The film flopped, financially, although it got mostly positive reviews. It then became one of those films that was 'lost.' That means its reputation grew the more people spoke in remembrance of it, mainly because of its then ahead of the curve take, not only on politics, but on sex, drugs, alcohol consumption (see the wild faux television commercials Rhodes makes), and its own skewering of then popular television programs, with its own versions of same. Thus, the reissue of the film had to sate its admirers, even if, it may not wholly win over as many new fans as its champions wish for. Still, A Face In The Crowd is worth seeing, less for any technical or artistic achievement, and more for its prescient place as a predictor of the power of television's role in the decline of intelligent discourse in American society. It may have been too preachy and smug a film to be great, and it certainly has not dated well in many aspects outside of its predictive power, but, no one can deny that, in the main, it was absolutely right about where this nation was headed. And now that we've arrived, one wishes for a similar film that might elucidate a way out. God wot!
Review of A Face in the Crowd
