ALL THE KING'S MEN: Blu-ray (Columbia, 1949) Twilight Time
BEST PICTURE -
1949
“For what shall it profit a man, if he gains the whole
world, but loses his own soul?”
- Mark 8:36
…a biblical
reference for a uniquely American tragedy of near biblical proportions.
“Win with Willie!” or so it would seem at the start
of Robert Rossen’s All The King’s Men
(1949); an uncharacteristically ‘stark’
(pun intended) and genuinely unflattering portrait of American politics – an
arena where apparently no man of quality should transgress or can remain on top
for very long. Based on the rather prophetic novel by Robert Penn Warren, All The King’s Men is a masterpiece
about the dizzying tumult and chaotic vivacity coursing through America’s backroom
scheming political tapestry. It might as well be a chapter from the Old Testament
– a tale of graft, greed and corruption; of a ‘possibly’ once pure of heart man of the people, brought to his
knees by temptations aplenty feeding into his own avarice. Rossen’s screenplay is a critique of the
anti-social and marginally psychotic; as All
The King’s Men is the proverbial ‘rags
to riches’ yarn turned asunder. We are made to bear witness to Willie Stark
(Broderick Crawford); a humble, uneducated man from the sticks, who builds on a
promise and the dream - a dynasty of power-hungry and shifting alliances inside
this very self-destructive machinery. Politics – the sideshow that thinks it’s
the whole circus! What a nasty piece of business it is. Or…is Willie Stark the
real thing? Or…is he merely playing at the game, but on his own terms; the
bumbler, turned thug muscle; getting the judges in his pocket and all the gravy
besides – becoming the disreputable overlord he only pretended to so completely
abhor when the tables were turned bottom side down. We are never entirely
certain if newshound, Jack Burden’s (John Ireland) admiration for Willie Stark
is predicated on genuine faith or abject naiveté, either respected or cleverly
exploited by Stark’s ‘aw shucks, ma and apple pie’ routine until he has
achieved his ends. Robert Penn Warren’s portrait of Willie Stark is, at once,
admonitory and thinly camouflaged; based on one of the most opportunistic
political animals of his generation; Louisiana governor, Huey Pierce Long.
Long’s legacy as
‘The Kingfish’ – using
self-aggrandizing and cutthroat tactics to vilify the rich and the banks while
promoting his own very Marxist agenda, masquerading as populist benevolence to
‘share the wealth’ catches the whirlwind in 1928, just as the Great Depression
was about to swallow up America’s go to hell, blind-eyed, tea dance twenties
optimism. It had its place – for a time, at least – Long, amassing his forces
and popularity among his constituents to build a fervor, the likes of which
few political muck-racking sensationalists had ever seen, much less enjoyed. By
1932, it was all over; Long, moving out of the governor’s mansion he had hired
architect, Leon C. Weiss to create (just one of many egocentric monuments to
his own perceived glories and mythology); his tenacity as Washington’s most
radical demagogue, cut short by an assassin’s bullet in 1935, just one month
after Long announced he would make a run for the Presidency. Despite his
ambitions, Huey Long was hardly admired by his peers in the Senate; considered
something of a pariah who, as one colleague sarcastically assessed, could not
even get ‘the Lord’s prayer’ passed
into law.
A lot of Huey
Long survived the transition from fact to fiction in Robert Penn Warren’s
novel, even more faithfully preserved in the motion picture under Robert Rossen’s
masterful authorship and direction. All
The King’s Men is unapologetic about its deconstruction of the political
world; perhaps, justly distinguished as a sort of unspectacular limbo where
even the most resilient and stouthearted are made to perform a little
submissive groveling and back-scratching from time to time. When it was
released, All The King’s Men had a
more ominous ring about it; debuting just four short years after the war and
Adolf Hitler’s cowardly demise, and, situated at the cusp of an even more
insidious homegrown threat, unraveling the fabric of the American political
system: the black list.
