Lonesome Rhodes...thanks for reminding us, Keith Olbermann

[madfloridian]

Run time: 02:20 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJGUm9e_BLU   Posted on YouTube: May 31, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: September 17, 2009 By DU Member: madfloridian Views on DU: 3918

 
Powerful movie. Could this be why Keith refers to Glenn Beck as Lonesome Rhodes?...for all you young folks here who never saw the movie with Andy Griffith.

[Richard D]

1. This movie is screaming for a remake

2010 version.

[madfloridian]

14. Agreed. There is just so much material ripe for the picking.

Just show a few of those teabagger signs.

[drm604]

2. I caught this a year or two ago on cable.

I think it was on Turner Classic Movies. It was surprising to see Andy Griffith - whom I remember as mild-mannered but competent Sheriff Andy Taylor - playing this type of character.

[madfloridian]

19. Yes, it was disturbing to see him in this kind of dark role.

I agree on that.

[sybylla]

3. Thanks for hunting that down.

I'm not that much younger than Keith and I don't remember the movie at all.

[Myrina]

4. I prefer to call Beck "Pugsley"

... as in Addams, from the Addams Family.

[Donnachaidh]

5. that's an insult to the Addams Family

geez -- pick someone else....

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Time to see that movie again, I think.

I remember it, back when, but would probably appreciate it much more now.
Griffith was powerful and great in it.
Worth seeing, if you get a chance.

Oh, and All The King's Men, the original, with Broderick Crawford
( not the messed up re-make with Sean Penn)
would be a perfect double bill.
We seem to have come back 'round to what these 2 films were showing.

K&R

[Zen Democrat]

7. Turner Classic Movies shows A Face in the Crowd regularly.

I've watched it maybe 10 times in the past two or three years. Don't miss it if you haven't seen it. It's powerful.

I can still hear him yelling -- MARSHA!!!!

[madrchsod]

8. here`s one of old lonesome`s vices....

a very young lee remick.





this was lee`s first movie..

one of the best films ever made.

[texasleo]

15. nice

[bain_sidhe]

9. Netflix has it

When Keith first started using the moniker, I was unfamiliar with it, so I looked it up, then rented "A Face In the Crowd" from Netflix.

Keith's characterization is dead on - an affable con man plucked from obscurity and made a "star" by those who wanted to use him to elect a far-right politician to the Presidency. As he becomes ever more adept at influencing public opinion, "Lonesome Rhodes" eventually becomes consumed with megalomania.

[mucifer]

10. One of my favorite movies. It depicts TV so well while it was in it's infancy.

Andy Griffith is amazing!

[twistedliberal]

11. Thank you for this!

I wondered what Keith was referring to. I thought he was saying "Lonesome Roads" and was meaning to look it up sooner or later. Adding to my Netflix queue now...

[madfloridian]

12. Yes, a friend of mine emailed the link...They had searched on "lonesome roads"

They were just amazed when this popped up.

I have seen the movie several times, but it was such a shock to see Andy Griffith play such a nasty fellow.

[madfloridian]

13. Lonesome Rhodes and the Cracker Barrel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcW0DagQAIc

He asks the congressman to tell him about how people want more and more and more Social Security...smugly. Of course the congressman gets to lecture on how people want coddling from the cradle to the grave.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. Deja vu...

You don't suppose the RW puppetmasters are just using the movie script, do you?

[madfloridian]

18. Almost like same song second verse.

Except it really does sound the same...just dumbed down even more.

[ProfessorPlum]

16. Looks more like Bob Roberts than Glenn Beck

Of course, Bob Roberts actually _was_ smarter than the rubes he led around by the nose. So maybe that isn't such a good comparison.

[madfloridian]

20. It is on this next Sunday, the 20th, at 5:30 PM on TCM

I am going to set the DVR

[madfloridian]

22. Set your DVRs

.

[madfloridian]

21. Excellent Huff Post blog from April...discussing Beck and Lonesome and others.

Lonesome Rhodes' Wild Ride

And indeed his evolution from cuddly crew-cutted conservative care-bear to weepy, howling, media moondog makes perfect sense in this corporate controlled brand-driven culture. He is in fact the Obama-era's O'Reilly: younger, arguably sleeker and shallower, the next generation of corporate shill masquerading as outraged Christian Conservative to capture the pitchfork wielding demo of perpetually angry white guys who never travel abroad and never will, who eschew anything with the word "French" in it and who can only achieve a gelatinous erection when told by their flannelmouthed bully pulpiteers there are Commies, Commies and Commies everywhere. Glenn Beck is right wing media's version of the iPhone. (The iCrank? The iFoam? Submit any and all suggestions.)

But he is also strongly exhibiting the defining qualities of Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan's creation from the 1957 film A Face in the Crowd.

"Lonesome" was a reg'lar feller who spoke his mind in the vernacular of Everyman and very quickly found his way into the hearts of the folks at home who had tired of the blizzard of soap flakes emanating from their Magnavox's and RCA's. They wanted homespun common sense, provocative yet easily digested pablum. They wanted someone to fight for them, to give voice to their daily frustrations and ailments, all of which were manufactured by forces beyond their control. And they got it in the form of this tousle-headed media construct (played by a youthful and surprisingly volatile Andy Griffith).

..."Glenn Beck is not so much Everyman as he is the worst in every man. He is yet another in the recent line of high profile media loudmouths which began with Father Coughlin in the late 1920's and reached their apotheosis with the creation of an entire network devoted to indiscriminate rabble-rousing under a false banner of ethical, unbiased journalism, Fox News.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-weber/lonesome-rho...