''All the King's Men'' is a 1949 American
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
written, produced, and directed by
Robert Rossen
Robert Rossen (March 16, 1908 – February 18, 1966) was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer whose film career spanned almost three decades.
His 1949 film '' All the King's Men'' won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor and Be ...
. It is based on the 1946
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the liter ...
novel of the same name. The film stars
Broderick Crawford
William Broderick Crawford (December 9, 1911 – April 26, 1986) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actor, often cast in tough-guy roles and best known for his Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning portrayal of Willie Stark in ''All t ...
,
John Ireland
John Benjamin Ireland (January 30, 1914 – March 21, 1992) was a Canadian actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in ''All the King's Men'' (1949), making him the first Vancouver-born actor to receive an Oscar nomin ...
,
Mercedes McCambridge
Carlotta Mercedes Agnes McCambridge (March 16, 1916 – March 2, 2004) was an American actress of radio, stage, film, and television. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress." She won an Academy Award for Best Support ...
, and
Joanne Dru
Joanne Dru (born Joan Letitia LaCock;Known as Joan Lacock in th1930 United States census/ref> January 31, 1922 – September 10, 1996) was an American film and television actress, known for such films as '' Red River'', ''She Wore a Yellow Ribbo ...
. The plot focuses on the rise and fall of the ambitious and ruthless politician Willie Stark (Crawford) in the
American South
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
. Though a fictional character, Stark strongly resembles Louisiana governor
Huey Long
Huey Pierce Long Jr. (August 30, 1893September 10, 1935), nicknamed "the Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a United States senator from 1932 until his assassination ...
.
The film won three
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
, including the
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only category ...
, the award for
Best Actor, which went to Broderick Crawford, and the award for
Best Supporting Actress, won by Mercedes McCambridge.
In 2001, ''All the King's Men'' was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
and was selected for preservation in the United States
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...
.
Plot
The story of the rise of politician Willie Stark from a rural county seat to the governor's mansion is depicted in the film. He goes into politics, railing against the corruptly run county government, but loses his race for county treasurer, in the face of unfair obstacles placed by the local machine. Stark teaches himself law, and as a lawyer, continues to fight the local establishment, championing the local people and gaining popularity. He eventually rises to become a candidate for governor, narrowly losing his first race, then winning on his second attempt. Along the way he loses his innocence and becomes as corrupt as the politicians he once fought against. As he rises, Stark philanders and gets involved with many women, taking his PR man/journalist Jack Burden's own girlfriend, Anne Stanton, as his mistress.
Stark's son Tommy drinks to deal with his feelings about his father, eventually crashes his car, injuring himself and killing his female passenger. When Stark bullies Tommy into playing a football game, Tommy becomes paralyzed after a brutal hit.
Stark, who had always dealt with those who got in his way by any means, begins to see his world start to unravel and he discovers that not everyone can be bought off.
The story has a complex series of relationships. All is seen through the eyes of the journalist, Jack Burden, who admires Stark and even when disillusioned still sticks by him. Stark's campaign assistant, Sadie is clearly in love with Stark and wants him to leave his wife, Lucy. When Stark's reputation is brought into disrepute by Judge Stanton (Anne's uncle), he seeks to blacken the judge's name. When Jack finds evidence of the judge's possible wrongdoing, a quarter century earlier, he hides it from Stark. Anne gives the evidence to Stark, who uses it against her uncle, who immediately commits suicide. Anne seems to forgive Stark, but her brother, Adam, the surgeon who helped save Tommy's life after the car crash, cannot. After Stark wins an impeachment investigation, Adam assassinates Stark. The doctor in turn is shot down by Sugar Boy, Stark's fawning assistant. Having lost his respect for him, Jack tries to get Anne's agreement to find a way to destroy Stark's reputation just as he dies.
Cast
*
Broderick Crawford
William Broderick Crawford (December 9, 1911 – April 26, 1986) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actor, often cast in tough-guy roles and best known for his Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning portrayal of Willie Stark in ''All t ...
as Willie Stark
*
John Ireland
John Benjamin Ireland (January 30, 1914 – March 21, 1992) was a Canadian actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in ''All the King's Men'' (1949), making him the first Vancouver-born actor to receive an Oscar nomin ...
as Jack Burden
*
Joanne Dru
Joanne Dru (born Joan Letitia LaCock;Known as Joan Lacock in th1930 United States census/ref> January 31, 1922 – September 10, 1996) was an American film and television actress, known for such films as '' Red River'', ''She Wore a Yellow Ribbo ...
as Anne Stanton
*
John Derek
John Derek (born Derek Delevan Harris; August 12, 1926 – May 22, 1998) was an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer and photographer.[Mercedes McCambridge
Carlotta Mercedes Agnes McCambridge (March 16, 1916 – March 2, 2004) was an American actress of radio, stage, film, and television. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress." She won an Academy Award for Best Support ...](_blank ...<br></span></div> as Tom Stark
* <div class=)
as Sadie Burke
*
Shepperd Strudwick
Shepperd Strudwick (September 22, 1907 – January 15, 1983) was an American actor of film, television, and stage. He was also billed as John Shepperd for some of his films and for his acting on stage in New York.
