“All the King’s Men” was a movie I had often heard as being a meaningful movie when it comes to politics. So it was one of the movies on the Oscar winning list that I was looking forward to. Released in 1949 the movie is based off of a book of the same name and apparently is a thinly veiled telling of the life and assassination of real-life Louisiana Governor, Huey Long.
The movie plot follows a journalist as he begins to cover the campaign of Willie Stark. Due to corruption in the government, Stark loses his first bid. He puts himself through law school and then runs for governor. This time he starts making some of the shady deals that he refused to make the first time. As the movie continues Willie does big things for the state, but at the same time makes a lot of shady deals that profit himself and his family. We see this through the same reporter who is brought into Willie’s group as a close advisor who would get dirt on everyone. Eventually Willie’s antics catch up to him and he has to keep doing more and more illegal activities to try and keep himself looking clean. However by the end of the movie, after beating a possible impeachment, Willie is shot and killed.
The plot itself is decent and resembles some of the political dramas that are so prevalent today. However, there is a big step missing. The transition from Willie being a clean candidate to a dirty politician is glossed over. He goes from being a nice straight forward candidate to being someone who is willing to lie and cheat to get what he wants over night. Apart from this transition however the rest of the story is interesting and can match up with the plots of today.
From an acting perspective the movie belongs to Broderick Crawford and his portrayal of Willie Stark. Apart from the transition problem I mentioned above, Crawford puts in a master class of growing a character. By the time the movie is over he is hardly recognizable as the same character that started the movie and it is very convincing. Most of that is due to the script which is full of fun speeches and lines for him to say. The supporting cast is decent, but the movie would be nothing without Crawford. While the script is also pretty good, the directing is nothing to really celebrate. It’s a standard piece of work, but nothing really special is happening here.
With a few small tweaks “All the King’s Men” could work very well in today’s world. The topics would still fit, the meta-commentary on our current political strife would be present, and it would be an actor’s dream role. The movie gets 4 out of 5 stars.
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