A Face in the Crowd (1957). prior to my seeing this film, any opinion i had of andy griffith had long since been filed away, likely somewhere between gilligan's island and gomer pyle. stupid, ignorant me. A Face in the Crowd has been called a hidden masterpiece of the latter 20th century, and i would agree. without doubt it is one of the most socially relevant films of it's latter half-century, and so ingeniously current in terms of cinematic style and subject matter that it could have been made in the 1997 instead of 1957.

Griffith was born for this role, and it for him (one part Andy of Mayberry, two parts Charlie Manson), and so masterfully embodies it that the faint resemblance to any characters in his later career could only have been derived by their having suffered a lobotomy or chemical castration.