Arkansas Society for Cinema and Television Production (ASCTP)

(a Non-Profit Education Corporation)

contact: Gary William Jones gary@jonesfilmvideo.com

Glossary of Film Terms: http://www.filmsite.org/filmterms1.html

RTV 3303-001 Spring 2010 Class #9 A Face in the Crowd (1957)

http://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0050371/trivia

Andy Griffith's film debut.

Lee Remick's film debut

The Vitajex tablets that Lonesome Rhodes hawks have 6 grains of dextrose, 5 grains of inert material, 2.5 grains of caffeine, and 3.5 grains of aspirin. That's roughly equivalent to a 16 oz café latte and two baby aspirin tablets.

The majority of the movie was filmed at Biograph Studios built in 1912 by American Mutoscope & Biograph [us]. The studio was sold several times throughout the years until it burned down in 1980.

In the "Making of" documentary on the 2005 DVD release of A Face in the Crowd, Andy Griffith says that the inspiration for way that Marcia reveals Rhodes' hypocrisy (by broadcasting his true feelings about his audience after he believes the sound has been cut off) came from the famed "Uncle Don incident," in which "Uncle" Don Carney, a longtime children's radio host, was supposed to have been broadcast saying "there, that oughta hold the little bastards" into a live microphone after he thought it had already been turned off. Griffith recounted this story as fact, even though it is believed by most broadcasting historians to be nothing more than a widespread and very popular urban legend.

http://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0050371/locations

Filming Locations

• Biograph Studios, Bronx, New York City, New York, USA 
(studio)

• Iverson Ranch, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California, USA

• Memphis, Tennessee, USA 
(There was one scene shot on the rooftop terrace of the famous Peabody Hotel.)

• NBC-TV Studios, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, New York, USA 
(Friend was a switchboard Operator in the film)

• Paragould, Arkansas, USA

• Piggott, Arkansas, USA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Face_in_the_Crowd_(film)

Real-life inspirations

It is possible that Schulberg built the musical side of the Rhodes character on that of Tennessee Ernie Ford who, in the wake of his hit record "Sixteen Tons", had a popular weekly half-hour program on NBC called "The Ford Show." Despite a lengthy struggle with alcohol, Ford's personality was nothing like the manipulative, megalomanaical Larry Rhodes.

Other aspects of the Rhodes personality were clearly inspired by 1940s and 50s CBS radio-TV star Arthur Godfrey. The scene where Rhodes, on TV in Memphis, spoofs his sponsor echoes Godfrey's reputation for kidding his. Godfrey claimed he would not advertise products he did not believe in, and routinely ridiculed both the sponsor's stodgy ad copy and occasionally, the company executives. The more Godfrey did this, the more sales increased. Arthur Godfrey's immense popularity began to deflate following his 1953 on-air firing of singer Julius LaRosa, which opened the gradual exposure of his less-lovable, often controlling off-camera personality. Though he remained on radio, TV and even films for several years afterward, Godfrey's mass appeal and popularity were never the same. At one point Rhodes telegraphs Jeffries that he's going to miss a broadcast and requests Godfrey fill in for him.

The film marked the debut of actress Lee Remick, who plays a teenage baton-twirling champion from Arkansas, one of Rhodes' love interests whom he marries instead of Marcia Jeffries. To underscore the sway of television media in America, Kazan cleverly incorporated several cameos by popular "talking heads", including: Sam Levenson, John Cameron Swayze, Mike Wallace, Earl Wilson, and Walter Winchell.

Some have suggested that the Rhodes character may have been inspired in part by John Henry Faulk, a country comedian who was long blacklisted as a result of the "Red Scare." Schulberg, however, has admitted basing a significant part of the character's facade on that of Will Rogers, adding a distinctively un-Rogers-like level of amorality and cruelty.

In Richard Schickel's 2006 biography of director Elia Kazan, Schulberg explained that he had met Will Rogers, Jr., who was running for Congress. The younger Rogers told Schulberg that his father socialized with the very establishment types he mocked in his public pronouncements, adding that his father was actually a political reactionary in private life.

Two cast members had genuine ties to the country music field. Big Jeff Bess, who portrayed the Sheriff, was a Nashville-based country music performer on radio station WLAC there, leading a group called "Big Jeff and His Radio Playboys," which recorded for Dot Records and included guitarist Grady Martin. Bess was, for a time, the husband of Tootsie Bess, longtime owner of Nashville's famous downtown bar Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, a hangout for country entertainers.

Rod Brasfield was a popular Grand Ole Opry comedian in the 1950s, known for his own performances and onstage comic banter with legendary Opry comic Minnie Pearl.