125 minute running time so a bit on the long side, but this was an interesting movie I’d never heard about before four people picked it in their Criterion closet picks videos. (Look at the master list to see who those four people are.) I should add that the reliable John Farr also recommended it too.

Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan “cooperated” with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the early 1950s and probably felt pretty awful about it, so they made a political movie like this one to make amends maybe? It’s about the rise of a “demagogue in denim” and how TV’s invention has shaped American politics.

This movie reminded me of Nightmare Alley (1947) in a way (another movie I love and recommend) … sort of stripping away and laying bare the mythology of America. Andy Griffith’s breakout role and young Walter Matthau also appears. This is a green-go recommended movie.