A Face In The Crowd
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Josh, thanks for letting me lure you into the studio. I'm excited. Thanks for having me. I was thinking about how it's your birthday coming up. Oh, no. And for once, we're not going to get to spend it together. That's true. We generally do. Yeah, but you're going to be in London. I will indeed. Well, I was thinking about one of my favorite stories that you've told, which is the season six premiere of The West Wing. Sure. When you all went to Camp David.

in the show. And you had Marine One. And on the side of it, they made a typo. Untied. States of America. Untied States of America. And so I thought...

in honor of your birthday. I made this last night. Oh, oh, God, you're good. Oh, it's so good. I love it. Will you describe it? Yeah. Is it going to be a piece of new merch? It's a new t-shirt. It's not available only to me. I won't have the only one. All right, I'm going to measure my excitement. Well, I'm seeing the front and the back. Yeah, the front is our pin, which actually looks amazing on a shirt. This is very exciting. Of course, what's next? Flentil A Veritas. It looks fantastic. It's

And on the back, "Untied States of America." Brilliant! We're gonna offer it in a couple of different colorways. One, just a stark black and white, the way it appears on Marine One, black with white type. But then, I also thought... Oh, my God, that's such a good idea. ...in honor of another moment from this episode that I love, which is when you are running through the woods...

and you rolled up your sleeves against Alex Graves' wishes to show your massive guns on screen in that Carnegie Mellon sort of like athletic shirt. We're also going to do a tri-blend black, sort of like the shirt you're wearing in that episode, so that people who get the shirt can roll up their sleeves and show off their biceps. Yes, maybe we can all show up at Alex Graves' house. So this is going to be a new piece of merch that's going to come out, and we're going to have all of our stuff

for sale at thewestwingweekly.com slash merch. But check out the new Untied States of America t-shirt

in two different ways. And then there's going to be a premium version because you know how whenever the president is on Marine One, he's got the cool windbreaker? Oh yeah, exactly. We're also going to do this as a windbreaker. Are we really? We can do that? We're going to do a black windbreaker. Same thing, the Westman Weekly Seal on the front, Untied States of America on the back. Can't wait to get one. And

And I could just see people all across the country putting it on as Martin Sheen would put it on over his head. Amazing. Oh my God, this is fantastic. And so many people are going to be approached and asked, you know, there's a typo on the back of your shirt. Oh, exactly. It'll just be endless. And that's how you know they are the enemy. They're not in the club. Anybody who points at it, maybe enemy is strong. Yeah.

I want to give a shout out to Chuck Gibbons who sent me an image on Instagram that I think is relevant for anybody who gets this shirt. It's a tweet from Dropped Mike. It says, interviewer, quote, can I get your references? Me, probably not. No one else does. Oh, that's good. That's really good.

I'm also excited at the prospect of, for the next four years, wearing something that says "Untied States of America." I didn't want to get too dark, but this might be a good reflection of how people are feeling at the moment. And then, lastly, in my small contribution to the overall campaign, Josh Molina is Nice.

I'm going to donate proceeds of this piece of merch to the American Red Cross. Wow. That is awesome. Oh, what a gift. Oh, I'm excited. If you want to support the American Red Cross, who's been doing amazing work here in LA as the wildfires have been just... I'm giving on Monday before I fly to London. Ravaging stuff. And yeah, Josh, if people want to join the Josh Molina is nice...

blood donation team, do they give blood or platelets or both? It all counts if you give through the American Red Cross and you join our team through the app. Of course, I'm also just here to generally encourage giving blood, whether you do it through the Red Cross or not. But if you do through the Red Cross, please join our team. Yeah. And if you get the Untied States of America shirt, that's another way you'll be supporting the Red Cross. Yay. I'm going to wear it to platelet donation, not Monday. Yeah.

But as soon as it's available and I can donate again.

And if you have no idea what we're talking about, it might be time to visit or revisit our episode on Season 6, Episode 1, NSF Thurmont. Right. Very good. Not suitable for work, Thurmont. You'll see. That's a joke you made on that episode as well. Of course I did. What do you think? I got a new joke for this? There's a picture of the untied States of America that Josh took before the art department went and fixed it on Marine One.

One of the great photos of all time from the West Wing. By the way, I also, since you mentioned my guns, I occasionally I search my name on Reddit and Reddit is where you get the real honest people who really tell you what they think of you. And there's always something horrible. This comes to us from Cavewoman22. She says, Josh Molina has always had a face made for radio and a body made for late night cinemas. Yeah.

The sad part is I read that and I'm like, oh, it's just saying I'm ugly. But oh, net gain. I was like, for me, that's a rave for Reddit. Amazing. So go to thewestwingweekly.com slash merch to get your Untied States of America shirt or windbreaker. And now, on to the episode.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with AutoQuote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

Hey, you're listening to the West Wing Weekly Political Film Fest. I am Joshua Molina. And I am Rishi K. Sherway. And today we're talking about the 1957 film, A Face in the Crowd. It's a Josh pick. It is a Josh pick, yeah. And Josh, why did you pick it? I picked it because I saw it many years ago, the first time. I've now watched it thrice. It stuck with me because I thought it was very good. I really liked it a lot. And then it

In the back of my mind, with the rise of Trumpism, I have had the thought, I feel like probably somewhere in my notes app, I even wrote down, remake of A Face in the Crowd? Because I just, my memory of the material and the impact of it was that it would have resonance today. And then, I think before I realized I was coming to London to do a play, I read about the fact that the Young Vic Theatre was doing a musical based on a

No kidding.

