Critics reviews

It certainly won't make you feel better about the upcoming election, but perhaps there's some reassurance in knowing that the more things change, the more they stay the same—or is there? Regardless, you can take comfort in the "great and beautiful work" that's both astute and entertaining.

It's a great monster movie. Rhodes starts small, like the Ymir in 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (released the same year) but expands to nation-threatening proportions thanks to the media. Patricia Neal, who had dealt with alien enigmas in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and STRANGER FROM VENUS, has the role of Frankenstein, raising the creature from its harmless microbial form and rendering it dangerously powerful.

Certainly, Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg's attack on media demagoguery remains as scalding as ever, especially with the emerging ubiquity of social media leading us to be as conscious as ever of public image. But even more startling than the film's continuing relevance is its potency as nuanced drama.

In tracing the rise and fall of a homespun television personality turned demagogue, A Face in the Crowd exhibits a tough-minded approach to the problems of mass culture and the facile manipulation of public opinion. Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg employ both hilarious satire and bitter invective to dramatize their point.