other ways of looking at the lead, such as that when Larry was this hot rebel that didn’t know or care for the way of doing things around him, he was genuine and that’s what people liked about him. Him feeling like he had nothing to prove and didn’t care about success is why he became successful. However, power corrupted him, though only took advantage of what was already there. Larry was always rude to some degree, it just greatly exacerbated. As Larry became powerful, he to a degree became aware of his corruption, but was so high on success so as not to care. He used to genuinely work in a salt of the Earth environment and have that spirit to him, though that eventually became something he pretended to be on his show, with that aesthetic literally just set decoration. Businesses found a way to make him marketable and to appeal to him in a way that would get him to cooperate, so they used him to sell products until he was no longer able to. They in turn exploited the part of Larry that wanted attention. No corporations tried to stop him for being such a mean person when there wasn’t a scandal. Despite being popular because of how he was different, Larry eventually just became another suit.
The ending where he’s basically yelling for a shred of attention reveals that he’s now desperate for that feeling of control, at best being left with his only friend pre-fame. Seeing as that friend is never shown walking out on him, that might imply Larry was once a sincerely good person, though what else would he even do? If I was him I’d just keep living in that lavish place wearing nice clothes as long as I could. Mel later saying he and Marcia were too charmed by him but got wise implies he was always like this and there always will be people like this and the trick is to know to leave once you know the truth. Marcia’s character arc mirrors this, with her initially infatuated with him, putting up with some lesser red flags, becoming like him (mainly when she wants acknowledgement and money), is hurt by him, and realizes how she’s behaved. If you compare this to either an abusive relationship or to having some negative experience with a politician, it’s not likely someone could just do one thing to sink the other as Marcia does, which is one reason the ending feels a bit off. However, this represents a quicker and more theatrical way of detailing how someone’s bad reputation can remove their support and respect overtime. Marcia as a whole seems to represent what it does to someone when they empower a person that ultimately is no good.
OVERVIEW
Cleverly, the film doesn’t answer the question of whether destructive rich people are born mean or become that way. It simply says that it happens and what to do when it does, as oftentimes it doesn’t matter either way and just as the movie flips over whether Larry is a product of nature or nurture, so can we get these mixed signs from real life people. What does matter, and what you’re left on when considering the narrative, is that such Trump types don’t deserve influence and should be ignored, at least if they’re in a place to suck other people down. Still, there will probably be some way for them to steal at least a little credibility and attention, as self-identified wealthy representatives of average people can find at least a small few that will listen, even as time withers them into A Face in the Crowd.