All the King's Men

Plot synopsis:
All the King's Men portrays the dramatic political rise and governorship of Willie Stark, a cynical populist in the American South during the 1930s. The novel is narrated by Jack Burden, a political reporter who comes to work as Governor Stark's right-hand man. The trajectory of Stark's career is interwoven with Jack Burden's life story and philosophical reflections: "the story of Willie Stark and the story of Jack Burden are, in one sense, one story."
The novel evolved from a verse play that Warren began writing in 1936 entitled Proud Flesh. One of the characters in Proud Flesh was named Willie Talos, in reference to the brutal character Talus in Edmund Spenser's late 16th century work The Faerie Queene.
A 2002 version of All the King's Men, re-edited by Noel Polk (ISBN 0-15-100610-5), keeps the name "Willie Talos" for the Boss as originally written in Warren's manuscript, and is known as the "restored edition" for using this name as well as printing several passages removed from the original edit.
Warren claimed that All the King's Men was "never intended to be a book about politics."
=== Themes and imagery ===
One central motif of the novel is that all actions have consequences, and that it is impossible for an individual to stand aloof and be a mere observer of life, as Jack tries to do (first as a graduate student doing historical research and later as a wisecracking newspaperman). In the atmosphere of the 1930s, the whole population seemed to abandon responsibility by living vicariously through messianic political figures like Willie Stark. Thus, Stark fulfills the wishes of many of the characters, or seems to do so. For instance, his faithful bodyguard Sugar-Boy, who stutters, loves Stark because "the b-boss could t-talk so good"; Jack Burden cannot bring himself to sleep with Anne Stanton, whom he loves, but Stark does so; and so on. (It is in this sense that the characters are "all the king's men"; other than borrowing this familiar phrase, the title has nothing to do with the story of Humpty Dumpty. The title is possibly derived from the motto of Huey P. Long, whose life was similar to that of Willie Stark, "Every Man a King".) But this vicarious achievement will eventually fail; ultimately Jack realizes that one must "go out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time".
The novel explores conceptions of Calvinist theology, such as original sin ("Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption, and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud," says Willie when told that no adverse information about an opponent would be likely to be found. "There's always something."); and total depravity ("You got to make good out of bad," says Willie when his ruthless methods are criticized. "That's all there is to make it with.") Jack discovers that no man is invulnerable to sin under the right circumstances, and thus his search for dirt on the judge begins with questions as to what circumstances would cause one to do wrong. Jack, Willie, and Adam all abandon idealism when they realize that nobody is pure and unblemished.
Another motif in the novel is the "Great Twitch". When Jack Burden unexpectedly discovers that the love of his life, Anne Stanton, has been sleeping with Governor Willie Stark, he impulsively jumps in his car and drives to California to obtain some distance from the situation. Jack's description of his trip contains overt and indirect references to the notion of Manifest Destiny, which becomes somewhat ironic when he comes back from it believing in the "Great Twitch".
The "Great Twitch" is a particular brand of nihilism that Jack embraces during this journey westward: "all the words we speak meant nothing and there was only the pulse in the blood and the twitch of the nerve, like a dead frog's leg in the experiment when the electric current goes through." On his way back from California, Jack gives a ride to an old man who has an involuntary facial twitch. This image becomes for him the encapsulating metaphor for the idea that "all life is but the dark heave of blood and the twitch of the nerve." In other words, life is without meaning; everything is motivated by some inborn reflex action and nobody is responsible for their choices or even their own destiny. (The concept is brought to life for Jack when he witnesses a lobotomy performed by Adam Stanton.) The emotional distance permitted by this revelation releases Jack from his own frustration stemming from the relationship between Anne Stanton and his boss, and allows him to return to circumstances which were previously unbearable.
Subsequent events (including the tragic deaths of Governor Stark, Jack's lifelong friend Adam Stanton, and Judge Irwin, Jack's father) convince Jack that the revelation of the "Great Twitch" is an insufficient paradigm to explain what he has seen of history. "[H]e saw that though doomed, [his friends] had nothing to do with any doom under the godhead of the Great Twitch. They were doomed, but they lived in the agony of will." Ultimately, he grows to accept some responsibility for his part in the destruction of his friends' lives.
The book also touches on Oedipal themes, as Jack discovers his father's true identity after having caused his death.
The theme of one's father's identity and its effects on one's own sense of identity is explored twice in the novel, first through Adam and Anne's painful discovery that their father (the late Governor Stanton) once assisted in the cover-up of a bribery scandal. Then Jack discovers that his biological father is Judge Irwin, not, as he previously believed, "the Scholarly Attorney". In each case, the discovery catalyzes an upheaval in the character's moral outlook.