Early years
Strudwick was ...
as Adam Stanton
*
Ralph Dumke
Ralph Ernest Dumke (July 25, 1899 – January 4, 1964) was an American comedian and actor who had an active career from the early 1920s up until his death in 1964. He rose to fame as part of a comedy duo with Ed East, performing nationally in ...
as Tiny Duffy
*
Anne Seymour as Mrs. Lucy Stark
*
Katharine Warren as Mrs. Burden
*
Raymond Greenleaf
Raymond Greenleaf (born Roger Ramon Greenleaf; January 1, 1892 – October 29, 1963) was an American actor, best known for ''All the King's Men'' (1949), '' Angel Face'' (1952), and '' Pinky'' (1949).
Early life
He was born as Roger Ramon Gre ...
as Judge Monte Stanton
*
Walter Burke
Walter Lawrence Burke (August 25, 1908 – August 4, 1984) was an American character actor of stage, film, and television whose career in entertainment spanned over a half century. Although he was a native of New York, Burke's Irish ancest ...
as Sugar Boy
*
Will Wright as Dolph Pillsbury
*
Grandon Rhodes
Grandon Rhodes (born Grandon Neviers Augustine Rolker; August 7, 1904 – June 9, 1987) was an American actor.
Early years
Rhodes was born in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Career
Early in his career, Rhodes acted in repertory theatre with troupe ...
as Floyd McEvoy
*
Larry Steers
Lawrence Wells Steers (February 14, 1888 – February 15, 1951) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 550 films between 1917 and 1951. He was born in Indiana, and died in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.
Partial filmography
* ' ...
as Man at Impeachment Hearing (uncredited)
*
Houseley Stevenson
Houseley Stevenson (30 July 1879 – 6 August 1953) was a British-American character actor who was born in London on July 30, 1879, and died in Duarte, California on August 6, 1953.
He began his movie career in 1936 and had a short career in ...
as Madison the newspaper editor
*
Paul Ford
Paul Ford Weaver (November 2, 1901 – April 12, 1976) was an American character actor who came to specialize in authority figures whose ineptitude and pompous demeanor were played for comic effect, notably as Mayor Shinn in ''The Music Man (196 ...
as State Senator and impeachment prosecutor
Production
Rossen originally offered the starring role to
John Wayne
Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Gol ...
, who found the proposed film script unpatriotic and indignantly refused the part. Crawford, who eventually took the role, won the 1949
Academy Award for Best Actor
The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The ...
, beating out Wayne, who had been nominated for his role in ''
Sands of Iwo Jima
''Sands of Iwo Jima'' is a 1949 war film starring John Wayne that follows a group of United States Marines from training to the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. The film, which also features John Agar, Adele Mara and Forrest Tucker, was w ...
''.
The film was shot at various locations in California using local residents, something that was fairly unknown for Hollywood at the time. The old
San Joaquin County
San Joaquin County (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''San Joaquín'', meaning "Joachim, St. Joachim"), officially the County of San Joaquin, is a county (United States), county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 20 ...
courthouse in
Stockton, built in 1898 and demolished about a dozen years after the film's release, was featured prominently.
Paul Tatara, a film reviewer for
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
, describes the film as "one of those pictures that was saved in the editing". Al Clark did the original cut but had trouble putting all the footage that
Robert Rossen
Robert Rossen (March 16, 1908 – February 18, 1966) was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer whose film career spanned almost three decades.
His 1949 film '' All the King's Men'' won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor and Be ...
had shot into a coherent narrative.
Robert Parrish
Robert R. Parrish (January 4, 1916December 4, 1995) was an American film director, screenwriter, editor and former child actor. He received an Academy Award for Best Film Editing for his contribution to ''Body and Soul (1947 film), Body and Soul ...
was brought on board by Rossen and Columbia Studios head,
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn (July 23, 1891 – February 27, 1958) was a co-founder, president, and production director of Columbia Pictures Corporation.
Life and career
Cohn was born to a working-class Jewish family in New York City. His father, Joseph Cohn, wa ...
, to see what he could do. Since Rossen had a hard time cutting anything he shot, after several weeks of tinkering and cutting, the movie was still over 250 minutes long. Cohn was prepared to release it in this version after one more preview, but this threw Rossen into a panic, so Rossen came up with a novel solution. Rossen told Parrish to "
lect what you consider to be the center of each scene, put the film in the synch machine and wind down a hundred feet
round 50 secondsbefore and a hundred feet after, and chop it off, regardless of what's going on. Cut through dialogue, music, anything. Then, when you're finished, we'll run the picture and see what we've got". When Parrish was done with what Rossen had suggested, they were left with a 109-minute movie that was more compelling to watch. After ''All the King's Men'' won its
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only category ...
