All the King's Men (1949)

Director:

Robert Rossen

Writers:

Robert Rossen (writer)
Robert Penn Warren (novel)

Release Date:

7 August 1950 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

He Might Have Been A Pretty Good Guy . . . If Too Much Power . . . And Women . . . Hadn't Gone To his Head !

Plot:

The rise and fall of a corrupt politician, who makes his friends richer and retains power by dint of a populist appeal.

Plot Keywords:

Marriage | Rags To Riches | South | Great Depression | Murder

Awards:

Won 3 Oscars. Another 11 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Broderick Crawford	...	Willie Stark
John Ireland	...	Jack Burden
Joanne Dru	...	Anne Stanton
John Derek	...	Tom Stark
Mercedes McCambridge	...	Sadie Burke
Shepperd Strudwick	...	Adam Stanton
Ralph Dumke	...	Tiny Duffy
Anne Seymour	...	Mrs. Lucy Stark
Katherine Warren	...	Mrs. Burden (as Katharine Warren)
Raymond Greenleaf	...	Judge Monte Stanton
Walter Burke	...	Sugar Boy
Will Wright	...	Dolph Pillsbury
Grandon Rhodes	...	Floyd McEvoy

Runtime:

109 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Sweden:15 | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Canada:PG (video rating) | Finland:K-16 | UK:U | USA:Unrated | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

California, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Robert Penn Warren's novel, upon which the film was based, was published in 1946. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Writer-director Robert Rossen purchased the film rights himself, and was then able to broker a deal with Columbia Pictures. He shifted the focus of the novel from the Jack Burden character (played by John Ireland) to Willie Stark.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the locker room scene, the towel draped over Tom's shoulders keeps changing positions.

Quotes:

Jack Burden: Anne, Burden's Landing is a place on the Moon. It isn't real. It doesn't exist. It's me pretending to live on what I earn. It's my mother trying to keep herself young and drinking herself old. It's you and Adam living in this house as though your father were still alive. It's an old man like the judge dreaming of the past.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 80th Annual Academy Awards (2008) (TV)

Politicians corrupt? You're kidding!

There are lots of movies about the rise of some obscure person into the celebrity life, and the person turns out to be an ambitious and unscrupulous phony. Some of them are pretty good -- "Citizen Kane," "All About Eve." Some are mediocre -- "Keeper of the Flame." This is one of the best.

The acting honors generally go to Broderick Crawford and he's not bad. He's rather like a switch who can toggle either into thoughtful candor or blustering Hickhood. (He used the latter persona to good effect as a New Jersey junk man later.) He also had a third position, the incredibly dumb goof, which he never used after becoming a serious actor, but see, "Larceny, Incorporated" for an example of what I mean.

If there's a problem with the script it's not his fault, although it involves his character. Hung over, still a bit drunk, Crawford steps on stage and instead of his usual boring "tax" speech he gives a redneck-rousing go-getter. And he never changes after that. Rather too quick a transition.

The direction is very good. There's a scene in which Mercedes McCambridge enters the hotel room in which John Ireland has been cooped up for four days in a depressed state. "Whew, lots of smoke," she says. "And lots of whiskey." The scene is almost perfectly staged, with Ireland crumpled on the bed in the foreground and reaching for his liquor out of the frame, while McCambridge busies herself emptying ash trays in the background and staring at her face in the mirror. "Smallpox," she says. (She's not nearly as attractive as Crawford's new girl friend, JoAnne Dru, nee Joanne Letitia LaCock, a name that could have come straight out of Andy Warhol's Factory.) Everyone's acting is quite up to par. It's John Ireland's best role. He was never Hollwyood-handsome with those squished up eyes, that deep hole between them, and that protruding nose beneath.

But the honors really should go to Mercedes McCambridge. Robert Rossen, the director, allows her a few seconds here and there to be unique. When Ireland slaps her face hard, she doesn't cry. She replies with a mixture of contempt and not entirely displeased surprise at having provoked him to violence. And that little speech about smallpox as she compares her face in the mirror to the glamorized portrait of Joanne Dru.

I won't go on, I don't think. If you haven't seen this, you really ought to. So should everyone inside the Beltway. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's been attributed so often to Lord Acton that I'm beginning to believe he said it.