Time is another of the novel's thematic fascinations. The idea that every moment in the past contains the seeds of the future is constantly explored through the novel's non-chronological narrative, which reveals character continuities and thematic connections across different time periods.

Tags: cult, depressing, murder, violence

Review:
At any rate, Broderick Crawford does an outstanding job portraying the self- proclaimed "hick" Willie Starks, who rises from nothing to become governor of a state and then gets carried away with power and ego.Mercedes McCambridge is equally riveting as one of his aides.
But when I saw the remake, I was kinda scared to see this version due to the fact that maybe I was just not into the story, but it turned out to not only be a good film, but a great one that had no need to be a remake almost 60 years later.Willie Stark is a crooked lawyer who decides to run for senator, swearing up and down the people that he is just like them and making crazy promises, he gets elected and finds that it's harder than he realized to keep those promises.
Things start to fall apart more and more when his son gets into some serious trouble causing bad press, the people are not satisfied with his duties, and his marriage begins to fall apart as well eventually leading up to a horrific ending to his term when he is threatened with impeachment.All the King's Men, the original, is a great movie that I would recommend for the classic lovers.
While John Goodman is excellent as Long and the movie worthwhile, it reveals just how good a film ALL THE KING'S MEN is.Of course, Robert Rossen's picture has a drab look.
Compared to the book, the film, I think, reveals its real weaknesses: it does simplify moral issues and also reduces some of the characters to the level of melodrama (Willie Stark, in the novel, resembles more someone like Andy Griffith's character in A FACE IN THE CROWD: a charming good ole boy you want to love, but who will knife you in the back the next minute).
McCambridge was maybe the toughest woman ever portrayed on film so far, a hard nosed political operative who's carrying an empress size torch for Crawford who can't see her in that way at all.As I said before All the King's Men though suggested by the life of Huey Long is not that life at all.
In doing so it lost some of the novels flow and impact.Both versions have excellent casts and the performances given by both Sean Penn and Broderick Crawford (Oscar winning) as Willie Stark are first rate.
Maybe "All the King's Men" is a bit long in the tooth now, but until "The Godfather" and "Patton" it was the best film ever made!The selection of Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark was gutsy, since Crawford can -at best- have been considered "good".
Directed by Robert Rossen, adapted from a novel by Robert Penn Warren, and strikingly photographed in cinema verite style by Burnett Guffey, it tells the story of the rise and fall of a Huey Long-like politician who starts out as a good guy, if a bit of a bully, and winds up a very bad guy, and even more of a bully, as he takes political control of his state.There are dozens of things wrong with the movie.
And the frenetic pace of the film seems tied to the staccato delivery of Broderick Crawford in the leading role, as if Crawford himself had produced, directed and written the movie to fit his personal idiosyncrasies like a glove.As luck would have it, these 'wrong' things make All the King's Men work better than a smoother, fancier, more refined approach could ever have done.
Brod Crawford plays his role as a grade B heavy, with perhaps a scintilla more charm, and his bull-necked King Of Alcatraz style of acting suits his character well; and if one finds Crawford too typically a Hollywood bad guy I recommend the documentary film Point Of Order, in which Sen. Joe McCarthy, with no dramatic training whatsoever, could well be Crawford's soul-mate, or at the very least his brother.Why do these elements work so well in All the King's Men and not in other movies, where a mess is just a mess?
Long, the film offers the story of Willie Stark, a small-town lawyer who is nominated for governor by a political party seeking to defeat their opponent by dividing the rural vote.
But the real knockout here is actress Mercedes McCambridge as Willie Stark's hard-edged assistant and sometimes lover; it is an astonishing performance which, in spite of its supporting status, remains locked in mind long after the film ends, a role for which McCambridge won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress.The script doesn't really do full justice to Warren's novel, the film is a bit slow to start, and the story itself feels a bit dry in the telling--but the performances and numerous memorable scenes carry it through to tremendous effect.
Robert Rossen (The Hustler) had better luck with the story of Louisiana's Governor Huey Long as he managed to capture every Best Director award he was nominated for except the Oscar.The picture did win the Best Picture Award for my birth year, and the acting awards went to Broderick Crawford (Governor Stark/Long) and Mercedes McCambridge.The corruption of power, the sleaziness of the political process, the willingness of people to be used are all explored in this moving film.
"All the King's Men" is a character study chronicling the same psychological process but rhyming this time with success, it's about a Southern politician named Willie Stark who never forgot where he came from and never lost his touch, which made him even more dangerous.The story is adapted from a Pulitzer-prize winning novel of the same title written by Robert Penn Warren, and based on the rise and fall of the legendary populist politician Huey Long.
