Andy Griffith hasn't always, it seems, been Matlock or the Sherrif Andy Taylor, good old boy and swell guy. He played, in 1957's "“A Face in the Crowd" a fella found in a drunk tank and catapulted to fame and cynical fortune. As the estimable James Lileks said;
What we have here is a guy who took all the good will and familiarity he’d built up thus far and dynamites it for the sake of making a damn good movie, and that’s rather brave: picture Bob Newhart playing a psycho sex killer in a ’66 crime drama – then picture Bob Newhart returning to his previous button-down persona without missing a beat, and going on to decades of success. That’s what Griffith did.
I need to rent that. Heck, based on Lilek's review that's one I will buy.