Here's what actually happened. I watched the movie, then I went to the musical, and my feeling was the musical was more than I expected, very reliable retelling of the movie. In fact, it didn't feel just like a piece of art set in the '50s. It felt like it was from the '50s. But I will say just generally, the addition of songs, since Lonesome Rhodes is himself a songwriter and singer, it was a good, basic piece of art.

piece of material to open up into a musical. Wow. Which, of course, you would have hated because you hate musicals. But you, I know, are a big Elvis Costello fan. I am indeed. The songs were excellent, I thought, and they were kind of Elvis-inflected country tunes and torch songs. And so really what he did is he submerged his sort of iconic sound and

point of view in service of a greater musical, which is, I guess, what somebody should do when they're writing the songs for a musical that isn't, you know, an Elvis Costello musical. It's A Face in the Crowd. Well, maybe we have gotten too deep in the weeds before properly introducing the movie itself. Fair enough. The movie, again, is A Face in the Crowd. The screenplay is by Bud Schulberg.

based on a short story that he wrote. The film was directed by Ilya Kazan. It was released on June 1st, 1957. It should be noted, I think, maybe not up top, but I'll note it now anyway, that Bud Schulberg and Ilya Kazan both named names to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Yeah, and this is their second collaboration after On the Waterfront. Oh, is that true? On the Waterfront was 1955, maybe. Which was kind of a movie explicitly about their...

naming names.

Yes, I think many people, although they think they have denied it or they denied it at the time, but most people take it as a defense of naming names because I guess, to my memory, the basic synopsis of On the Waterfront has Marlon Brando as a dock worker, an ex-boxer who turns snitch because it's the right thing to do. He's essentially, you know, testifying against a corrupt union boss. So I think it's hard not to read it as sort of a defense of...

what they did in front of the committee. Yeah. Here's the description of the movie from the Criterion Collection.

A Face in the Crowd chronicles the rise and fall of Larry Lonesome Rhodes, played by Andy Griffith, who's a boisterous entertainer discovered in an Arkansas drunk tank by Marsha Jeffries, played by Patricia Neal. She's a local radio producer with ambitions of her own. Her charisma and cunning soon shoot him to the heights of television stardom and political demagoguery, forcing Marsha to grapple with the manipulative, reactionary monster she's created. Directed by Ilya Kazan for... Kazan or Kazan? You said Kazan.

Oh, I say Kazan, you say tomato. Yeah. I don't know. Okay. Directed by Ilya Tomato from a screenplay by Bud Schulberg, this incisive satire features an extraordinary debut screen performance by Griffith, who branches his charm in an uncharacteristically sinister role. Though the film was a flop on its initial release, subsequent generations have marveled at its eerily prescient diagnosis of the toxic intimacy between media and politics and American life.

It's funny also to say that it's an uncharacteristic role for Andy Griffith, although it was his first. It was his debut. Yeah, yeah. But I'll let you know what they mean. Most people have come to know him from The Andy Griffith Show, in which he's just the greatest...

sweetest American dad you could possibly want. And this is a very different role. Yeah. I thought he was great in it. I'm anxious, actually. Eager, I should say. Not anxious. I'm perfectly calm, but enthusiastic about finding out what you thought of the movie, just generally, before we get into the details. Did you like it? A face in the crowd, the darkest episode of Matlock ever. Oh, yeah. I forgot he was Matlock. Here's the tagline from the poster. I'm

He loved it. He took it raw in big gulpfuls. He liked the taste, the way it mixed with the bourbon and the sin in his blood. Damn, that's pretty good. I like that. I would have gotten a gulpful. Right. But they knew what they were selling. Yeah. Much like Lonesome Rhodes himself. Are you avoiding the question? Do you not want to tell me whether you liked the movie? No, I did like the movie. Like the Criterion Collection description says, I did find it eerily prescient. Yeah.

I mean, there are so many things in it where I'm like, how is this from 1957? Yeah. I mean, you've literally got a mattress company dealing with influencers. For such a heightened movie, I thought it was incredibly realistic by today's standards. And I couldn't imagine what it must have taken to make that movie in 1957. It really feels like they had to have traveled back in time from...

right now to make that movie and have it be so accurate. Yeah, I agree. You also asked me earlier why I picked the movie, and another reason is that I felt it fit nicely with some of our previous viewing experiences.

Specifically, I see ties, DNA, genetic connections to Bullworth and to network. Yeah. The power of TV, obviously, clearly being a theme in both network and a face in the crowd. Let us not forget that in TV, we have the greatest instrument for mass persuasion in the history of the world.