, Harry Cohn repeatedly gave Parrish credit for saving the film, even though Parrish only did what Rossen told him to do. The editing gambit gives the film a memorably jagged urgency that's unique for a studio-era film. Although Clark is credited as the "Film Editor" (with Parrish being credited as "Editorial Advisor"), both Clark and Parrish received a nomination for an
Academy Award for Best Film Editing
The Academy Award for Best Film Editing is one of the annual awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Nominations for this award are closely correlated with the Academy Award for Best Picture. For 33 consecutive years, ...
.
Reception
Critical response
The film received wide acclaim upon its release. Film critic
Bosley Crowther
Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...
lauded the film and its direction in his review, writing, "Robert Rossen has written and directed, as well as personally produced, a rip-roaring film of the same title ... We have carefully used that descriptive as the tag for this new Columbia film because a quality of turbulence and vitality is the one that it most fully demonstrates ... In short, Mr. Rossen has assembled in this starkly unprettified film a piece of pictorial journalism that is remarkable for its brilliant parts." Critic William Brogdon, writing for ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' magazine, was also complimentary and praised Broderick Crawford's work, "As the rural Abe Lincoln, springing up from the soil to make himself a great man by using the opinionless, follow-the-leader instinct of the more common voter, Broderick Crawford does a standout performance. Given a meaty part, his histrionic bent wraps it up for a great personal success adding much to the many worthwhile aspects of the drama."
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, ''All the King's Men'' holds a rating of 97% based on 70 reviews, with an average rating of 8.10/10. The consensus summarizes: "Broderick Crawford is spellbinding as politician Willie Stark in director Robert Rossen's adaptation of the Robert Penn Warren novel about the corrosive effects of power on the human soul."
Noir analysis
Film historian Spencer Selby calls the film "
hard-hitting noir adaptation of Warren's eloquent novel".
Joe Goldberg, film historian and former story editor for
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
, wrote about the content of the plot and its noirish fatalistic conclusion, "The plot makes sense, the dialogue is memorable, the story arises from the passions and ideas of the characters. It deals with graft, corruption, love, drink and betrayal, and the subversion of idealism by power, and it might even make someone angry... The story moves toward its conclusion with the dark inevitability of film noir."
Accolades
In 2001, the film was selected for preservation in the United States
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...
by the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The
Academy Film Archive
The Academy Film Archive is part of the Academy Foundation, established in 1944 with the purpose of organizing and overseeing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ educational and cultural activities, including the preservation of m ...
preserved ''All the King's Men'' in 2000.
, it is the last Best Picture winner to be based on a
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
-winning novel.
Academy Awards 1949
''All the King's Men'' received
seven Academy Awards nominations, winning three.
See also
*
List of American films of 1949
A list of American films released in 1949.
''All the King's Men'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
File:Tracy Hepburn Adams Rib.jpg, ''Adam's Rib''
File:Vincent Price-Maureen O'Hara in Bagdad trailer.jpg, '' Bagdad''
File:Van Johnso ...
*
''All the King's Men'' (2006 film, directed by
Steven Zaillian
Steven Ernest Bernard Zaillian (born January 30, 1953) is an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He won an Academy Awards, Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award for his screenplay ''Schindler's List'' (1993) and has ...
and also based on Warren's book)
*
Politics in fiction This is a list of fictional stories in which politics features as an important plot element. Passing mentions are omitted from this list.
Written works
* '' The Republic'' (ca. 360 BCE) by Plato
* ''Panchatantra'' (ca. 200 ...
References
Notes
Bibliography
Silver, Alain and James Ursini (editors). ''Film Noir: Reader 2''. ''All the King's Men'' film noir themes discussed in essay, "Violence and the Bitch Goddess" by Stephen Farber, pgs. 54-55 (1974). Proscenium Publishers, Inc., New York (July 2003). Second Limelight Edition. .
External links
*
*
*
*
*
''All the King's Men''information site and DVD review at DVD Beaver (includes images)
*
* ''All the President's Men'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 428–429
Streaming audio
''All The King's Men''on
The World's Great Novels, NBC University Theater: January 16, 1949
{{DEFAULTSORT:All the King's Men
1949 films
1949 drama films
American political drama films
Best Drama Picture Golden Globe winners
Best Picture Academy Award winners
American black-and-white films
Columbia Pictures films
1940s English-language films
Film noir
Films à clef
Films about elections
Films about politicians
Films based on American novels
Films directed by Robert Rossen
Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award-winning performance
Films featuring a Best Drama Actor Golden Globe winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award-winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Films with screenplays by Robert Rossen
United States National Film Registry films
Huey Long
1940s American films