All the King's Men

Rating:
Summary: A black and white movie that's "cheesy" at times.
Review: "All the King's Men" is a political movie made in 1949. This movie is a remake of the novel written by Robert Penn Warren who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1947. The movie is about a hick that rises into a very powerful politician that became corrupt. The main stars are Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark, the hick politician, and John Ireland as Jack Burden, the newspaper writer, who then becomes Stark's right hand man. Two women also star in the movie, Mercedes McCambridge as Sadie Burke and Joanne Dru as Annie Stanton. These characters played by Mercedes and Joanne differ in their personalities, making them amusing. However, they did have one thing in common, they were Willie Stark's mistresses. Sadie Burke (Mercedes McCambridge) is a political worker. She portrays a hard, brash lady with a controlling, mouthy attitude (this attitude is probably necessary when working in politics). Sadie becomes Stark's campaign manager and lets him make one bad speech after another. Sadie doesn't care because she knows he is a guinea pig and will lose the election anyway. This mindset shows us her hard attitude; she could at least feel a little sorry for him. Sadie's hardness is revealed by her smoking and drinking. Willie buys her a drink just as if she is one of the guys. Sadie falls in love with Willie and becomes his mistress until Anne Stanton comes along. Sadie becomes jealous and when looking at Anne's picture in a newspaper describes how soft looking Anne's face is. Sadie then describes how hard looking her face was because she had smallpox as a young girl. However, in the next scene, they show a close up of Sadie's face, and it appears smooth and silky. Sadie is actually not ugly but her attitude makes her hard and brash. Sadie also needs to control her rage. For instance, she slaps Jack because she didn't like his comment about Anne being Stark's mistress. Again, this shows her brash disposition. Mercedes McCambridge won Best Supporting Actress for acting her character, Sadie Burke. Joanne Dru with her character, Anne Stanton, acted a more humorous, ding-dong part. She is supposedly in love with Jack Burden, but when she meets Willie Stark, she gives him her googled-eyed look. This look lets us know how delicate Anne is as she falls in love with Willie. In later scenes, we realize that Anne has become Willie's mistress. The worst acting comes from Joanne Dru as Anne Stanton starts slinging her head from side to side because she is in distress. First Jack insults her for being in love with Willie and then tries to apologize. Anne won't look at him so Jack grabs her shoulders and tries to make her look him in the face. Anne can only sling her head wildly. When she is caught lying to her brother, Adam, the same scene occurs again. Adam grabs her shoulders while Anne is slinging her head profusely, avoiding eye contact. Later it happens, which by now has become very humorous, because this poor woman is such a gump. Jack tries to get her to straighten up her act after lying to her brother, but all that Anne can do is sling her head. At the end of the movie, Anne cannot bare anymore. She is in distress because her brother and lover have been killed. Jack tries to console Anne. This is a horrible situation. We know by Anne's past distressful situations how she will react and again, she slings her head. Watching the movie for the first time was for information only. Watching it for a second time, you could really see all the different characters. This movie has a wide variety. Willie Stark, the fighter politician, progressively became a dirty politician. Jack Burden, the newspaper writer, was actually a ne'er-do-well. Sadie, the hard, brash lady politician, has qualities resembling that of Ann Richard's because they are both mouthy. They also appear hard looking, but maybe it's because they are both in politics. Anne Stanton is totally opposite with her distressful, out of control head slinging. Anne is so delicate that it makes her cheesy and humorous. Joanne Dru could have won Best (Cheesy) Actress in "All the King's Men" with all the mellow dramatic acting. All in all, for a black and white movie that was made 50 years ago, it was average for a political movie where the politician is corrupt. Bill Clinton is living proof of this example and someone in the future will more than likely write a movie review based on him. For the time being, his mistresses are getting all of the reviews - how ironic!

Rating:
Summary: WIN WITH WILLIE - POLITICS AND CORRUPTION; What A Novel Mix!
Review: "All The King's Men" is the political melodrama that swept the Oscars and made actor, Broderick Crawford a household name. Pity that in the intervening decades he's all but been forgotten. Crawford is Willie Stark - an honest man butting heads in the political arena until he finally gets his chance to rule when he sweeps the every man's election. Too bad for Willie that the power goes to his head. John Ireland costars as the reporter who wants so desperately to believe in Willie that he's willing to overlook the slow spiral out of control. Mercedes McCambridge is a publicist with only greed in her heart and poison on her mind. John Derek is cast as Willie's son - the tragic victim of his father's scaling to great heights.
TRANSFER: Somewhat of a disappointment. Though the gray scale is reasonably well balanced though at times the contrast levels seem to be a shade too low. A lot of wear and tear has gone into this film's original camera negative. Scratches and age related blemishes are glaringly obvious. Some sections of the print appear to have been lifted from third generation masters instead of the film's original camera negative. There are moments when aliasing and pixelization crop up but these don't terribly distract. The audio is MONO but nicely balanced.
EXTRAS: NOT A CHANCE!
BOTTOM LINE: The drama is compelling. If you can get through all the surface issues with regards to the print elements, then you are in for a very stirring film.