And also the idea, in Bullworth anyway, of a truth teller, of somebody sort of just speaking his mind, getting up there and saying the real deal, feels very facing the crowd and very beginning of Lonesome's journey. I like that we didn't have a set list of movies that we were going to do from the beginning. We didn't start with...

a slate of films and that we've kind of organically picked movies based on what we just watched. Because I think we would have come up with a very different list and probably one that was a lot more White House-centric, a lot more directly politically-centered. And yeah, we've ended up in this place where politics and media kind of have their fingers intertwined in the last few. And I think that's neat. And I agree. I think this is a perfect...

companion to network. Yay, I'm glad. Very uncomfortable to watch, also. Yeah. And also, I will say, back to Andy Griffith, I think he's kind of brilliant in it. I think it's a great...

performance. He's scary. Oh, yeah. I mean, will you say that like that's a possibly unpopular opinion? Did people not think that he was brilliant? No, I shouldn't say that. I guess really what I'm falling back on is like Sandy Griffith. He was really good in this role. I'm doing that thing that's unfair and that I as an actor complain about all the time, which is like people expect you to do whatever they saw you do. Yeah. Mainly I've seen him do, you know, Mayberry. Yeah. So I'm like, wow, he can do this. I'm like, well, I shouldn't be surprised. He's an actor.

Yeah, but he's really, he's a tour de force in this. Yeah, truly. From that first song in the jail cell. Yeah, even in the early minutes of the movie when you're trying to figure this guy out, and I think part of the fun of the movie is even deep into the movie, you're

good guy, bad guy, you know, before it becomes clear or he comes into greater focus. There are, seem to be some redeeming features to him and he's not just a villain. But,

From the beginning, very early in the movie, you're starting to wonder whether this guy is dangerous or is he charming? Is he a liar? Is he a truth teller? Like, it's a good layered, interesting performance that you need at the center of the film. Yeah, absolutely. I don't think that the movie would work if you don't start off kind of rooting for the guy yourselves. Like, the audience has to buy into what Marsha sees and what he says is compelling.

I thought it's so interesting that he immediately kind of goes for appealing to women listeners, you know, to housewives and understanding their kind of unsung role. I was just getting ready to add on a verse about being a free woman in the morning. I bet a whole lot of you dream about that sometimes with all them breakfast dishes piling up in the sink and them cranky husbands to get off to work.

Ain't it a shame the way they get on you 'bout every little old thing just 'cause they ain't got gumption enough to take it out on the boss?

And I was like, well, okay. Just from what you see of him right away. And, you know, he's in this drunk tank and you wouldn't really expect that kind of character. Kind of an evolved guy. Yeah. Look what's on his mind. Yeah. And you see, he immediately catches the attention of these listeners and he gets the attention of Marsha. And you're like, oh, wow. Yeah. Interesting person. And I think you need to have that. You need to...

realize slowly, along with Marsha, that this guy is evil. Yeah. Yeah. And actually, now you're making me think of one number that I really liked in the musical was a political rally where he's sort of boosting Senator Fuller and his bid for the presidency. And...

I don't know if some people got handed, but some people in the audience had little American flags. They must have been handed on the way in to the theater. And there was this very hummable, clappable song that got people clapping along. And then slowly you realize you've become complicit in sort of what you're supporting because the stuff that he starts saying at this rally is,

very anti-immigrant and racist and you're clapping along and like sing the song like oh that's good they did a good number on the audience like they started they lured you in yeah and turned it on you and i think that is an aspect of the film that is effective and bud schulberg didn't just write the screenplay he also wrote the songs i think yeah i noticed that in the credits

And the songs are, like you said, really catchy. Like they work, you know, it's, that's a tricky thing and a dangerous thing to be like, oh, we've talked about this sort of like with Studio 60 a little bit. Like if you're going to make a thing that's like, hey, this is really funny. It has to be really funny. Actually, you can't just say it's funny. Right. And the songs had to have enough power that you could imagine people, yeah, clapping along and being like, hey, this is a catchy little jingle for Vitajax or whatever. Yeah.

So right before we got on here, Josh, I texted you this photo, a still from the movie, actually. Oh, so how do I not even recognize it? It's a really, really short scene.

But I thought maybe now we're deep into the political film fest, but I'm starting to think about a game I'm calling Six Degrees of Josh Molina. So that's the scene where we are introduced to Barry Mills, this young potential replacement for Lonesome Rhodes. He's like the next Lonesome Rhodes. Do you remember that scene? Sure don't. Only watched it twice in the last three days. Yeah.

So, okay, towards the end of the movie, when Rhodes has unwittingly revealed his true nature, you know, to millions of people, and the fallout is happening, Joey De Palma gets the call from the station. That's right, De Palma, you know your contract, the morals clause. Any act abusing public confidence. I think I've got just the boy to fill the gap. Yeah, Barry Mills. Mm-hmm.

That guy in that still, it's riptorn.

No kidding. I can see it now. Yeah. I couldn't imagine. I had to actually watch the scene a couple times to be like, is that really Rip Torn? Oh, that's great. I love Rip Torn. And you two shared the screen together in Larry Sanders' show. We fought. We physically fought. We got into fisticuffs on the Larry Sanders show. Yeah. He was awesome to work with. Wow. How did I miss that? There are a bunch of uncredited cameos in this. He's not credited in the film.

