What's the moral of A Face in the Crowd?

The moral big time is dont bite the hand that feeds you.
Lonesome could have been a wonderful star and well loved but he had a swelled head and thought that he could have his cake and eat it to and also eat everyone elses cake too as if he thought he could get away with it.

"So, a thought crossed your mind? Must have been a long and lonely journey"

The moral is: do not be deceived by *apperance*/s! *Deeds* make the person, not words, images, 'style' (clothing, e.g.), despite how they *seem* to be! And the power of TV to convey this deception did not escape the perceptive. The Nixon vs. J.F.K. debate being a perfect example; ironically, Nixon's 5 o'clock shadow made him look like the creep (no pun intended) he was, so he lost.

Arthur Godfrey was first a big radio star (ukelele player and mediocre singer) and (or became by the time TV evolved) he was a very big star, a skinflint, and a real egomanical prick (by then, anyway). Julius LaRosa was his best/biggest star and he couldn't get more than scale pay, so he cut a record or three, which did very well and made him and even bigger star. That really irritaed Godfrey, so he fired him. There *may* have been some contractual cross-over, as well? There was also something re: the female trio, which I don't recall.

It was kind if like the Detroit Tigers, when I was a kid. Harvey Kuehn won league M.V.P. and the miserly owner of the team wouldn't even give him a raise. Really ticked me off; I never listened to/rooted for them again. Besides, the 'damn Yankees' always won back then,. But Al Kaline and others, too, were grossly underpaid by that guy... like owners didn't make enough? HA! The parks were filled.

All that glitters is not gold.

Something or someone that catches the eye (in Rhodes case, the ear) in a pleasing way is not necessarily precious and valuable.






Billy Wilder Page, Play the Movie Smiley Game
www.screenwritingdialogue.com

As to whether or not Lonesome Rhodes is changed very much by the power afforded to him, I would have to say yes and no. His basic characteristics stay fairly stable throughout the film- from the start; he's portrayed as an opportunistic womanizer with a taste for liquor and a warm bed but a lonely heart. He loses his humble lifestyle as he gains wealth and power, but he was never really a very humble person. Even in the jail cell that we first meet him in, he seems to know just how charming, charismatic and talented he is. It’s not that he's too simple and goodhearted to use his charms for gain at the beginning; he’s just too lazy and irresponsible. The biggest change in his personality seems to be his growing shrewdness (unintentionally brought about by Marsha) and ability to use his natural talents for personal gain. He's not so much corrupted by the end of the film as he is enabled.

Of course certain scenes, like his breakdown before asking Marsha to marry him, do complicate this characterization. Part of me likes to read that scene as proof that he did possess some moral code and some understanding of the responsibilities that come with fame, while another more cynical part of me thinks that his “this power scares me” semi-breakdown was mainly a ploy to trick Marsha into marrying him.

There seem to be several morals to this film depending on how you read it, but the one that stuck out most to me regards the power of advertising. At the time that this film came out, the television industry was fairly new and advertising was becoming increasingly sophisticated as a result. There was a growing concern about the ability of advertising companies and PR experts to manipulate public opinion and subconsciously alter our desires; things that men like Edward Bernays bragged about being able to do. (On a related note, there are a few quotes from the film that were practically taken verbatim from Bernays). One moral of this film could definitely be to use your better judgment while interacting with media sources and not to allow your emotions to be swayed by charming faces and witty banter.

There also seems to be an almost overt resentment towards television in general, but given the release date of the film, that isn’t surprising. The growth of television was definitely starting to cut into film profits during the time that AFITC was being filmed so it isn’t such a stretch to wonder whether some of the very real antagonisms between the film and television industries had made their way into this film.

I suspect the moral of the story derives from Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg's experiences with the Red Scare of the late 1940s, early 1950s.

Kazan and Schulberg ratted out their former-communist party members in Hollywood. That alone explains the absence of Academy Award nominations for a film that clearly deserved several.

"Mel Miller" and perhaps "Marcia Jeffries" are the stand-ins for Kazan and Schulberg. The characters discover the true nature of "Lonesome Rhodes" (e.g., the siren call of communism, Marxism-Leninism), who is contemptuous of the masses but cynically manipulates their naïveté and essential goodness for his own, evil purposes. By testifying against Hollywood reds, Kazan and Schulberg were simply "putting the microphone" up to the lips of the fellow travelers of the CPUSA, revealing to America the true, insidious nature of the "red menace."

Were Kazan and Schulberg "heroes," like "Miller" and "Jeffries," or were they villains, as most of the film industry in Hollywood considered them? That, dear reader, is for you to decide for yourself.

an evil megalomaniac - wow, that does sound like soros.

The moral is simple. Women will build you up, just to knock you down when you are on top.

I think the answer is when Rhodes just wakes up in the county jail. He almost bites Patricia Neal's head off until he realizes this is a situation he might be able to exploit.






"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"