NFR Project: “All the King’s Men”
Dir: Robert Rossen
Scr: Robert Rossen
Pho: Burnett Guffey
Ed: Al Clark, Robert Parrish
Premiere: Nov. 8, 1949
110 min.
This adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Proze-winning novel is a story of corruption, based on the sketchy career of Louisiana politician Huey Long (1893-1935). Long was governor of the state, and was a powerful demagogue who was assassinated.
Such is the case with the film’s fictional Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford), an idealist who gets involved with the political process and who starts to make back-room deals and gathers damaging information on his opponents. He wins the governorship, and continues with his corrupt ways.
He is aided and abetted by the film’s narrator, the journalist Jack Burden (John Ireland). Burden begins by covering the failures of the idealistic Stark, but soon grows into the position of being his campaign advisor (and the keeper of his opponents’ dirty secrets). As Stark becomes more and more powerful, principled others start impeachment proceedings against him. Stark survives impeachment, but is shot to death by a doctor who’s outraged that Stark is having an affair with his sister.
The film won Best Picture. Broderick Crawford won Best Actor, and Mercedes McCambridge won Best Supporting Actress. The axiom that power corrupts is thoroughly explored here.
The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Gun Crazy.
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