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By D. W. O’Dell
 International “Turn off your TV week” is fast approaching (April 24-30)…may I make a suggestion for passing the time on one or two of those nights? Use your television to watch two movies that are two of the most cynical, brutal indictments of the power of television: Elia Kazan’s 1957 film A Face in the Crowd and the Paddy Chayefsky/Sydney Lumet classic from 1976, Network.
A Face in the Crowd was not successful when it came out, and didn’t gain a single Oscar nomination despite a great cast and Elia Kazan’s presence behind the camera. Given his earlier success with films like Gentlemen’s Agreement, A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront you would have thought that Face would have gotten nominations for most of its cast. Of course this is easy to say in hindsight, as most of the major cast members were just starting out then but went on to have major careers.
The film marks Andy Griffith’s screen debut (I had always thought that was in No Time For Sergeants, a role he performed for two years on Broadway) and it is one of the most impressive debuts in film history. Known more today for his roles as Sheriff Andy Taylor and Matlock, in Face Griffith is scarily convincing as a hobo sleeping off a bender in a backwater Arkansas town jail. A local radio performer (Patricia Neal) brings her tape recorder to collect voices for her show, A Face in the Crowd (…since it is radio, wouldn’t A Voice in the Crowd make more sense?).
Griffith’s character, whom she dubs “Lonesome Rhodes,” proves to be a flamboyant singer with the gift of gab and a touch of down home wisdom. He is given is own radio show, which he parlays into a local TV show in Memphis, then a national program in New York City, helped along by an ambitious agent (Anthony Franciosa, in his film debut). Eventually he makes political friends and helps groom an aspiring Presidential candidate, with the objective of being appointed to his Cabinet as “Minister of Morale.”
Rhodes isn’t a monster, just pure Id who seeks to satisfy every desire as soon as it comes into his head. He probably isn’t smart enough to realize that the candidate he is helping is a right-wing nut who decries Social Security because it erodes people’s self-reliance (sound familiar?). Neal’s character falls for him despite her knowledge that he is a womanizing drunkard who is growing more inebriated with power than he ever did on whiskey. He spurns her to marry a 17 year old drum majorette (a very young Lee Remick in her film debut), which ultimately proves to be his undoing. Both television and advertising are effectively parodied with more humor than you’d expect from a “serious” director like Kazan.
When Network came out it was criticized for being too over-the-top to be an effective parody; today it looks eerily prescient. Compared to the relatively new FOX network, Network’s fictional UBS seems relatively sane.
The plot begins when highly respected newscaster Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is fired, driving him over the edge (it was probably a short drive). He goes on the air and rails about the hypocrisies of the world, culminating with his now famous line, “I’m as mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Needless to say his ratings perk up and soon the success-driven woman who puts him on the air (Faye Dunaway) has designed the entire network around Beale’s brand of insanity, much to the chagrin of Beale’s friend and her lover (played by William Holden).
The film is one of only two films to win three Oscars for acting (A Streetcar Named Desire is the other). Finch and Dunaway deserved their Oscars, with him chewing the scenery while she remains coolly reserved even when having sex. Beatrice Staright also won for her supporting role as Holden’s spurned wife; she holds the record for shortest performance ever to win an Oscar (5 minutes and 40 seconds, just nosing out Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love at 6 minutes; she beat out Piper Lauri in Carrie and Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver). Ned Beatty was also nominated for an Oscar, basically for his one mesmerizing scene where he convinces Beale to use his madness for the good of corporate America.
Both of these movies were ground breaking in their portrayal of television as a medium capable of great evil in the hands of the wrong people. I would be afraid, except for one thing - network executives these days are far too stupid to succeed in taking over the world. But I guess inanity is just another form of evil, isn’t it?
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