Yeah, I feel like, well, that's how I missed it. Yeah, that's how you missed it. But there's a bunch of little cameos. There's a scene where they're in a bar in New York and

Walter Matthau and Patricia Neal's sort of haunt that they go to. There's just a bunch of famous actors, including Burl Ives. Just, you see him, it's like a blink and he's gone kind of cameo. I saw Burl Ives in concert when I was a kid with my family. Really? Singing Christmas songs? And he was fantastic. No, but I will say one thing we took away from, he taught the audience rounds.

including a song that goes, all things shall perish from under the sky. And then the next thing is that, and my family would sing in the car. We had a good old wholesome, I think I grew up in Mayberry. We sang Burl Hive's Rounds. By the way, speaking of their haunt, Walter Matthau and Patricia Neal, I do love the line about letting the vermouth just blow a kiss at the gin on the next round.

Does that mean don't actually put it in the martini? I think, yeah. I think just give me gin. Yeah. Walter Matthau is in this movie and he's great. He is. He's fantastic. Although it's a relatively small role. And then he's got that killer speech in the penultimate scene. That's like, oh, that's why he took this role. Oh, you'll have a show. Maybe not the best. Oh, top 10. Maybe not even on top 35, but you'll have a show.

But he's great. He's just a great presence. And I had read that his character is sort of a stand-in for Bud Schulberg. Interesting. No, there is the smart good guy. And the writer. Yeah.

The person who he reminded me of the most, actually, while we're talking about the relationship between Network and this movie, just to jump ahead to another behind-the-scenes news show, is Broadcast News. He reminds me of Albert Brooks' character in that movie. And in a lot of ways, the three sort of main people...

I guess if you could argue that's pretty good. Walter Matthau, Patricia Neal and Andy Griffith in this are kind of like William Hurt, Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks in broadcast news. Yeah, I like that. It's a very good parallel. William Hurt is not nearly like as nefariously overtly

which I think is also so interesting and compelling in broadcast news. But in any case... God, that's a good movie. It's such a good movie. And I think that Holly Hunter and the character of Marsha in this are really similar in that they're so smart and they want to do the right thing, but they also want the success. And similar to...

the Holden character in Network, they end up being complicit in selling out their own ideals because they fall in love with this person who represents everything that they are against. Yeah, and then stick around way past the point of realization. Yeah. And you ought to have figured it out by then or acted differently. Yeah. By the way, one of the reasons why I thought you might have been sending me a picture of Will Rogers is because I guess the Lonesome Roads character is also...

a sort of Will Rogers type humorist folksy. Will Rogers was a vaudeville performer, film star that ultimately became a political wit and essayist and influencer, uh,

Yeah, and he's name-checked a few times in the movie. Multiple times in the movie, you're right. Yeah, it's interesting to watch a movie from so long ago that has its own pop culture references and be like, oh, yeah, yeah. They didn't need footnotes then because it was pop culture. Yeah. It was funny to me seeing Mike Wallace in it. You know, like when I see news people from today doing cameos as news people, it always feels wrong to me. I'm always like...

God, you're really blurring the line between what you supposedly do for a living and who you are and just being in some weird comedy or something. And I didn't judge Mike Wallace as harshly because it was so long ago or something. It seemed like, huh, you seem like Mike Wallace. But at the time, it was just news guy doing a cameo. Right. A journalist doing something he probably shouldn't be doing. Is that how you feel when you see like Wolf Blitzer in some movie as Wolf Blitzer? Don't you a little bit? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Although at this point, when I see journalists on TV, I feel like I'm seeing people from movies. The pendulum has swung and it's like, it's now not shocking when they see them in films. It's more like, oh, you're doing, now you're doing the real thing supposedly. Yeah. So one of the things I was thinking in terms of Schulberg and Kazan doing a good job of keeping you sort of on your, what do they say? On your heels? What's back? You're back on your heels. Oh, you're back on your heels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Marsha and...

And Lonesome are leaving to go pursue a TV opportunity. When they get on the train? And as they're leaving, he sort of mutters to her, I can't wait to get out of this dump. Yeah. Well, I'm glad to shake that dump.

I was only kidding, hon. You all know me better than to believe everything I say. But then not long after getting to Memphis, he's kind of winning, first of all, in his first appearance on camera because he doesn't even know how the camera works. And he's, what is that thing there? Oh, a monitor. And let's turn this around. And he just does everything like you're not supposed to do and wins people over and makes me sort of like him again. And then he does this thing where he does like the first ever GoFundMe.

He brings a woman on camera who's got a hard luck story, a woman of color that he puts on TV and the Walter Matthau character goes like, wow, that was kind of a brave thing to do in Memphis and gets people to send in money.

Tons of money. Tons of money. And I liked, though, that so soon after revealing what's under the surface with this guy, you're back to going like, oh, here he's doing an incredible thing. Exactly, yeah. Maybe he is okay. Yeah. For a movie that in some ways, like you say, is heightened and not subtle, it has some subtlety to it in terms of characterization and the writing. Right, yeah. It's not a linear move from good guy to bad guy.

