A Face in the Crowd (1957)

Patricia Neal: Marcia Jeffries

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Marcia Jeffries : You put your whole self into that laugh, don't you?

  Lonesome Rhodes : Marcia, I put my whole self into everything I do.

• Lonesome Rhodes : This whole country's just like my flock of sheep!

  Marcia Jeffries : Sheep?

  Lonesome Rhodes : Rednecks, crackers, hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers - everybody that's got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle. They don't know it yet, but they're all gonna be 'Fighters for Fuller'. They're mine! I own 'em! They think like I do. Only they're even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for 'em. Marcia, you just wait and see. I'm gonna be the power behind the president - and you'll be the power behind me!

• First Mrs. Rhodes : Larry... he thinks he has to take a bite out of every broad he comes across. Then he calls them a tramp, drops them, and there's all sort of psycho something-or-other, you know. I caught him red-handed with my best girlfriend. He broke my jaw.

  Marcia Jeffries : It seems to be working quite effectively now.

• Marcia Jeffries : You always drink like that?

  Lonesome Rhodes : Not always. Back in Riddle they was pretty strict. Didn't allow us to touch hard liquor till we was 10 or 11.

  Marcia Jeffries : Now is there really a town called Riddle?

  Lonesome Rhodes : Well, tell you the flat truth, it's just a sort of a whatchacallit, a...

  Marcia Jeffries : ...Composite?

  Lonesome Rhodes : Compost heap's more like it.

• Marcia Jeffries : They love his voice, they love his guitar, they love his ideas... they should know some of his ideas.

• Marcia Jeffries : Betty Lou is your public, all wrapped up with yellow ribbons into one cute little package. She's the logical culmination of the great 20th-century love affair between Lonesome Rhodes and his mass audience.

• Lonesome Rhodes : There's always Vanderbilt '44.

  Marcia Jeffries : He's gone back to Memphis. I think he wants to forget us both.

  Lonesome Rhodes : I thought he'd wait for you till there was ice on the equator.

  Marcia Jeffries : That's how long he did wait.

• [last lines] 

  Lonesome Rhodes : [as Marcia and Mel enter the taxi, screams violently]  MARCIA!

  Marcia Jeffries : [quickly turns and sees him at the top of the building]  Mel...

  Lonesome Rhodes : DON'T LEAVE ME!

  Mel Miller : I don't figure him for a suicide.

  Lonesome Rhodes : Marcia!

  Marcia Jeffries : Mel, if I'd only left him in that jail in Pickett...

  Mel Miller : Marcia, stop it. You were taken in, just like we were all taken in. When we get wise to him, that's our strength. We get wise to him.

  Lonesome Rhodes : [continues screaming]  Come back, Marcia! Marcia, come back! Don't leave me! Don't leave me!

  [Marcia and Mel drive off in the taxi] 

  Lonesome Rhodes : Don't leave me! Marcia, don't leave! COME BACK! COME BACK! COME BACK!

• [Lonesome is pounding on Marcia's door in the middle of the night] 

  Lonesome Rhodes : Marcia, can you hear me? Get up, wake up! It's me, big me, the king. Come on, Marcia, open up. I said hurry up on this door, Marcia! Lonesome's back!

  [Marcia lets him in] 

  Lonesome Rhodes : Just got rid of Betty Lou. Sweet talking little floozy, she'd have ruined me. Fix me a drink.

  Marcia Jeffries : What are you doing?

  Lonesome Rhodes : We'll have to be more careful than we used to be. I'll have to stay married till I get my new appointment.

  Marcia Jeffries : Your what?

  Lonesome Rhodes : This is still top secret. The General's been talking to Fuller. He's selling him the idea of creating a Cabinet post for me. "In time of imminent crisis and danger". That's the way the General puts it. Who can rabble people better than me? Hold them in line, right behind the government. If we put Fuller across the way, and we will, he's gonna owe me that. Secretary for National Morale. How's that sound to you? Secretary for National Morale. General's asking him to shake on it after my banquet tomorrow launching Fighters for Fuller.

  Marcia Jeffries : Fighters for Fuller?

  Lonesome Rhodes : [exhilarated]  Yeah, how do you like that name? Huh, huh? HUH? I made it up. Everybody -- everybody's nuts about it! The biggest men in the country are coming to my banquet to get things rolling. I've got an admiral, two governors, some investment house boys and a cabinet minister.

  Marcia Jeffries : Which one?

  Lonesome Rhodes : I don't know. I told the general to pick one.

  Marcia Jeffries : They're coming to your party?

  Lonesome Rhodes : Honey, if I ask them, they've got to come! They'd be afraid not to come. I could murder them, just like this.

  [Lonesome lets out a big, loud mocking laugh] 

  Marcia Jeffries : I'm afraid it's true.

  Lonesome Rhodes : What's true?

  Marcia Jeffries : Right here, tonight, you might have that much power.

• [first lines] 

  Earl Wilson : Oh, Miss Jeffries!

  [as he jogs over to the KGRK network's station wagon] 

  Earl Wilson : Good morning Marcia! Well, I think we have just what you're lookin' for; we always get a good haul on the Fourth of July.

  [in reference of her periodic head-hunting for local broadcasting talent on her radio show: A Face in the Crowd] 

  Marcia Jeffries : Good! Come on, let's go.

  [they then drive over to the town jail]