JOE McGINNISS

More than a half-century ago–in 1957, to be exact–America was treated to (and in some quarters alarmed by) one of the finest films ever to receive commercial release in the U.S.

I’m talking about A Face in the Crowd, adapted by the great Budd Schulberg from his short story “Your Arkansas Traveler,” and produced and directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Andy Griffith, Walter Matthau and Patricia Neal.

Here’s the  IMDB plot summary:

An Arkansas hobo becomes an overnight media sensation. But as he becomes drunk with fame and power, will he ever be exposed as the fraud he has become?

I first saw A Face in the Crowd as a teenager.  It made such an impression that more than fifty years later, as I was considering whether to write a book about Sarah Palin, I watched it again.  In the context of Palin, it resonated even longer and louder the second time around.

Whether or not you plan to see Sarah’s million-dollar epic to be released in June, I urge you to watch A Face in the Crowd.

Once you do, I suspect you won’t find it quite so easy to ridicule Sarah Palin as an ignorant moron who can’t possibly harm us.