The ascension of Willie Stark, played by a mesmerizing Broderick Crawford, is a fictionalization of Long's life and one of the most powerful political movies ever made, for the simple reason that it hasn't lost any of its relevance, as long as politics exist, there will be men like Stark.
The pivotal moment occurs when after failing attempts to seduce people by talking about fiscal measures and other non-inspirational stuff, good old honest Willie Stark, understands he was the puppet of his own detractors, gets drunk, tears up his paper and enraged by his own anger, gives one of these great roaring speeches tailor-made for the big screen.And the film, directed by Robert Rossen, features the kind of editing the genre requires, crowd close-ups, big headlines, and an unforgettable gallery of flawed characters, starting with the protagonist himself, Willie Stark, who starts out as a nice and honest fellow, struggling to raise his voice, a man of the people, and undeniably for the people, a man revered by the journalist played by John Ireland, but whose rise to power's collateral damage will be a decline of honesty.
And once Stark realized he had a natural charisma and capability to move the crowds, it's like Forrest Gump's braces breaking, the repressed ego finally implodes to the face of the political scene and from respect, the eyes and hearts are fueled with admiration and fear, starring with his titular inner circle, Mercedes McCambridge plays a sort of Jean Hagen-like character, going from antagonist to main counselor, she delivers her first and greatest (rightfully Oscar-winning) performance as a little woman with the toughest heart, venting her lack of seducing appeal in her infatuation with Stark.The rest of the cast includes Joanne Dru as Ireland's girlfriend, she's literally blown away by Stark's appeal and although her performance might be the one aspect of the film I disliked (God, how many times she had to turn her head theatrically!) the twist in her character –in all the meanings of the words- was quite gutsy and politically incorrect for its time.
My other favorite performance from him is in Fellini's "Il Bidone" and it's quite ironic and befitting that he played a swindler in the film, while Rossen would also direct another classic and favorite of mine "The Hustler", after all, isn't a politician a kind of hustler with power as the pay-off?But I'm still puzzled with Stark's character (this is how fascinating he is): did he turn into a bad guy or was he prone to corruption from the very beginning, it's hard to tell, but some of his insightful thoughts say a lot about his vision of politics: "good comes from evil" "but, who defines evil?" retorts one of the film's reasonable minds.
ALL THE KING'S MEN is certainly a well acted political melodrama from a novel by Robert Penn Warren and BRODERICK CRAWFORD is an ideal candidate for the role of Willy Stark (based vaguely on Huey Long), but I never thought it deserved to win the Oscar for Best Film of the Year.
In my opinion, that award should have gone to William Wyler's masterpiece, THE HEIRESS, a film whose reputation increased over the years while ATKM's has diminished.But putting personal preferences aside, ALL THE KING'S MEN is a riveting drama peppered with some fine performances, including JOHN IRELAND who serves as onlooker and narrator of the tale and MERCEDES McCAMBRIDGE as the cynical Sadie who won a Best Actress Supporting Role Oscar for her work.Stories of political corruption are nothing new--such material having been handled previously in stories like STATE OF THE UNION and bios like "Wilson" and "Tennessee Johnson", but never with such searing intensity.
As he progresses thru the political ranks he loses sight of the very things that he first stood for, with him, and all those associated with him getting muddier by the day.Adapted by Robert Rossen {director and screenplay} from the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, All The King's Men is the story about the rise and fall of a rotten politician.
There were several more deserving films than this."All The King's Men" is the convoluted story of Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford), a man who starts out in politics with good intentions, but who later becomes corrupted by power.
What it's doing is showing the unfortunate reality of our political system, as idealistic lawyer Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford) runs for governor on a populist platform but falls prey to corruption once in office.
But Crawford, sensing this could be his watershed part , threw himself into the character of Willie Stark(based on real life Huey Long).What emerged was a full dimensional portrait of what began as an honest politician who rose up from itenerance and poverty to become a currupt political leader elected governor of his state and had it not been for an assassin's bullet, could have run for president.Crawford makes Stark's transition from country hick to Machine boss believable.
Finally Joanne Dru, married to Ireland at the time , was Ann Stanton, the antithesis of Sadie, and one of the many illicit flings in Stark's life.While the success of "All The King's Men" was a major surprise, what has become even more amazing is the fact that a half a century later the story and plot is still topical.One has to wonder if the 1970s political thriller "All The President's Men" owes more than just it's titular resemblance to this film.
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.
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.
A good story and a fine performance by Broderick Crawford make "All the King's Men" one of the most worthwhile of American political movies.
