All The King's Men

Almost Seventy years ago, the 1950 Academy Awards, Best Picture, Leading Actor (Broderick Crawford), Best Supporting Actress (Mercedes McCambridge), all went to “All the King’s Men”, Robert Penn Warren’s 1946-47 award winning book about Huey Long in Louisiana in the thirties.

The similarities between Governor Willie Stark [starting with the name] and our current President were shockingly apparent as I watched the movie tonight after more than half a century.

The brilliant performance of Mercedes McCambridge stunned me.  But each of the well-cast characters achieved the goal of all actors with good direction.  That goal of demonstrating their downfall, in this case, of a character on the screen, within a few short hours.

This was a film about the Seven Deadly Sins: greed [money & power], lust [half a century ago, but everyone was sleeping with everyone else], envy [and still always wanting the other guy or gal], gluttony [Crawford was a pig while eating], wrath [everyone seemed to hate everyone else], sloth [laziness to know what is right to do, and then putting if off again and again], and pride [all of the characters maintain they are doing the right things, realizing that they are not].  These sins develop from almost religious goodness at the beginning, to downfalls and deaths by the end, two hours later, of everyone connected to Willie Stark.  There are no “good” endings.

If you’ve read this far, you might watch the movie.  I’d show it again anytime, but my next scheduled date is Tuesday, March 3^rd of 2020.

A coterie of sycophants surrounds all political leaders and that is most of what this movie is about.  Mercedes McCambridge is a combination of Ivanka, Hope, and Sarah – loyal, sleeping with him at times, jealous of all other women.  Willing to lie, cheat, steal, etc.  She degrades through the movie through alcohol, disappointment, and jealousy to become a bitter woman.

Broderick Crawford starts as an honest, tee-totaling young man, wanting justice so bad that he overcomes his poor background to achieve a Law Degree (with the help of his wife).  He learns from his first political race that graft is essential.  He also learns to drink.  He also adds to his concubinage half a dozen women, and the hint of a boy.  He sacrifices his wife, child, and friends to continue his power.  He is empty in the end.

The narrator (usually a good character in most novels), sells his soul to the devil.  It’s the Depression and there are no jobs.  Once in for a dime, he’s committed and is a key henchman up to the end.  He abandons his true love, letting her become one of the Stark many.