Rossen, who had
already been named ‘an unfriendly
witness’ by HUAC two years earlier, and would ultimately be blacklisted
after making All The King’s Men –
was either very brave or exceptionally stupid. In an era where even the most
moderate political satire could be misconstrued as subversive, Rossen sought to
tell one of its most sinister misadventures about the very institution that had
placed his personal life and career under a microscope. And the answer to his
question – ‘could the American political
system ever bring forth its own Adolf Hitler?’ – seemed to answer itself
after Joseph McCarthy began his Red Scare witch hunts under HUAC’s protective
banner, meant to preserve American values and morality at the expense of
crucifying its citizenry; many, merely ‘suspected’
of being communists and/or communist sympathizers. Besides, the fictional Willie Stark had
neither mass genocide nor the expulsion of subversives on his mind. Still, he
willfully plotted the systematic annihilation of his detractors, using
blackmail, deception, sexual conquest, and quite possibly even murder; every
chapter ripped from the basic playbook of Mafia-styled leadership at his
disposal to catapult his career; the time-honored tool kit of a ‘dyed in the wool’ tyrant.
Stark’s
political reputation is built upon a lie; that of a man merely pretending at
goodness until the right opportunities come along that allow him to embrace
corruption in all its many forms. Clean living is for suckers, and Willie’s
been one long enough. Perhaps Jack’s initial suggestion to Willie “Don’t try to improve their minds” is
carried a bit too far. But once Willie realizes his fortunes can only be made
on the backs of others unwilling to take such risks, he steps right up (or
down, as the case may be) to become the sort of pug-ugly whose face gets
plastered on campaign posters and wins elections on slogans alone, mostly by shouting
down (then, shutting down) his opponents with heavy-handed threats that mean
business of a very different kind. All The King’s Men tore into the then
ensconced mythology of a righteous government convened for the good “of, by and for the people.” Moreover,
the film is unreformed in its view that an honest man can’t win in the
political arena, about as far removed from the ‘feel good’ analysis of
America’s political spectrum depicted in another classic from Columbia Studios:
Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes To
Washington (1939).
Rossen’s magnum
opus begins in the backwater farming community of Kanoma City where graft flows
like cheap beer. Assigned to cover the story of ‘an honest man’ attempting his
entry into politics, affluent newspaper man, Jack Burden arrives in town just
in time to see this aspiring politico cut down to size by a goon squad of local
‘authority figures’ loyal to Tiny Duffy (Ralph Dumke). Burden’s camera is taken
from him and Stark is carted off to jail. A short while later, Burden attempts
to intervene, casually confronting Duffy inside a pool hall stacked to the
rafters with thug muscle just itching for a crack at him. Duffy, however, is
smarter than the average bully – having already released Stark from his cell
and ordering the return of his handbills and Burden’s camera, of course, minus
the incriminating photos captured on its film. Burden is invited by Stark back
to his modest home on the farm where he meets, Stark’s ever-devoted and doting
wife, Lucy (Anne Seymour) and Stark’s aged pap (H.C. Miller). Willie shares his
ambitions to study law. The mood, patriotic and somehow Lincoln-esque, turns
bittersweet with the return of Willie’s adopted son, Tom (John Derek); who has
been brutalized for continuing to spread the word around town for his father’s
election bid.
After a rock is
hurled through his window, Willie vows revenge. But he’s also fairly tough on
Tom for giving in to his tormentors – the irony, of course, being that he will
eventually become Tom’s most reviled despot. Burden returns to work – imbued
with a sense of devotion to tell what he mis-perceives as this ‘great man’s’
story. The syndicated articles are a big hit with both Burden’s editor and his
readership; less so with his own stepfather, Floyd McEvoy (Grandon Rhodes),
seething with contempt for his stepson and his own wife (Katherine Warren) –
the woman he’s manipulatively managed to remake as a sad-eyed drunkard already
begun to lose her withering grasp on reality. Floyd is sullen, arrogant and
confrontational towards Jack during his homecoming dinner party; Burden
chivalrously standing his ground as his fiancée, Anne Stanton (Joanne Dru)
looks on. Anne is the daughter of an affluent Judge (Raymond Greenleaf) and
whose brother, Adam (Sheppard Strudwick) – studying to become a doctor – just
happens to be Burden’s best friend.
Willie makes
several valiant, but ultimately failed attempts to entice the electorate. It’s
no use. He’s a mouse fighting the lion. So, Lucy encourages Willie to reinvest
and redouble his efforts in studying the law. Soon, Willie is a country lawyer
with a few clients. Still, politics is in his blood. Preaching that graft has
resulted in shoddy building materials used in the construction of the new
community school house, the public remains apprehensive to go against the
status quo until a horrific accident claims the lives of several children after
a fire escape gives way during a routine drill. The accident is a windfall for
Willie, inadvertently kick-starting his political career, the public siding
with him to bring swift justice against those responsible for this
communally-felt tragedy. It isn’t really about justice. It never is, and Willie
is ripe for revenge. He makes a name for himself in the papers and rises
(either like cream or vermin) through the ranks – enough to garner interest
from a devious political operative, Sadie Burke (Mercedes McCambridge) who
promotes Willie as the pick of the litter for the next gubernatorial race.
