Sad news being reported today about the death of Andy Griffith at age 86. Though he will mostly be remembered as the avuncular Sheriff of Mayberry, I prefer to recall him as the naif, a country singer who gets schooled in the sorry ways of the world in Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan’s 1957 film with Patricia Neal, “A Face in the Crowd,” a great black & white movie, in the same cinematic family as Billy Wilder’s bitter classic “Ace in the Hole,” aka “The Big Carnival.” Both of these ’50s b&w classics take sharp aim at the jaded ways of the media and modern celebrity-making. Here’s the original trailer: