Is Sarah Palin “A Face in the Crowd?”
May 25, 2011
More than a half-century ago–in 1957, to be exact–America was treated to (and in some quarters alarmed by) one of the finest films ever to receive commercial release in the U.S.
I’m talking about A Face in the Crowd, adapted by the great Budd Schulberg from his short story “Your Arkansas Traveler,” and produced and directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Andy Griffith, Walter Matthau and Patricia Neal.
Here’s the IMDB plot summary:
An Arkansas hobo becomes an overnight media sensation. But as he becomes drunk with fame and power, will he ever be exposed as the fraud he has become?
I first saw A Face in the Crowd as a teenager. It made such an impression that more than fifty years later, as I was considering whether to write a book about Sarah Palin, I watched it again. In the context of Palin, it resonated even longer and louder the second time around.
Whether or not you plan to see Sarah’s million-dollar epic to be released in June, I urge you to watch A Face in the Crowd.
Once you do, I suspect you won’t find it quite so easy to ridicule Sarah Palin as an ignorant moron who can’t possibly harm us.
Posted in 2012, Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | 
Tags: 2012 campaign, a face in the crowd, andy griffith, budd schulberg, elia kazan, fraud, GOP primaries, republican nomination, Sarah Palin, walter matthau
20 Responses to “Is Sarah Palin “A Face in the Crowd?””
I think I recall it. Only vaguely.
Is that the one where Lee Remick as the cheerleader whirling and throwing a baton, entrances Andy Griffin?
I have trouble with older films. Watched the start of Woman of the Year with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey,last nite, and walked out when they traveled to the airport in an open convertable and not a hair was moved out of place. Plus the party where Kate smoozes with foreign dignitaries, talking in their languages, while Spencer sits around like a frog on a log, completly out of his depth.
I have trouble watching older and classic movies also. I’m down to only basic cable and I tried to watch an old Angela Landsbury movie, I couldn’t take the contrived and sexist dialog between the men and women and I had to bail. This one has great reviews on Amazon.
OMG Joe, you are so right. Great observation. She is just like that. It was a really great movie. I love the classics. I watch allot of old movies especially on TCM, one of the best channels.
I don’t think I could stand to watch it right now. This movie thing is very disturbing the more I think about.
I can only hope the rest of the country is as saturated and disgusted as I am by all things Palin. Will she ever go away? She is harmful to our country. I agree with you there 110%.
Maybe it’s time for lunch with Roger Ailes. He’s giving her a bully pulpit and if he truly thinks she is an idiot why is he letting it continue? I will never forgive McCain or Fox for unleashing this unhinhinged religious narcissist and psychopath upon America. The impression from Dunns and Baileys books are worship her as if she was Jesus or else!
My clearest memory of that movie is the ‘open mike’ scene. Her hands move over the switches, then you see him boasting in the sound room, and it all goes over the air. Just the kind of thing I’m praying for!
Joe–I think you’ve found the cautionary tale. I remember seeing the film quite a while back and being left quite unsettled. I saw the movie after having grown up hanging around Aunt Bea and Sheriff Andy of Mayberry, so to watch Griffith in this role was eye-opening. He’s quite a fine actor, which I’d not realized before seeing A Face in the Crowd .
If one imagines the same story unfolding in our Fox News/Welcome to Fascism environment, it’s hard to believe the country would survive intact.
I’m now going to lose the rest of the afternoon reading “The Fox News Fear Factory” by Tim Dickinson in this week’s Rolling Stone magazine. (June 9–not yet online). Skimming through, the section that caught my eye: “Tipping the Election to Bush–‘The man Ailes put in charge of calling states on election night was John Prescott-Ellis–George W. Bush’s first cousin. His premature call for Bush spurred every other network to follow suit’.” Henry Waxman is quoted as believing this to be the most important thing to have happened that night; it legitimized Bush as the winner.
