2023 Blind Spot Series: All The King's Men
What I knew going in: Not a whole lot!
Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford) starts out as a country bumpkin running for a county seat. Followed by journalist Jack Burden (John Ireland) He eventually goes from hick to pawn to a rich politician, the very kind he was running against in the first place.
For the longest time, I kept getting the title of this film mixed up with All The President's Men. Even after seeing Presidents (which is amazing) This title was always on the tip of my tongue, so it was time to knock this one out too.
So much of this movie ended up being unintentionally hilarious to me. I feel like one of the things I harp on the most in my reviews is a movie's pacing, and All The King's Men was like "I got you." This film moves so damn fast you'd think someone was holding director Robert Rossman's family hostage unless he finished in exactly 1 hour 50 minutes.
I kind of hated every character in this movie, but not to the point where I hated watching them. The general asshole-ness of this film amused me. Aside from Sadie (Mercedes McCambridge) She was the best in show. I loved McCambridge's performance and I'm glad she has an Oscar for it.
Did I love this? Not really. It's one of the weaker Best Picture winners I've seen. But It's a perfectly serviceable film with a great performance from McCambridge, so I'm glad I saw it.
Grade: B-
I have yet to see this film. You are right that some of these films made in the post war era can be dated and , unintentionally, funny. I found that with The Lost Weekend. I still will see this one day
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen The Lost Weekend! I'll have to look into that one too.
DeleteIt’s Birgit by the way
DeleteIt's been a while since I've watched this so my memory of it isn't as sharp as it could be but I do recall thinking it was a decent film with good performances. After I watched it I immediately did some research into Huey Long, who served as the basis for Willie Stark, because up to that point all I had really known was that he was notoriously corrupt, had presidential ambitions and had been gunned down. He appears to have been very complex and rather loathsome so the characterization in the film is accurate.
ReplyDeleteI agree Mercedes McCambridge was absolutely deserving of her win. I also thought Broderick Crawford was very strong, though he wouldn't have been my choice for the Best Actor prize that year (of the nominees Kirk Douglas in Champion would be my pick though in an open field I'm torn between James Cagney in White Heat & Robert Ryan in The Set-Up). But Crawford had been a long-time supporting actor from a theatrical family (his mother was Helen Broderick-a popular character actress in films of the 30's and 40's) and had worked extensively at many of the studios so I think sentimentality probably was somewhat of a factor in his victory.
I can see how you could get this mixed up with All the President's Men (a great, great film!!), the titles are awfully similar and the subject matter not that different really.
It's not a bad film at all but the Best Picture win isn't one I think was merited, not in a year when it was competing against The Heiress and A Letter to Three Wives either of which would have been an awesome winner.
I haven't seen the other films it went up against for Best Picture, but compared to the other BP winners I've seen, this is pretty mid to low tier.
DeleteTwo of the films this was competing against-Twelve O'Clock High and Battleground-are very good movies but not necessarily required viewing. However both The Heiress (which contains Olivia de Havilland's second Oscar winning performance-a richly deserved award) and A Letter to Three Wives (with an award level though unnominated performance by Linda Darnell) are essentials that shouldn't be missed.
Delete1949 was a very good year for film with a slew of films that should be seen-White Heat, Late Spring, Criss Cross, Bitter Rice, The Rocking Horse Winner, Too Late for Tears, The Last Days of Dolwyn, The Third Man, Alias Nick Beal, Stray Dog, The Reckless Moment, The Threat and My Dream is Yours.
Not a great year for me, apparently! I've seen so little, but I do want to see The Heiress at least.
DeleteWatching The Heiress will be time well spent!
DeleteSame goes for A Letter to Three Wives. The main conceit of the story-three women friends receive a letter, just before they leave for an outing where they will be isolated for the day from any communication, from Addie Ross another "friend" in their circle that she's left town and taken one of their husbands with her without saying which one-is nearly impossible now with the advent of cell phones but the complex interpersonal issues it examines remain as fresh today as they were then and the cast is stacked top to bottom with excellent work.
One of the other films I mentioned "Too Late for Tears" very nearly became a lost film. Having fallen into public domain decades ago the available copies were hacked to bits by different distributors and the master allowed to degrade until it was unusable. At that point it was thought that it was unsalvageable since even the mutilated copies were beginning to decompose but film expert Eddie Mueller spearheaded a restoration effort in partnership with the UCLA Film Archive that took five years. It was accomplished by combining pieces of different surviving copies from around the world into a seamless whole.
I still haven't seen this though I'm sure it is WAY better than the atrocity that was the 2006 remake with Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, and Jude Law. Talk about wasting a great cast with such fucking shit.
ReplyDeleteI'm so tempted to watch that. It seems to be universally hated.
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