It doesn't come close to capturing the greatness of the novel, and it's one of the weakest films to win the Best Picture Academy Award from that time period.Broderick Crawford makes a fine Willie Stark, though, I'll give the film that.
Ireland would rather be with pretty Joanne Dru (as Anne Stanton), but becomes attached to Crawford...Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1946 novel by Robert Penn Warren, "All the King's Men" has things to say about political corruption that are still relevant, today.
To spite the strong effort and acting impressions, the characterizations are sketchy and secondary; the main characters are politics and corruption.********* All the King's Men (11/8/49) Robert Rossen ~ Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge, Joanne Dru. Huey Long or Not Huey Long?.
The rise and fall of a corrupt politician (Broderick Crawford), who makes his friends richer and retains power by dint of a populist appeal.So this was based on a novel that was inspired by Huey Long...
I've seen both now and there's no doubt in my mind that Robert Rossen's Oscar winning feature takes the laurels.A little knowledge of Long's eventful life and death certainly informs some of the action but the film's allegorical points transcend time and place - corruption and nepotism are as alive and well in the present day political world as they ever were 60 years ago - just think of the recent MP expenses scandal in the UK for this year's model.The movie shares its narrative structure with "Citizen Kane" (if you're going to borrow, borrow from the best!), using an investigative newsman Jack Burden (John Ireland) to shed light on the rise and fall of "everyman" Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford), only from a contemporary rather than retrospective viewpoint.
This gives the film added urgency as we await the next, usually sordid, plot development as Stark's rise up the greasy pole sees him simultaneously plumb the depths of corruption and indeed barbarity (at its worst, taking in the murder of the father of a young girl who was killed in a car driven drunkenly by Stark's stepson played by a young John Derek).Crawford is superb as the hick from the sticks who once he learns law and the tricks of the political game, rises meteorically on the wave of his populist appeal to be State Governor, only at that point to fall victim to the temptations of power and turn into a tyrannical despot, womanising adulterer, bullying father, devious blackmailer, murdering overlord and an alcoholic to boot.
It is this complexity of meaning which, along with its great central role, some good supporting performances and an intelligent script, makes "All the King's Men", in my opinion, the greatest film ever made about American politics.
Watching Oscar winner Broderick Crawford transform the character from honest do-gooder to populist demagogue is electrifying, but it's a shame this adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize winning novel had to lean so hard on pulp fiction melodrama, beginning with the familiar crutch of voice-over commentary, and from a rather bland protagonist: journalist John Ireland, trapped on the Willie Stark bandwagon.
For anyone who is interested in politics and governing then you will like this film, but there is also the themes about how power and wanting power corrupts and whether a bad man can do good.Jack Burden (John Ireland) is a reporter assigned to cover the election for county treasurer in the rural south (Louisiana in all but name), particularly focused on Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford).
All the King's Men not only shows how politics and it's corrupting affects, Rossen shows the person relations, particularly Jack's idealistic believe in Willie having seen him in his early days and see believing in him even when he see what he has done.The acting is excellent throughout the film, with Crawford being the best as the idealistic politician.
i was mesmerized by this film from the beginning.i thought the story was great,i as was the writing.the dialogue was also well written.especially the first fiery speech given by Broderick Crawford's character,Willie Stark.i can find no fault with the acting,especially Crawford.i thought he was brilliant.i couldn't take my eyes off him.talk about a powerhouse performance.the movie really packs a powerful wallop to the stomach.the story of political corruption and greed is just as topical(if not more so)today and could easily be based on one of many of our present day politicians.would the film be as good without the brilliant performance of Broderick Crawford.we'll never know.and that's just fine.for me,All the King's Men is a (1949) is a 9/10.
Both book and film tell the story of Willie Stark, a man who begins as an idealistic, rural lawyer crusading against political corruption in his (unspecified) state, but only gains power after he turns into a cynical demagogue, as seen through the eyes of Jack Burden, the black sheep of a wealthy family, a former reporter, and Stark's right-hand man.
Blustery Oscar Winning Performance from Broderick Crawford with support from John Ireland and Mercedes Cambridge (also an Oscar), and garnering the Best Oscar of all, the Best Picture winner, Robert Rossen's Cutting-Edge Political Expose still Cuts it Today.It's a definitive Classic that Transcends Time and its Message is the same, only the Suits have Changed, and the Media.
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).
I was not impressed with "All the King's Men"...Broderick Crawford did the best he could to bring his character to life, who is based on 1930's Louisiana politician "Kingfish" Huey Long, but the story line is sloppy.
The politician in this film is Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford), who starts out running for local office, but comes up against a corrupt local political machine that quickly shuts him down, even having his wife fired from her teaching job of many years.