This isn't on-the-media podcast Extra. I'm Brooke Gladstone. What follows is a quick glance backward at a movie.

The plot traces the rise of a rather boarish man from local media firebrand to outsized TV personality superstar to political demagogue.

The man is Larry Lonesome Rhodes,

played by Andy Griffith in Ilya Kazan's

1957 film, A Face in the Crowd.

And, as WNYC, Sarah Fischko reports,

the film, during this election season,

seems to be making something of a comeback,

popping up in local screenings and readily available online.

Here it is.

I'm certainly not the first person to think about the movie A Face in the Crowd right now.

In the past few months, I've seen mentions of it pop up in quite a few places, even though it was released a long time ago in

1957. But at this point, it's hard not to think about it.

Say, where's the drunk we take in last night with the guitar? The film is the story of

a drifter who winds up in an Arkansas jail. This is Radio KGRK, the voice of Norwich,

where an ambitious radio producer gives him the mic.

Oh, good night, moon.

In no time, his foxy and unconventional ways catch fire with radio listeners.

And he crosses over with an explosive force, first to television, wild popularity, then to politics.

It's from a time, says Thomas Doherty, author of Cold War, Cool Medium, when such things

were possible for the right person.

Joseph McCarthy is the emblematic one, of course. He's sort of the first post-war figure

...