Yeah. I like that. I liked that a lot too. You spend a lot of time going, is he good? Is he bad? Is he insincere? Is he genuine? Yeah. And he gives that great speech and, and Walter Matthau's character even says, he's like, I couldn't have written that. Yeah. Yeah. I love how hard it is to pin him down at first. And you really do start to feel like this is a guy who knows all the angles. One of the things that's a little bit confusing for me while I was watching is he's so good. He's, he

He seems so smart and able to take every opportunity and parlay it into a bigger opportunity. You know, like even something like the mattress sponsor in Memphis, he does this thing. He does a sort of pod save America thing, you know, where he like,

talk about the sponsor and the copy that they've given him. And even though the mattress company doesn't like it, there is the one guy who's like, mattress sales are up 55%. Like it works. I love that. There's literally on the street, there's something along the lines of a riot going on and people are burning Luffler mattresses and it looks dangerous and bad, but you're right. The guy comes in, he's like, well, it's been really good for sales. Yeah. Just him saying the name, just talking about them, just the attention is still driving sales.

And I think he probably even knows that Lonesome Roads knows that, but the sponsor is not sophisticated enough in their media understanding to know that. Because what they should have done, what that guy is saying is just like, leave him on the air, let him do it. It's actually good for business.

So it seems like Lonesome Rhodes is able to take these little things and even at first blush might seem like a good deal. He can see that two moves later, he can turn this into something bigger. You know, he gets the offer for $500 and he turns it down, but he does it on the air. I'd rather try gratis for nothing for a couple of weeks. And if you ain't satisfied or if I get homesick for Arkansas, why back I come and nobody gets hurt.

But now if we find we get along, you make it $1,000 a week. And so he has all this confidence and savvy. The thing that I couldn't figure out was like, well, how did he end up where he is at the beginning of the movie? For someone who's so smart and so calculating, how does he end up in the drunk tank to begin with? And how is he not already kind of on his way? Is it only because of the intervention of Marsha that

that he's able to take this kind of grifter con man, smooth talking persona and turn it into something so big. In which case, she certainly is entitled to the 50% or whatever her stake is in the Lonesome Roads business. Which I think is an excellent scene and you sort of don't really expect it of her. How did you feel about Patricia Neal altogether, her performance?

I think she's great. I think she's really good too. Yeah. I think early on, sometimes I was just like, she's just being beautiful and posing her face. Then eventually, there's actually a very good and subtle performance going on in this piece. I think that where she really turns it on against him in that scene and stands up for herself is a surprising and refreshing moment.

There's a great essay on the Criterion website about A Face in the Crowd that was written by April Wolf back in 2019. And I saw this bit that I really loved. She says that the author Foster Hirsch once said to Patricia Neal, the film is in your eyes.

And then she goes on to write, "It's through Marsh's perception of Rhodes that we first fall in love with him and then come to understand his monstrosity." And there are all these shots of her taking him in. Both in a positive way at first and then in a negative way. And yeah, it's not just her being beautiful in close-ups of an actress. She is the stand-in for us. We are being duped through this person who is incredibly likable, incredibly sexy,

savvy, you know, from the moment we meet her and she's able to sort of trick Lonesome Rhodes into giving this performance that he thinks is kind of off the cuff because she's secretly recording it. And then she's like, yeah, I got the tape. She's great. It's interesting that the writer uses the word monstrosity because there is an element of Frankenstein here and her having created something out of her control and something sinister that I thought of a lot as I watched. Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

I thought it was also cool how they, again, had these elements of foreshadowing.

There's like a Greek tragedy element to this where the characters are given clear warning signs of what's gonna happen, and they, out of love or hubris or whatever, just plow forward anyway. And so I think when Marcia meets his first wife, there's a great encapsulation of sort of like the future that she will eventually face when that woman comes through and says,

whatever, you can have him. I don't want him, but I do want the $3,000 a week that you're going to give me to keep my mouth shut. She's like, you give me my piece of this business. And then that's what Marsha Jeffries becomes. Facing the crowd was my idea. The whole idea of lonesome roads belongs to me.

I always should have been an equal partner. Well, now I'm going to be an equal partner. I'm going to get something I deserve. Right. Give me what I'm owed. And I want it on paper. Yeah. And I don't think that that scene would be as powerful without having planted the seed of the first version of that, where she's the one being told, this is what my experience has been. You're absolutely right. And now we're going to take a quick break. And now back to the show.

There's another little bit of foreshadowing, I thought, in this one line where they're talking about his ratings when he's on his way up. And he says, And then at the end, when Lisa's ratings are plummeting,

he's threatening to jump. Yeah. Yeah. That also made me think of Frankenstein because the monster commits suicide at the end of the Mary Shelley book. And the movie ends with him at least threatening again and again. Yeah. Oh, yeah. One other thing I was thinking in terms of her having created him, which I thought was a small detail but very cleverly dropped early in the film...

is that she names him. She gives him a fake name in that very first scene. So she's just fine with bullshitting her audience, even though it's a tiny little detail or whatever, and there's something sort of charming about his being lonesome Rhodes. It's just something she made up. She just names him. So that's the first foot forward into the world of deceit is from her. Yeah, exactly. Whether you want to call it deceit or like fake,

Right. She's applying a little bit of fiction to what's supposed to be a nonfiction story, right? The reason why this is compelling is because this is a documentary series. This is Radio KGRK, the voice of Northeast Arkansas, bringing you its morning feature of Face in the Crowd. Whose face? That could be yours.

