THE EGOMANIACAL LONESOME Rhodes was played by Andy Griffith in the film masterpiece “Face in the Crowd.” The always stellar female lead played by Patricia Neal, the woman who took Lonesome down.
Looking back on the film and Griffith’s raging, brilliant tour de force performance, it seems a warning and foreshadowing of an industry yet to be born, which came in the age of Reagan that brought us deregulation and spawned the likes of Rush Limbaugh, but especially Glenn Beck, and the right-wing hate radio horde who have been so destructive to our politics.
“Face in the Crowd” was Andy Griffith’s finest acting hour, a once in a lifetime role.
Andy Griffith was one of the greats- a true icon. A legend!
“A Face In The Crowd” was scarily precent. We are drowning in Lonesome Roads types, including the one now occupying the White House.
Andy Griffith was a lifelong moderate Democrat and unlike the majority of North Carolina white Democrats he never fled the Democratic Party after the LBJ’s passing of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of 1965. He was asked but declined to run against Republican racist Jesse Helms for the Senate.
Andy Giffith also appeared in a video endorsing Obama’s Health Care Act pointing out the ACA’smajor improved benefits for Medicare benficiatries including lower prescription drug costs and free wellness benfits such as free annual phyical checkups benefits that , benefits that I am already enjoying:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAAwXhBhU4Q
Jesus, you are depressingly predictable, RAJensen.
Is there ever a time you are not a walking billboard for this President and his party? Because this…this is just gross.
Gesh, RAJensen are you apart of the Obama campaign or something, give it a rest. Andy Griffith was a very talented actor and his show will proberly be in re-runs for generations to come. RIP Andy Griffith !!
1. You extremist-progressive fringe-dwellers think highly of Andy Griffith.
2. Andy Griffith though highly of Obama’s health care “reform.”
3. THEREFORE, you people MUST approve of everything Obama does or says, or you are hypocrites.
–RAJensen’s intern
jjamele 04 July 2012 at 3:56 pm
Too perfect.
The silver lining here is that maybe now they’ll finally get around to putting A Face in the Crowd on DVD, so that it’s accessible to a new generation of Americans, the vast majority of whom have never seen the film. Its message is more valid now than ever before.
Taylor- It was indeed a tour de force performance and prophetic. Andy’s performance in “A Face in the Crowd”, is one of the first things I thought of when Rush had his 9 hour s.l.u.t. seizure, especially when he is taken down by the woman who grasps what an out of control monster he has become: insane with a sense of unlimited power, You could not have chosen a better clip for its relevance today.
And anyone who believes the crazed-power-hungry media mongers only exist on the right need only look to at Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, etc. etc. etc.
RIP, Andy! A more versatile actor with a broader range is hard to find these days.
Please, can’t we remember the fine work of an actor who has passed on without getting into presidential politics.