All The King’s Men

I was a naive young man when I first watched All the King’s Men back in the late 1990s. A lot has changed in the world and in my personal life to make me much more jaded on the subject of politics and corruption. Returning to it for the first time since the 90s, I was nervous because I remembered some of what it was about and knew that there would be some real-world parallels in our current world. This is the most obvious in the finale when an attempt is made to impeach a political leader and, despite the overwhelming evidence, there are large crowds standing outside the courthouse all day and well into the night in support of him. I will not delve into my own politics in this review nor am I here to try and convert anyone reading this to support or deny any particular political figure, but the parallels are there if you want to see them and make up your own mind. 

The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Robert Penn Warren, first published in 1946. While Warren maintained that his novel was never intended to be a book about politics, that seems like a way to sidestep any ramifications from real-world politicians at the time who might have assumed the film was referencing them. Instead, the film is making a statement about the dangers of too much ambition and how power can corrupt. You cannot fight those in the mud without getting down in the muck yourself and getting covered in it. 

The film, like the book, tells the story of the ambitious underdog Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford), a man running for county treasurer in an unnamed Southern state during the Depression. Stark’s campaign takes aim at the corruption in the local politicians, which puts him in the sights of those politicians and the muscle behind them. Reporter Jack Burden (John Ireland) is assigned to write about him, which begins their long-term working relationship. When Willie loses the election, Jack returns home with his report, assuming this to be the end of Willie’s political career. But in the years after the loss, Stark earns a law degree. Then, one day, during a grade school fire drill, the shoddy construction of the school is exposed when a fire-exit structure breaks free of the side of the building, and 12 students are killed. Willie wins a lawsuit against the county, leading to a statewide investigation. 

He uses this to springboard his political ambitions, running for Governor. But unbeknownst to him, he has been drafted as a necessary spoiler candidate for the office, much like Ross Perot was for President in 1992 and again in 1996. Initially, he speaks plainly about things like balanced budget plans, a topic that doesn’t interest those farmers he is trying to represent, and his campaign falters. But his campaign manager, Sadie (Mercedes McCambridge), who was initially put in place to be a mole by the political frontrunner, reveals this to him, spurring on more impassioned speeches and a drive to sway the people to his side. Also working on his campaign is Jack Burden, who comes back when word of this upcoming man of the people reaches him. Jack has his own political ties, through his friends and family, including his girlfriend Ann Stanton (Joanne Dru), and the two men visit the family to sway them to his side, bringing votes with them. 

Four years go by along with a lot of campaigning, which is expensive. Willie makes a lot of shady deals to get that money, too, justifying it by proclaiming that out of the bad will come good. But these deals are corrupting, and when he does win election, the deals and the aftermath propel his time in office. He uses bullying tactics and shady characters to get what he wants under the guise of improving the community. But not everyone is fooled by his outward façade, and eventually, things will have to come crashing down around him. 

If I have a real complaint about this film, it’s that I don’t quite buy Broderick Crawford in the early scenes of the film. He is doing his best to portray the optimistic man-of-the-people, and it never quite works. Once he starts getting corrupted, then we see the real reason he was cast in this role. He’s perfect as the thuggish politician, threatening people to get his way. This is along the same lines as many of his best performances, such as Harry Brock in Born Yesterday. When he is asked to play noble and for the people, it never quite rings true. Of course, this could also be intentional, but I never got the sense that that was the case. Crawford was known for playing roughens, and that rolls over into these earlier scenes, too. 

By the time we get around to his second run for office, though, we are starting to see the darker side of his character. This is where Crawford is in his element, and even as he is reassuring those around him that what he is doing is good for the community, we can tell that there are some deals that are purely there to advance his own agenda. What we are seeing here is echoed in our current state of politics, where people invest a lot of money into politicians that will protect them and their interests. The rich push through leaders that will make them more rich; it’s how the world works. To quote George Carlin: “This country was bought and sold and paid for a long time ago.” We may look at a film like this and want to believe it is fictional or exaggerated because the truth is just too scary. 

We are not privy to the many shady deals Willie makes to gain office, but we do get examples of the protection he offers after the fact. We also see just how far down the rabbit hole his influence goes. When his son, coping with all of this by drinking, causes a drunk driving accident that gets a young woman killed, Willie tries to bribe her father to keep him quiet. When that fails, the man abruptly disappears. Later, his body is found, beaten to death. 

All of this takes its toll on Jack Burden, who is finding his relationship with his family straining. This gets even worse when, needing leverage on the family patriarch, the esteemed judge Stanton (Raymond Greenleaf), Willie assigns Jack to dig up dirt on the man. Jack ultimately refuses to do so, but Willie finds it anyway and tries to use it to force the judge to support him in an upcoming impeachment vote. The judge, facing ruin if he doesn’t give in to Stark, takes the only action left to him to avoid giving his support to him.

The biggest shock in this film, and one that is still controversial to this day, is having an assassin be in the right. We would see the same thing later in David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, but here it is more effective. Willie Stark has gone from a man of the people to someone as, if not more so, corrupt as those he was running against. Power corrupts, but in this case, Willie was corrupt beforehand, making deals before he ever got power in the first place. It cost him everything: his wife, his son’s health, even his very soul. 

This is a powerful look at how the world of politics is viewed from the outside. The book kept that point of view squarely with Jake Burden, leaving much of Willie a mystery. The film, however, opened this up and shares that point of view with Willie himself. This broadens the scope of the film and deepens the characters for a film audience. It also gives us a more inside view of Willie’s corruption and bully tactics.

As with many great films, someone comes along and feels they can update it for modern audiences. That happened here, too, in 2006 when Sean Penn was cast in the role of Willie Stark. Reviews for this unnecessary remake were sour upon release, and I chose not to seek it out. I debated on seeing it for this review and, I suppose, wisely chose not to. The 1949 film still stands as a great film on its own, and a remake would only make me wish I were watching the original instead. For anyone debating which one to watch, the answer is easy in this case: watch the original, pretend the remake never happened. 

You can pigeonhole modern politicians into this story and try and make them fit; it’s easy to do because this story is told broadly. But to do so will only serve to depress you and maybe even make you angry that our political system hasn’t really improved in the last eighty years. As long as there are men with money willing to spend it on politicians to push their own selfish agendas, there will be corruption in the government. And people in power will usually do just about anything to keep that power. That was true back then, and it’s still true today. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Motion Picture: Robert Rossen (won)

Best Director: Robert Rossen

Best Actor: Broderick Crawford (won)

Best Supporting Actor: John Ireland

Best Supporting Actress: Mercedes McCambridge (won)

Best Writing, Screenplay: Robert Rossen

Best Film Editing: Robert Parrish and Al Clark

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Release Date: November 8, 1949

Running Time: 110 minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Broderick Crawford, Joanne Dru, John Ireland, John Derek, and Mercedes McCambridge

Directed by: Robert Rossen