The Face of a Bad Movie

If you're fan of the movie, Shattered Glass, why not watch A Face in the Crowd? It's basically the 1950s version of the fallen hero. Glass reflects the ultimate downfall of Stephen Glass while Face depicts Lonesome Rhodes flush down the toilet. Both Glass and Rhodes are involved in the media, print and broadcast journalism respectively. While only Glass is based on a true story, it doesn't make Face any less real. Face has a point to make and although the movie does get it across, I think it could have been more effective.

Face starts off in a prison cell where a disc jockey by the name of Marcia Jeffries discovers and eventually recruits Lonesome Rhodes. Her gamble pays off because the radio listeners love him; they send him fan mail by the hundreds. Soon enough, Lonesome signs on to be on television. The film shows what would happen to the career and love life of someone in the same shoes as the Rhodes character.

Face had a message to deliver: corruption rears its ugly head among those behind the media and those consuming it. I admire the risk the director, Elia Kazan, took to get his point across. It's comparable to Michael Moore's criticism of the Bush administration in Fahrenheit 9/11, and Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, an expose on the innerworkings of a television network. However, for someone who supposedly specializes in method acting, Kazan didn't do a very good job with the cast, which included Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal.

The scenes where Neal had to cry was so fake it made me want to cry. Also, I noticed that practically everyone's laugh was the same. In one word, it was weird. Still, I'll give the actors the benefit of a doubt. Maybe, they were suppose to laugh like the people in Arkansas (assuming people over there laugh like that). After all, the screenplay was written by Budd Schulberg who hails from the state of Arkansas itself. We could all do better with some knowledge of the state that spurted out the Clintons, but the movie isn't even giving us that much.

On top of that, Face dragged on way too long. It was over two hours! A film with such a short and simple premise doesn't need that much time to unravel itself. I don't care how important a message it is, this is not The Lord of the Rings. Kazan loses his audience with too long a running time. For me, it was nowhere near the league of Tears of the Sun in its pure effectiveness or Nine Lives in its glorious subtlety. A Face in the Crowd, effective much?