Burke is a sly
devil, eerily detached and enterprising to a fault. But she will become caught
in the crossfire of Willie’s even more ruthless ambitions after the proverbial
genie has been let from its bottle. Willie’s rationing of common sense is
thrown out in favor of some quick and dirty backroom ‘deals’ that makes his ascension
into the governor’s mansion all the more swift and assured. Burke becomes his
lover, then Anne – Lucy’s abject humiliation reflected in Burden’s emasculated
disappointment. However, the most tragic sacrifice is Tom who has since become
something of a wanton playboy. If money is the root of all evil, then Willie
Stark has quickly become a very bad man – fallen from grace of his own free
will; the political machinery devouring its own as the Shakespearean adage
about “ambition knowing no father” insidiously
takes hold.
Stark’s empire
begins to implode after a scandal involves his auditor, Dolph Pillsbury (Will
Wright), just one of the many ill-conceived appointees Stark has made to his
cabinet. An eclectic mix of old enemies (like Duffy) and new phonies/chronies
sway the Judge into accepting the post of Attorney General. But in Pillsbury,
Stark has made a grave miscalculation. For Pillsbury is a two-bit racketeer,
skimming off the top; too stupid for his own good and much too easily caught by
the lesser faction opposing Stark’s supremacy. As dissenting voices begin to
call for Stark’s impeachment, Willie’s home life also begins to erode. Tom’s
drinking gets the better of him. He crashes his automobile with a young girl,
Helene Hale (Helene Stanley) ejected from his front seat. Helene later dies in
hospital and Tom is left with crippling headaches and blurry vision – all but
ruining his promising football career. When Willie forces Tom to play in a
major college game, merely to save his own face, Tom collapses on the field and
is left paralyzed for life. Willie attempts to bribe the girl’s father (Richard
Hale) to remain silent, granting his trucking company a state-wide contract.
Barring his refusal, Willie has his right-hand goon, Sugar Boy (Walter Burke)
tail Mt. Hale, who later disappears; his body discovered badly beaten and
buried under a bridge - just another of Willie Stark’s ‘make work’ projects
exposed for what it is.
The final blow
to Stark’s reign as supreme autocrat arrives in the form of a threat: Judge
Stanton’s long-ago appointment that paved the way for his career, now,
ultimately exposed as a fraud by his own daughter after Burden refused to
partake in ‘researching’ the scandal. In her love for Willie, Anne has betrayed
her father. This revelation causes the Judge to commit suicide. It also pushes
Adam over the edge. At a pep rally outside the courthouse where impeachment
proceedings are underway, Adam waits with baited anticipation for Stark to
emerge. Willie predictably dodges the allegations of any wrong doing and the
charges against him are dropped. But he cannot escape Adam’s point-blank aim,
firing a fatal gunshot into Willie’s belly. The governor’s entourage of
bodyguards assassinates Adam on the courthouse steps. Burden encourages a
despondent Anne with a promise: that the worst is over. As Stark dies,
whispering, “it could have been the whole
world…Willie Stark…” Burden escorts his estranged fiancée to relative
safety away from the press while a heartless Sadie looks on – the nightmare
over, or at least, for the two of them.
All The King’s Men is spellbinding entertainment.
More to the point, it seems to foreshadow the public’s disenchantment with
elected officials; a dying admiration since disintegrated almost to the point
of extinction in our present-day. Robert Rossen’s brilliant script juxtaposes
moments of the sycophantic mob’s furious paroxysm - come to worship their false
prophet - with intimate scenes that strip away Willie Stark’s bleak and
foreboding masquerade. The movie would not have worked quite so well if not for
Broderick Crawford’s towering performance as the no-nothing blowhard cum big
shot, out to get all he can while flimflamming the world at large. It is to
Willie Stark’s discredit that in his dying moments he still does not realize
just how small he truly is; a giant that whinnies his own eulogy, seduced by
his own PR and remade God-like in his own mind, becoming insular - even
frightened; employing scores of police (who occasionally take on the flavoring
of Hitler’s Nazi Storm Troopers) to maintain his myopic view and withering
grasp on another reality – that an honest man – especially one since so
completely corrupted – can’t win.
