Rating of
4/4
Andy Griffith goes Dark
Looneymanthegreat - wrote on 04/02/13
My father was always a big Andy Griffith show fan so I watched a lot with him as a young lad. There’s always been something appealing about that simple wise homespun sort of hero, and The Andy Griffith show was and always has been a classic example.
Sadly, I have not watched The Andy Griffith Show in a long long time, not since I first saw A Face in the Crowd. A Face in the Crowd has sort of ruined it for me; or rather I’m afraid it has.
The film stars Griffith (before he got his fame) as a drifter who, through some fluke luck ends up with his own television show. His refreshing outlook on life gains him unprecedented popularity, and his fame and wealth, things he didn’t have, or cared about having before hand.
The movie is a startling depiction of a normal sane man turned into a psychopath by power. The devilish performance by Andy Griffith is especially memorable; I didn’t know he was good at being evil.
This flick is a lot like Bigger Then Life and Treasure of the Sierra Madre in how it depicts the moving of a norm man into a crazed insanity, and those two are almost as good as this one. They’re all wonderfully done, but I like A Face in the Crowd more, just because I was so shocked, and even a little bit scared of Andy Griffith’s evil side.