A Face In the Crowd is one of my favorite movies. It was a brilliant treatise on populism and the cult of personality. Andy Griffith was amazing! The only difference between the protagonist in A Face in the Crowd and Palin is in the beginning the only people he exhorted were the corporate entities. He was inclusive in his populism—even African Americans were included ( in the fifties no less). Palin’s populism was immediately one of racial divisions and soon economic ones as she bows down even lower to corporate interests. Sarah has been proven a fraud long ago—-only the word hasn’t got out because she keeps being propped up by BIG money. The blood libel video should have finished her. But with Palin it seems it will be annihilation by one thousand cuts. . . . . Meanwhile she shall spill a lot of blood.
She was dangerous at the RNC in 2008. She hijacks the national discourse and is paid well by shadowy figures to do so. It will be interesting to see who will shut her down if she comes too close. As always in
these things–a past action shall be her undoing. She is Greek tragedy personified.
WOW, thank goodness someone finally wrote about this. I have thought over and over that this was the case… great article. Can’t wait for your book!
Oh please.
I remember working for a college film group, and foreign students would call us, asking “if movie was black and white, or colorful?”
If it was black and white, they didn’t want to see it.
Just because a medium has certain restrictions doesn’t mean it can’t convey an important (or entertaining) message.
Actually I think she reminds me more of ‘Being There’ an all time favorite and movie (which doesn’t usually happen!).
Only Chance the Gardener was an innocent, he did not pretend to understand things he did not
or feel self-satisfied when he was taken as a sage.
Always needing the edit button, I am—you can remove at least one of the “quite”s in the first paragraph. 🙂
It’s tough commenting on a writer’s blog. You always want to ensure you use proper English and get the spelling right. I certainly would not want to write something like “and there too also” as Mrs. Palin is prone to do.
I just saw the movie last Saturday for the first time. I had seen bits and pieces and of course knew the story line, but I had never seen the entire movie until a few days ago. What a great movie. I highly recommend it.
Sarah Palin could very easily fill the role of Lonesome Rhoads. So could Glenn Beck, Franklin Graham, and that idiot who predicted the rapture last Saturday. All are holier-than-thou false Christians who take money from income-limited gullible people. There is special place in hell for folks like these.
Are you listening Sarah Palin? I didn’t think so.
I have finally reached the stage that goes beyond loathing the woman.
I didn’t begrudge her her spoils, but now I want to see her face pushed into her own muck and lies. She never feels shame, so she can’t be humiliated by exposing her… She can only be mocked, and mocked, and mocked some more with satire and ugly shots of her and her ugly mouth opened wide spewing her lies.
Andrew Sullivan has a great shot of a outdoor metal cooker, Looks like Palin, and with the wide opened mouth.
It is symbolic, great mockery.
SP is Elmer Gantry in Sharon Falconer’s body.
About fifty years ago, we bought a house from a man who had a verbal ‘tic’. When his brain couldn’t keep up with his mouth, he would throw in the phrase “in which that”. It’s a nonsense phrase, and it made nonsense of everything before and after it; but he couldn’t stop doing it.
Now a shrink wrapped bus tour.
Sarahs god puleese make it stop?
Bristol is dating Kyle Massey. That should make her tear out a bit of her hair. I wonder if Bristol can find anyone her mother would prefer more, perhaps one of the Bin Laden boys tribe.
I saw this movie on TCM Saturday, and I finally know why Keith O used the name “Lonesome Rhodes” to describe Glenn Beck.
There are many similarities to Sarah Palin, too: In the movie, Andy Griffith as Lonesome Rhodes self-destructs by ignoring good advice and running on gut instincts… until the public hears what his guts were full of … (Sound familiar?)
BTW, there is no such thing as an “old movie”. It is just a movie that you haven’t seen. [h/t Roger Ebert] My kiddos love them, and that warms my heart.
I requested the movie from the regional library system which, by the way, is great. Should be watching it early next week.
I always thought that Reagan was the first Chance, The Gardener, politician, W Bush, the second, and Sarah the ultimate. I agree that Chance was innocent, but the public’s reaction to Chance and that to Sarah was very similar. Both were totally incapable of what the public thought they were capable of doing. I read “Being There” in the early 1970’s long before Jerzy Kozinski became famous, and before the book was made into a movie.