All the King's Men (1949)

Memorable, crazy movie

From my favorite movies..

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

"All the King's Men" is essentially the career of the infamous Louisiana politician, Huey Long...though the studio made a few changes here and there in order to avoid lawsuits. This is because the film is NOT a flattering look at a politician who seemed to start out with the best of intentions and eventually became a monster.The film begins with a newspaper reporter (John Ireland) trying to cover the political campaign of a small-time and unknown newcomer, Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford). But the campaign is completely undermined by the state political machine--crony politics where a small group of men essentially run the entire show. After losing, Willie runs again...and once again loses. By his third election, Willie has learned much...and eventually realizes how to beat the entrenched party machine. And, instead of a group of people, the people of his state have one man running it all....and that one man appears to have all the worst qualities of the old machine...and then some.This film earned the Academy Award for Best Picture...and two more for acting. Crawford took home the Best Actor statuette and Mercedes McCambridge the Best Supporting Actress and John Ireland nominated for the Best Supporting Actor awards. And, the acting in this film was pretty good. In fact everything about the film is very good except for two things...it would have been nice if they'd called it like it was and said the man was Huey Long instead of a guy inspired by him and if the film WAS set in Louisiana or some rural setting, why didn't anyone look or sound like they were from this part of the country? Minor quibbles...and a film, overall, that's well worth your time...though I think the better pictures that year was "The Heiress" as well as "12 O'Clock High".By the way, in the final climactic scene, pay attention to the assistant for the Governor...his gun fires 8 or more times without reloading...and it's a revolver!!

All The King's Men won Best Picture back in 1949 and it kind of sums up the format of the distilled half-rousing political Oscar bait type movies we still get today. It's a pretty good film, as are many of the films that followed it, but it's one that could have been great with a bit more boldness and focus. It's a cramped film, and that's a blessing and a curse. It gives it atmosphere, but there's no depth. The frame is always cramped, the film is constantly bombarding you with engaging sequences and the ensemble is bloated. Each are quite entertaining and interesting on their own but its whiplash pace makes something that should hold more weight feel light instead. The ferocious performances from its Oscar winning leads make up for it though and ideally facilitate the melodrama, if not add any dimensions to the characters. Unfortunately the empty lead was a complete waste of space. I'm not sure if he was even necessary. But otherwise, All The King's Men is a very good film about the folly of power, but you can find better in more ambitious and timely classics such as Citizen Kane and Network.7/10

Robert Rossen directed this Academy Award winning(best picture) film that stars Broderick Crawford(Academy Award winning best actor) as Willie Stark, an ambitious local politician who prides himself on honesty and being in touch with the common people. John Ireland plays newspaper reporter Jack Burden, who is sent to cover Willie, and stays for his whole rise and fall from power. Mercedes MacCambridge(Academy Award winning best supporting actress) plays Sadie Burke, an acerbic woman if ever there was one! Willie at first does challenge the corrupt parties that tried to keep him out, but ends up falling into the same trap of preserving his own power, no matter the cost.Based on the real-life Huey Long, this well-acted and written film pulls few punches in its cynicism, making viewer wonder if politics is inherently corrupt, or it just attracts corrupt people. Story is predictable and obvious to a point, but still just as timely as ever.

All the King's Men (1949)The reference to Humpty Dumpty isn't lost here--the hero, a likable protagonist headed for a fall, is the egg, the egg who would be king. We, the people, are the king's men. And all of this is not fantasy, but a fantastical version of the real Huey Long story, the governor and then senator who didn't exactly fall to pieces, but who became a troubling despot of a democratic sort.Long was a come-from-nowhere governor of Louisiana just as the Depression began. His motto: every man a king. Widely admired and hated to this day, he makes natural movie material, and this 1949 version focuses on just that main thread of gutsy idealism and bald powermongering. And the connection between the two, which is a kind of megalomaniacal ego, a charisma borne of blindness (which people admire because it seems so honest), and raw energy. The later movie (2006) is painfully strained and full of itself, and I'd avoid it completely. This one is not a masterpiece, but it has a fast pace, a lot of great acting, and a slightly better sense of authenticity, enough to succeed.Key to its success is Broderick Crawford, whose acting lifts a mundane (if smart) kind of filming to a higher pitch. Director Robert Rossen is totally in control, however, and if there is little magic to the writing or the construction of the film, in film-making terms, the story is told with such compact force, all you notice is Crawford and the twisting turns of events.