A Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan, 1957)
Had to double-check the date there a few times, because it's pretty impressive that this film predates both Beatlemania and the Kennedy v Nixon campaign. Maybe it isn't though: after all, new media always creates these phenomenons. Newspapers certainly did, so did radio, and this one is about the inescapable rise of television but many of its scenes apply just as well to social media "influencers", in fact that exact word is used in the film at one point. So does this get point for being prescient? I think prescience is overrated, but, like its 70s counterpart Network, it is sharply written and it feels applicable outside of its specific context (both forwards and backwards) which is much more impressive to me.
Andy Griffith is a name I recognize from people mentioning him as some kind of cultural touchstone, but obviously one I'm not privy to. I'm assuming he was a comedian/TV star? Whatever the case may be, he's excellent here as the man of the people who finds unexpected success in a folksy persona that is mostly but not entirely a put-on. You truly buy him as a free spirit in the beginning, but he predictably lets greed and fame take over, which lets him reach the highest of highs before his demise. It's a classic rise-and-fall story, but it doesn't feel as formulaic as those often do, perhaps because Griffith isn't the main character of this story. That would be Patricia Neal, as the plucky and smart radio producer who digs him out of obscurity and watches from the sidelines as it all goes wrong. She's infatuated with him to the point of wanting to marry him, but also clearly horrified at the turn he takes, and the way she sticks around, telling herself she's reigning him in is very smart writing supported by an excellent performance.
I don't think TV is a uniquely populist medium. The same thing was said about newspapers, the radio, cinema and now YouTube... the ancient Greeks were already bemoaning the inevitable rise of demagoguery in a democratic system. Where Kazan and Schulberg succeed is in figuring out the ways in which this particular medium can be used to gain power, be it political or cultural. There is a whiff of elitism there, but it doesn't quite sneer at its characters either, and that is ultimately what makes it so effective in the points it's making.
8/10