Director Rossen
had initially approached John Wayne to play the part; a travesty narrowly
averted when Wayne turned Rossen down flat – feeling the part was not only
beyond his depth but also an utterly unscrupulous and un-American view of the
country’s political system. It’s for the
best, actually. Wayne’s intuitive sense of nobler morality would have intruded
upon the performance. Broderick Crawford has no such compunction; an actor all
but forgotten, but who completely electrifies Rossen’s wordy byplay with salty
tongue and brutish mannerisms that always seem capable of so much more
negativity and violence. Crawford commands our nervous respect. The message
emanating from Crawford’s accomplishment is pointedly clear: don’t mess with
Willie Stark. Others have tried and look where it’s taken them. We must also
tip our hats to Mercedes McCambridge – a woman who in life, as on film, could
make wickedness seem as unassuming and common place as the devil’s own, come to
call for tea (or a good bottle of scotch) on a sunny afternoon. Her Sadie Burke
is vial, remote and unfeeling; preferring the man she loves – who will never
love her back – be destroyed, rather than see him contented in the arms of
another girl – even his wife! Herein, McCambridge’s passion always swings two
ways with a faint whiff of lesbianism, later more deliberately evoked in movies
like Giant (1956) and particularly, Touch of Evil (1958). She’s a brilliant
actress, but a very odd duck, indeed.
Last, but not
least, is John Ireland. After all, it is through Jack Burden’s eyes we witness
the self-made implosion of Willie Stark. And Ireland gives us a portrait of a
wounded child – unloved by his parents and made ineffectual in his manly
pursuits by a woman who toys with, and later discards his affections. The lanky
Canadian often appeared in mere support, usually as the ineffectual fop
manipulated by strong women like Joan Crawford, or very second-string and cliché
bad men made to atone for struggles with their own conscience. But it is
through Burden’s stoicism and steadfastness to believe in goodness at all costs
that All The King’s Men finds its
moral compass in a sea of filth, depravities and pure excrement. And it is John
Ireland who makes something more of Jack Burden than just another duped stooge
caught in the cross hairs of Willie Stark’s manipulative grand plan. All the King’s Men won three Oscars;
for McCambridge, Crawford and the most coveted of them all: Best Picture.
Viewed today, the film has lost none of its potency and, as far as politically
themed melodramas go, All The King’s Men
remains one of the cinema’s finest; thematically, a sort of contemporary cross
between Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear. Politics on film is often
mangled with the hypocrisies of its own time, or dealt short shrift by an
audience who – after all – has come to the theater to escape reality – not to
be hit over the head with a hyper-sensitive reconstitution of it. Nevertheless,
All The King’s Men is a far more
compelling excursion than most, beckoning the viewer to pay attention to those elected
officials.
The sumptuous Blu-ray
from Sony Home Entertainment via Twilight Time is officially out of print,
although third-party sellers continue to offer copies on Amazon at grotesquely over-inflated
prices. Grover Crisp and his team continue to impress in their hi-def releases
of great classic movies. All The King’s
Men has never looked stellar on home video, primarily because no original
camera negatives exist and what has been archived over the years was, as
neglected and left to deteriorate, almost to the point of no return. Sony’s
1080p transfer is therefore an immense cause for celebration. Is it perfect? No.
But what we have is so far beyond what has been available in the past, it’s
easy to stand back and appreciate. Image tonality is gorgeous, revealing a
level of fine detail unseen in decades. There are intermittent moments when the
image becomes soft and marginally blurry with some minor breathing around the
edges. DNR has been applied to minimize the severe mold damage. This still
vaguely exists along the left side of the frame during the final reel. But DNR
has been applied with great care and to great purpose herein. Film grain is
accurately reproduced. There appears to be a minute amount of edge enhancement,
though nothing to distract. The mono DTS is quite resilient and actually
vibrant in spots. This is primarily a dialogue-driven movie with a scant score
provided by Louis Gruenberg. It all sounds marvelous, actually. My one regret:
no audio commentary for such an important film. As with all – or rather, most –
Twilight Time releases; this one has an isolated score. Bottom line: highly
recommended – if you can still find it!
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
4.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5
EXTRAS
1
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