Vitals

Andy Griffith as Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, folksy yet power-hungry media personality

Memphis to New York City, Spring 1956

Film: A Face in the Crowd
Release Date: May 28, 1957
Director: Elia Kazan
Costume Designer: Anna Hill Johnstone

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today would have been the 100th birthday of Andy Griffith, born June 1, 1926. Already somewhat known as a comedian for routines like his breakthrough 1953 monologue “What It Was, Was Football”, Griffith made his explosive screen debut in Elia Kazan’s excellent 1957 drama A Face in the Crowd, a devastatingly prescient depiction of how susceptible American culture is to populism and celebrity cycloning into demagoguery. Budd Schulberg adapted his own short story “Your Arkansas Traveler” into the screenplay centered around Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, a charismatic drifter plucked from obscurity by radio producer Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) who ascends out of control into an influential public figure.

Despite this dark debut as a Will Rogers-meets-Huey Long demagogue, Griffith remains best known to audiences for tapping into the lighter side of his folksy persona playing earnest Southerners like Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show and defense lawyer Ben Matlock on Matlock. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Griffith died in July 2012 at age 86.

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What’d He Wear?

Lonesome Rhodes’ style evolves with his growing success and exposure, intentionally manicured to maintain his image by pairing a textured sport suit and countrified string tie with a dark, silky shirt that blends both homespun informality with a stage-ready sheen.

Made from either genuine silk or the silky synthetic rayon (increasingly common in mid-century sportswear), Rhodes’ slubby sports shirt is detailed with flat pearl-like four-hole buttons contrasting against the shirt’s darker body—including buttons up the plain front, a single button over each squared cuff, and a single button through the top of both chest pockets. The convertible collar has a loop so that Rhodes can button the shirt up to his neck, converting this sportier flat collar into a spread collar.

When he wears a suit, Rhodes does just that—buttoning his shirt all the way to the neck—and supplements his look with a decorative Western string tie. This is essentially a long, narrow, square-ended swath of silk—in Rhodes’ case, printed with a dark, repeating pattern against a light-colored ground—that he knots under the shirt collar to let both ribbon-like ends hang down his shirt.

Rhodes wears a light-colored flannel suit, dressing up his shirt and string tie while speaking the same sartorial language with the jacket’s sportier details like patch pockets over the breast and hips. The single-breasted jacket has notch lapels that roll low, just over the top of the two-button front. The shoulders are padded straight, with four smaller vestigial buttons at the end of each cuff, and the back is split with a single vent.

The suit’s matching trousers are double reverse-pleated, styled with side pockets and belt loops through which he wears a narrow dark-brown leather belt that closes through a single-prong buckle. We don’t see the trouser bottoms clearly in these scenes, though they’re likely finished with turn-ups (cuffs), following the conventions of the era and Rhodes’ other screen-worn trousers.

Rhodes’ dark leather cowboy boots are best seen during a separate scene as he’s on stage hocking Luffler mattresses (“Your daddy slept on ’em”), having ditched his suit and string tie in favor of orphaned trousers with a unique “cashmere stripe” of dark stripes in alternating widths against a dark ground. These are styled with wide, Western-style pointed belt loops, slanted front pockets, back pockets covered with single-button pointed flaps, and turn-ups (cuffs).

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What to Imbibe

Though he doesn’t prominently drink in these scenes, Lonesome Rhodes generally keeps his booze aligned with his American working-class image, pouring bottles of Budweiser into mugs during an early meeting with Marcia and then regularly swilling Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey during his more successful period—reserving the Piper-Heidsick champagne for more private moments at home.

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How to Get the Look

• Light flannel sport suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Dark slubby silk (or rayon) long-sleeved sports shirt with convertible loop collar, plain front, two button-through chest pockets, and single-button squared cuffs
• Light and dark-printed narrow silk Western string tie
• Dark-brown narrow leather belt with single-prong buckle
• Dark cowboy boots

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

Back where I come from, a fella looks too dignified, we figure he’s lookin’ to steal your watch!