But she immediately turns it from that into mythology. Yeah, she's absolutely complicit. There were so many moments, I think, in the movie where, yeah, I was watching it and I was like, "How is this not today?" I loved this moment, though. I thought this felt especially West Wing-y, or kind of anti-West Wing-y, but in a way that the West Wing acknowledges. The general is talking to Senator Fuller, and this is when they're trying to get Lonesome Rhodes to apply his media savvy

to the senator's potential presidential run. The general says to the senator, "We've got to face it. Politics have entered a new stage, a television stage. Instead of long-winded public debates, the people want caps or slogans. Time for a change. The mess in Washington. More bang for a buck punchlines and glamour." I have it written down too. I have the whole thing too.

Yeah. It reminded me of that moment in the West Wing in the debate episode Game On, when the president hears Richie's answer to a question, and then he says, That's the 10-word answer my staff's been looking for for two weeks. There it is. 10-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They're the tip of the sword. Here's my question. What are the next 10 words of your answer? Your taxes are too high, so are mine.

Give me the next 10 words. How are we going to do it? Give me 10 after that. I'll drop out of the race right now. Oh, yeah. The birth of television is the birth of the political soundbite. Absolutely. Right. Did you have any really just excruciating Trump moments, even while acknowledging that the entire movie was born out of that feeling? I liked a specific scene where he has called...

In his ongoing sort of public feud with the sheriff, he has suggested that everybody bring their dogs over. And Marcia and Lonesome are in the car, and they're just howling, looking at all these dogs. And it is an incredible scene. And there's a moment where he's laughing and laughing, and they're laughing, and she says to him... How does it feel? How does what feel? Like you're saying anything comes to your head, and being able to sway people like this. Yeah, I guess I can't.

Yeah, I guess I can. And then he gets sort of kind of serious and you see him sort of kind of realizing and feeling and growing into his power. And he's like, yeah, yeah, I guess I can. Yeah. It's an excellent moment. Really dark. Like in the moment, you don't realize quite how dark it is, especially later on. Again, he's talking about his audience and he says, They're mine. I own them. They think like I do.

Only they're even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for them. And it just reminded me so much of, I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters. Yeah, exactly. I have that written down, too. There's also another moment, too. I think it's where he's advising the senator, where he refers to his friend Beanie, and he goes, like, he's stupid. Yeah. It's like he literally can call people stupid, and they're still just with him.

Yeah, that felt very Trump-like to me as well. Yeah. How about the character of Joey DePalma? I wrote down, Joey DePalma equals the devil. Yeah. Yeah, he's pretty bad. I mean, it's hard to say who's worse between him and Lonesome Rhodes, but I was like, oh, here's somebody at least who Lonesome has found who is as evil as he is. For sure.

They even do some weird evil dance when they first get together, when he first pitches him on like, do you want a New York agent? Now you got a New York agent. And they start dancing around. It's like really weird, but it's somehow disturbing. Like they're doing a weird song and dance that's awkward and evil and power hungry. It's like the evil version of the dance of joy from Perfect Strangers. Now we are so happy we do the dance of joy! Yeah.

Oh, wow. That's a deep cut. Yeah, I think I do. It's pretty funny. Balky and... Balky and Larry. Yeah, it's great. I also like to think that Trump will end up in...

horrible, horrible depression alone playing laughter and applause from a machine. Oh, yeah. What a great... And the musical did not... That's one of the things I couldn't believe. The musical did not end with that scene, which is so, I think...

They had just sort of him with a gun thinking about killing himself and being unhappy. But like, I don't know. There's something to me about that machine that he created that he's now has somebody like playing over and over so he can feel like he hasn't lost the audience that he lives for and he craves and needs and desperately sucks off that energy. It's amazing. Yeah, that scene to go back to that you already mentioned

Walter Matthau's just dagger in the heart at the end is so incredible. Great monologue. Yeah, he just says, Listen, I'm not through yet. You know what's going to happen to me? What would I tell you exactly what's going to happen to you? You're going to be back in television. Only it won't be quite the same as it was before.

There'll be a reasonable cooling off period, and then somebody will say, why don't we try them again in an inexpensive format? He could be talking about Tucker Carlson. Yeah, yeah. Or like so many other folks, you know, who came before where it's not like a flash in a pan and they're gone. It's this...

slow, slow descent. And so he's like, that's why he's not going to, he's not going to kill himself. He's going to just like fade into this oblivion. He's going to stick around for that. Well, it's funny. One of the things I thought was like sort of antithetical to the reality of Trump and Trumpism was this idea that, oh, if you could only hear him speaking his real thoughts, then you'd lose people. It would be all over for him. Right, exactly. I was like, okay, that was the one point where the movie felt like quaint. Yeah. Like, cause you know,

the whole 2016 campaign early on had the grab him by the pussy audio and it didn't matter. And nothing mattered subsequently, you know, years and years and years of more and more of the same. There's no hot mic moment that would ever stop Trump's base from voting for him. There's nothing. I mean, it's just felony convictions. I'm just nothing. Nothing. So the idea that somebody could reveal their true nature is,

If anything, it's the opposite effect. People dig in even more. But at least in this context, I love the way this thing ends where he says, what was the name of that guy? What was, you know, like the worst thing you could give him, worse than death, is actually just losing any kind of influence and losing any kind of recognition. Yeah. And then he cues Beanie to hit the applause machine. Brilliant. He's like, oh, there's my rim shot. And it's coming from the machine that you made. That you made.