Rating:
Summary: The political rise and fall of Willie Stark
Review: "All the King's Men" turns Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize winning novel into the role of a lifetime for Oscar winning Best Actor Broderick Crawford. The story is inspired, for lack of a better word, by the real life and times of Huey P. Long, the infamous Louisiana politician who seemed intent on adapting fascism to American politics. Director Robert Rossen also wrote the adaptation of the celebrated novel, and ultimately it is Rossen who deserves the credit for the film's power. There is an intensity to the film, beginning with the torchlight processions, campaign barbecues and banners for Stark that we see behind the opening credits. When Stark is finally revealed to us in a rapid-fire sequence showing him at a football stadium, speaking to a crowd at the fair, steamrolling legislators, posing for photographs with his family, there is a vitality that presents the political figure of Stark as an utterly American political figure. The only problem with this film, at least for me, is that the transformation of Willie Stark from the hick lawyer with a sincere concern for the plight of the downtrodden into a drunken, egomaniacal dictator once he has tasted power. The change is too sudden, just like the assassin's bullet that cuts Stark down at the end, so that instead of becoming a tragic figure (a good man gone wrong), we are left wondering who is the real Stark and forced to conclude it is the original naive do-gooder that was the sham. However, once we jettison the character's roots, there is no arguing that this is not a compelling political narrative and the fact that the true story of Huey P. Long again proves that fact is stranger than fiction should not really enter into the equation.

Rating:
Summary: The movie is based on a work of fiction
Review: "All the King's Men" is an adaptation of the Robert Penn Warren novel, not an actual account of the life of Huey Long. Penn Warren based his story only loosely on Long's career - he was really out to tell the tale of Jack Burden. Penn Warren simply used Long's career as a sort of framework for his moral fiction.

Rating:
Summary: WIN WITH WILLIE - POLITICS AND CORRUPTION; What A Novel Mix!
Review: "All The King's Men" is the political melodrama that swept the Oscars and made actor, Broderick Crawford a household name. Pity that in the intervening decades he's all but been forgotten. Crawford is Willie Stark - an honest man butting heads in the political arena until he finally gets his chance to rule when he sweeps the every man's election. Too bad for Willie that the power goes to his head. John Ireland costars as the reporter who wants so desperately to believe in Willie that he's willing to overlook the slow spiral out of control. Mercedes McCambridge is a publicist with only greed in her heart and poison on her mind. John Derek is cast as Willie's son - the tragic victim of his father's scaling to great heights.
TRANSFER: Somewhat of a disappointment. Though the gray scale is reasonably well balanced though at times the contrast levels seem to be a shade too low. A lot of wear and tear has gone into this film's original camera negative. Scratches and age related blemishes are glaringly obvious. Some sections of the print appear to have been lifted from third generation masters instead of the film's original camera negative. There are moments when aliasing and pixelization crop up but these don't terribly distract. The audio is MONO but nicely balanced.
EXTRAS: NOT A CHANCE!
BOTTOM LINE: The drama is compelling. If you can get through all the surface issues with regards to the print elements, then you are in for a very stirring film.

Rating:
Summary: WIN WITH WILLIE - POLITICS AND CORRUPTION; What A Novel Mix!
Review: "All The King's Men" is the political melodrama that swept the Oscars and made actor, Broderick Crawford a household name. Pity that in the intervening decades he's all but been forgotten. Crawford is Willie Stark - an honest man butting heads in the political arena until he finally gets his chance to rule when he sweeps the every man's election. Too bad for Willie that the power goes to his head. John Ireland costars as the reporter who wants so desperately to believe in Willie that he's willing to overlook the slow spiral out of control. Mercedes McCambridge is a publicist with only greed in her heart and poison on her mind. John Derek is cast as Willie's son - the tragic victim of his father's scaling to great heights.
TRANSFER: Somewhat of a disappointment. Though the gray scale is reasonably well balanced though at times the contrast levels seem to be a shade too low. A lot of wear and tear has gone into this film's original camera negative. Scratches and age related blemishes are glaringly obvious. Some sections of the print appear to have been lifted from third generation masters instead of the film's original camera negative. There are moments when aliasing and pixelization crop up but these don't terribly distract. The audio is MONO but nicely balanced.
EXTRAS: NOT A CHANCE!
BOTTOM LINE: The drama is compelling. If you can get through all the surface issues with regards to the print elements, then you are in for a very stirring film.

