It’s been almost 60 years since Ron Howard last played that lovable scamp Opie on “The Andy Griffith Show,” but the Oscar-winning filmmaker still carries the hit television show in his heart to this day. In announcing his TCM Picks for November, Howard began by honoring his TV father, the late Andy Griffith, with the selection of Elia Kazan’s 1957 satire, “A Face in the Crowd.”
“It’s significance has grown tremendously over the decades, both as a distinct piece of cinema and an increasingly relevant social commentary,” Howard said in the video below. “Most personal to me is Andy Griffith’s performance as the central figure, Lonesome Rhodes, an easygoing folk singer who’s transformed by a media producer into a populist figure who’s changing the face of politics.”
Howard goes on to explain how Griffith was the second choice behind Kazan’s regular leading man Marlon Brando, but that the filmmaker tapped into an “intensity underneath Andy’s earthy charm.” Griffith confided in Howard that it made him uncomfortable and he rarely performed in dramatic work ever again.
Howard next discussed the 1949 Kirk Douglas vehicle, “Champion,” acknowledging its influence on his 2005 biopic on boxer James J. Braddock, “Cinderella Man.” Douglas plays a scrappy fighter looking to support his disabled brother (Arthur Kennedy) by taking a few rounds in the ring.
“Douglas trained and did all his own boxing, despite the fact that apparently he had only recently had some cosmetic surgery done on his nose, and any missed punch landing for real on his face would have been a huge problem,” Howard said. “Mark Robson helmed this movie, produced by Stanley Kramer, and written by Carl Foreman, all heavyweights in their own right. But it’s interesting to learn that the movie was financed independently and filmed in just 24 shooting days, which is similar to the schedule of most low budget American indie movies today.”
After shouting out the Goldie Hawn comedy “Private Benjamin” and Diana Ross’s star-turn as Billie Holiday in “Lady Sings the Blues,” Howard closed his TCM Picks with a favorite of the noir genre, “The Maltese Falcon,” directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart.
“Historians credit the great director John Huston with actually inventing the Hollywood genre film noir with his adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s great Sam Spade detective novel. But get this, it was Houston’s first movie as a director,” said Howard. “John’s dad, Walter, was a famous Hollywood character actor, but his nepo baby son John wasn’t interested in acting at that time. He first worked writing for magazines and the theater, and then eventually drifted into his dad’s racket and began writing and selling screenplays in Hollywood. Those successes led to this directing opportunity.”