That you invented. Cold. Let's talk about the Vita-Jax scene. Oh, yeah. Because that's a really interesting scene that I also find kind of terrifying. One, it just shows you Lonesome's brilliance, like all other aspect to him that like, he looks at the thing, he's like, they're the wrong color. Let's make them yell it.

Yellow's the color of sunshine and energy. Then he takes one and he becomes like sexually threatening. He chases two women out of the room. Yeah, there's no mistake by the end of the movie. He is a monster. He's a sexual predator. Completely. He's horrible. And yeah, and this is the first glimpse we get of it. Yeah, he is essentially invented Viagra. And it's like, yeah, he's selling caffeine pills. He's selling, you know, fish oil as sexual enhancement.

It doesn't feel like a movie from the 50s. It seems like pretty edgy stuff. Yeah. You just foretold so much in this movie. Unbelievably so. So in that scene, this is where I was thinking about the way that he parlays one thing into a bigger thing. And here, he doesn't do the thing with the mattress company where he plays hard to get because they're not actually that interested in him. Right.

Right. Here he turns it up and he's like, no, no, no, I can show you. And I think it's because he also recognizes that this is a huge move to play. He knows it's not like he only has the one move of playing hard to get and hoping for a better offer. He also understands when the time is right to actually make his move and go all in the way that he does in that scene. Very good point. Yeah. Yeah. He's functioning in a lot of levels. Yeah.

That's really more me. I am largely inert. I love five grains inert matter. Another moment that I find that I thought was kind of excellent and terrifying is we see lonesome

doing a fundraiser. He's been up for 17 hours. To me, it reminded me of the Labor Day telephones that Jerry Lewis used to do. And he was always like sort of on amphetamines, it seemed like, or on something and just crazed, but doing a good thing. And there's a moment, Lonesome kind of shakes a kid's wheelchair. He was in a chair with like a big Vita-Jek sign on his lap. And it's just kind of, I think it's just so good. It's like such a weird...

scary, ambivalent, ambiguous moment. It's so manic. And it is both his huckster side, because the Vitajex is in there. It's in that montage. And that thing, like you said, where you have to keep reevaluating, is this guy a good guy or a bad guy? Because he's raising money for this charity. He's doing...

He's like, I don't need sleep because of all the good that we're doing here. Yeah. And I believe him. Like, I don't think that he just thinks he's the devil and he's all bad. Like, he is a complex character. Yeah. There are elements to him that, you know, you can argue for as redeeming. Yeah. Or like that even bad people are capable of doing good. Good things. Right. Look at Brad Whitford. Yeah.

I think that's one of the tough things in, I guess, not just political discourse, but looking back on figures in history and people in contemporary times, there's such a desire to paint people with one brush of like, this person's a villain or this person's a hero. And I think it's so hard when people who you do consider a hero have their flaws revealed because then you're like, oh, do I have to reevaluate my entire sense of who they are?

And similarly, yeah, it's possible for someone to be truly like a bad person that's bad for the world who's also done some good things. Yeah, that is absolutely true, alas. I think that a lot of that comes up in the conversation around Elie Kazan and his legacy and his work. I mean, people despised him. You know, I saw a clip of Orson Welles, you know, calling him a traitor publicly. And when he was given a...

you know, a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars, some people stood and some people absolutely did not even clap.

That's right. The one little element that I forgot to mention when you were talking about the scene with the original or the first, or actually, I guess the current at the time of the scene, Lonesome Rhodes, Mrs. Rhodes. Kate Medford played the role. I think she was excellent. And there is a moment in there where she kind of has his laugh. We haven't talked about the Lonesome Rhodes sort of dangerous, manic laugh that he employs multiple times in the movie. And...

His wife does it. Yeah, yeah. I just thought it was a great little piece of like echoing and very clever. And I love how they shoot that laugh so uncomfortably, too close up into his mouth, like you're giving him a tonsil exam or something. Yeah, his undulating tongue and the teeth in the foreground. It's very well done. And it's almost like daring you to

retreat to a safe distance. Yeah, you can't. Which this character does not let you do. I mean, that's his whole power is by eliminating the safe distance and being like, oh, that safe distance of propriety. Actually, there's a lot of money to be made in erasing this part. Did you ever hear of anyone buying any product, beer, hair rinse, tissue, because they respect it? And you college geniuses want dignity on your program.

Back where I come from, if a fella looks too dignified, we figure he's looking to steal your watch. I'll move your merchandise. And I have this quote when I was talking earlier about Lonesome referring to Beanie, who's like his best pal. He's stupid. He's got no mentality. He thinks with his feet. But I trust those feet.

And it's just a sort of like embrace of the lowest common denominator as the arbiter of how to act. Yeah. And he's not wrong. There's another scene where the ad exec is talking about how they spent thousands of dollars to come up with these words, you know, and then he's just going to rip up the script that they've prepared. And it's because he trusts the gut reaction of Beanie, his version of the barometer for the common man.

Yeah. By the way, we stampeded straight to Trump and sort of skipped over the parallels to be drawn in the rise of Ronald Reagan from film star to president as well. Yeah. I'm sure long before Trump ever came around, people were like, wow, during the Reagan years, like, my God, facing the crowd kind of called this. Yeah.

The kind of rise of a popular entertainer somehow getting the reins of political power. What's your memory of Reagan getting elected? I know you were still a young man then, but like what was...

