Fastscans: Top Foreign & Indie Picks

Discovered in a small-town jail by a talent-scouting radio-show producer (Patricia Neal), Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes (Andy Griffith) parlays his gift for guitar licks and folksy ditties into power-wielding television stardom as a populist demagog. Director Elia Kazan (On the Waterfront) showcases a blistering lead performance in screenwriter Budd Schulberg's cautionary parable about the media creation of a two-faced megalomaniac ultimately brought down by his ambitious creator—who had the misfortune of falling for him—in this handsomely restored tour de force. Jack Hawkins matches acting chops as the clever interrogator who forgoes primitive torture in favor of psychological manipulation in Peter Glenville's fascinating drama exploring the political threat of deeply held beliefs.