“Dear Mr. Godfrey. Listen to My Plea”
One of The Greatest Mask-Off Moments in Entertainment History
With the last decade of political turmoil, a classic movie that has popped up in conversations was Elia Kazan’s classic A Face in The Crowd (1957) with Andy Griffith’s tour de force performance as Lonesome Rhodes, the seemingly simple country bumpkin who experiences overnight success and fame that doesn’t so much change him but expose the darker and rotten core within his seemingly Mayberry-like demeanor.
The film’s shocking turning point comes when Patricia Neal’s disillusioned journalist Marcia Jefferies, who brought Rhodes into the national spotlight and saw firsthand the monster within, secretly turned on the audio feed of Rhodes’ live TV series after the show ended, so audiences could hear their hero say what he truly thought of them,
“Good night, you stupid idiots.”
“You know what the public’s like? A cage full of guinea pigs.”
Among fans of the movie, it has long been a point of debate about who Lonesome Rhodes was based on. Screenwriter Budd Schulberg claimed to have based Rhodes on the monologist/humorist Will Rogers. However, likely as a result of Rhodes’ mask reveal moment in the film, many saw Lonesome Rhodes’ deceptive act as inspired by someone close to home who…