What was your feeling? Like, what was the conversation that you were having around that time? Was there a sense of like, this guy's not for real? No, I didn't. I wasn't old enough to have experienced him or really been aware of him as an entertainer, as an actor. So I knew that he was from, I guess, you know, my parents talking about who he was and my parents being diehard Democrats. I'm sure they spoke of him with disdain and with not much respect.

But I also remember just the coverage of him was how he was like, because he was an actor, which I already considered myself to be, so I had some interest. He was considered this great communicator. Like, he may not be the real deal. He may not be qualified intellectually or politically or in terms of experience, although he'd obviously been governor by then. But...

he knew how to communicate to people. And I guess I saw him on TV and I was like, yeah, the guy can talk. He has a certain charisma and ability to express himself. Yeah. My perception of Reagan was so far past his origins. You know, like my understanding of him was that's the president. You know? Right. Yeah. I mean, that's closer for me too, even at my age. I didn't know him as an entertainer. I remember like, you know, seeing him with a monkey. Like he was in this monkey movie. Yeah. Yeah.

embarrassing to admit, but, you know, the first I ever knew of Ronald Reagan's acting past was from a scene in Back to the Future. Then tell me, future boy, who's president of the United States in 1985? Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan? The actor?

And I was like, oh, he was an actor in 1955. We get it. You're young. No, just that people can rebrand themselves so completely. People could look at Ronald Reagan and be like, this guy is a joke, or he's a populist huckster like Lonesome Rhodes. And yet for someone like me, there was just no context for that. And you're just like...

Like, okay, that's the president. I like also how almost without really noticing it, somehow over the course of the movie, his complete look changes. Like, you know, early on, he's a guy who looks like he's slept in a drunk tank. And he looks dirty and gross. And I'm like, ugh, why would Patricia Neal ever see anything in him? And then somewhere along the way, like all of a sudden he's wearing suits and he looks good and he cleans up and like he's inventing stuff. And I like the rebranding of him and complete makeover of him as people do. Yeah, yeah.

Given that the musical exists now, Josh, do you still feel like there's room for a remake of this movie now? That note that you gave yourself in 2016?

Yeah, I think though, having seen the musical, you'd have to use this movie as the inspiration and the jumping off point to make something very different rather than a straight on remake. And sort of maybe set it in a different time period or more contemporary and it could be with a similar story and character.

I was wondering if there's a similar phenomenon with this movie as with Network, where at the time, you know, newscasters were incensed by Network and the president of CBS News said that could never happen. Is the power of this movie tied only to its existence as a historical artifact?

It existing as this prescient thing from 1957, is that what makes it incredible? Because if you were to try and tell a similar story, if you were to update it, even if you did it really well, and set it in today's context, people would be like, there's nothing special about this story because this is just reality. Yeah, I guess this is why I write down single sentences or five-word phrases as ideas that someone else should do, because I think what you're saying is very...

Perspicacious. If you're just remaking this story of something that was prescient 60 or 70 years ago, that's one thing. To really open it up and to have it be a piece, a fresh look at an older idea, you have to apply that prescience to what maybe could come 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now. I'm unable to do that. So I write down like, this would be a great idea. If somebody could predict what

What politics is going to be like in 2085. When politicians and influencers are able to speak to people directly into their brains, perhaps. Yeah, I need somebody else to open it up and project into the future. I'm glad we watched this movie because it is a marvel to see how much they got right. And I don't think they were trying to predict the future. The thing that they were talking about was...

for them, a very present day issue. The rise of television, the opiate of the masses, they'd recognized the power of television then. I keep on applying a modern day context to it and being like, wow, they really saw ahead of the time. But I don't think that's what they were thinking about. No, I think you're right. I think they were grappling with this new medium and the type of influence that it has and how it could

could go. So my guess is they were surprised at how prescient their piece of art was. I think instead, maybe what my takeaway from this film is, is not so much that, oh, it was so prescient necessarily. It's that just like on the West Wing, there are certain issues that just never change. Right. That actually you could tell this story now because it's not so much that that was ahead of its time. It's just...

All the time. Like the general says, since the Egyptians. Yeah, right. You need someone to lead the masses and that there's going to be someone who knows how to tell their own story in a compelling way that gets people to listen to them. And use the tools of the day to do so. Yeah, to take their personality and then use it as a force for political influence or whatever kind of influence. So I take it back. You could remake it right now. And someone in 2085 would look at it and be like, wow, that's a great idea.

They got everything about today right. Probably right. So there it is. A face in the crowd, a brilliant, prophetic, predictive piece of art. What are we watching next? It's a Rishi choice. Well, I thought for the next movie, we could go to a film that I think I've seen, but I actually don't remember. It's a movie that was suggested by several of our Patreon subscribers. It was also separately suggested by our friend Eli Addy. And that is the 1972 film, The Candidate.

Fantastic. Haven't watched it in years. I've got a very strong image of the final scene. I feel like I must have gone down some rabbit hole that led me to watching. Maybe it was thinking about movies that maybe we'll watch, but I watched the very classic, iconic final scene of the film recently, and I look forward to watching everything that leads up to it. Okay, great. Great. This is fun. The West Wing Weekly Political Film Fest...

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