Director Elia Kazan's second collaboration with screenwriter Budd Schulberg after On the Waterfront (1954) is a corrosive attack on the ascendant medium of television. Andy Griffith, in his screen debut, plays Lonesome Rhodes, a charismatic, guitar-picking hillbilly-turned-TV star, eventually becoming a power-mad demagogue. Hyperbolic, energetic and in many ways prophetic, the film indicts both television and the cult of personality in postwar America.
35mm, b/w, 132 min. Production: Newton Productions, Inc. Distribution: Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. Producer: Elia Kazan. Director: Elia Kazan. Based on the short story “Your Arkansas Traveler” by Budd Schulberg. Screenwriter: Budd Schulberg. Cinematographer: Harry Stradling, Gayne Rescher. Editor: Gene Milford. Composer: Tom Glazer. With: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau, Lee Remick.