Rating:
Summary: The political rise and fall of Willie Stark
Review: "All the King's Men" turns Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize winning novel into the role of a lifetime for Oscar winning Best Actor Broderick Crawford. The story is inspired, for lack of a better word, by the real life and times of Huey P. Long, the infamous Louisiana politician who seemed intent on adapting fascism to American politics. Director Robert Rossen also wrote the adaptation of the celebrated novel, and ultimately it is Rossen who deserves the credit for the film's power. There is an intensity to the film, beginning with the torchlight processions, campaign barbecues and banners for Stark that we see behind the opening credits. When Stark is finally revealed to us in a rapid-fire sequence showing him at a football stadium, speaking to a crowd at the fair, steamrolling legislators, posing for photographs with his family, there is a vitality that presents the political figure of Stark as an utterly American political figure. The only problem with this film, at least for me, is that the transformation of Willie Stark from the hick lawyer with a sincere concern for the plight of the downtrodden into a drunken, egomaniacal dictator once he has tasted power. The change is too sudden, just like the assassin's bullet that cuts Stark down at the end, so that instead of becoming a tragic figure (a good man gone wrong), we are left wondering who is the real Stark and forced to conclude it is the original naive do-gooder that was the sham. However, once we jettison the character's roots, there is no arguing that this is not a compelling political narrative and the fact that the true story of Huey P. Long again proves that fact is stranger than fiction should not really enter into the equation.

Rating:
Summary: The political rise and fall of Willie Stark
Review: "All the King's Men" turns Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize winning novel into the role of a lifetime for Oscar winning Best Actor Broderick Crawford. The story is inspired, for lack of a better word, by the real life and times of Huey P. Long, the infamous Louisiana politician who seemed intent on adapting fascism to American politics. Director Robert Rossen also wrote the adaptation of the celebrated novel, and ultimately it is Rossen who deserves the credit for the film's power. There is an intensity to the film, beginning with the torchlight processions, campaign barbecues and banners for Stark that we see behind the opening credits. When Stark is finally revealed to us in a rapid-fire sequence showing him at a football stadium, speaking to a crowd at the fair, steamrolling legislators, posing for photographs with his family, there is a vitality that presents the political figure of Stark as an utterly American political figure. The only problem with this film, at least for me, is that the transformation of Willie Stark from the hick lawyer with a sincere concern for the plight of the downtrodden into a drunken, egomaniacal dictator once he has tasted power. The change is too sudden, just like the assassin's bullet that cuts Stark down at the end, so that instead of becoming a tragic figure (a good man gone wrong), we are left wondering who is the real Stark and forced to conclude it is the original naive do-gooder that was the sham. However, once we jettison the character's roots, there is no arguing that this is not a compelling political narrative and the fact that the true story of Huey P. Long again proves that fact is stranger than fiction should not really enter into the equation.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant comprehensive work summarizing the rise&fall man
Review: a view encompassing the rise and fall of man from the stone age to the ice age to the feudal age to the modern age, mainly focusing on the French society of differnt social classes, and each ones importence to the king of france.

Rating:
Summary: Lord Acton is Right Again
Review: All the King's Men is a wonderful movie about the corrupting effect of politics. It is a little abrupt in its transitions and glosses over the honest man becoming a demogogue to a great extent but it is still a brave and true film in having the guts to portray a system that leaves no character unmuddied. There are no heroes in this movie. It is not just about power corrupting but also about how appealing power can be to people in its vicinity. It turns strong men into toadies and women into, well let's just say it's in the Bible and Babylon had one. The script and direction by Robert Rossen are both very effective. There are also good performances by most of the actors, particulary Broderick Crawford. The stand out, though, is the stunning portrait by Mercedes McCambridge who allows the standard character of the fast talkin' dame to seeth with anger under her sharp tongue. There is more pain and defiance when she looks in a mirror that the other actors manage throughout the entire movie. A film that is still true and still powerful. It is the portrait of someone who kept his ambition on the outside where now a politician keeps it on the inside but it is the same ambition.