All the King's Men is a political drama about power and corruption. It fits with the late 40's theme of socially conscience Best Picture winners. It follows the political career of Willie Stark from small town backwoods man to Governor of the state. It is based on the book by Robert Penn Warren which is loosely based on the life of Louisiana politician Senator Huey Long. Willie starts out as a man who is fighting the injustice he sees in his home town. Unable to do anything about it he attends law school and becomes a powerful lawyer prosecuting large companies for taking advantage of the people. He eventually catches the eye of some big politicians who think they can use him for their own advantage. During the process Willie learns the tricks of getting elected and getting things done. He becomes very corrupt very fast. He gets a lot done for the state but all of it is done using black mail and payoffs. But because of all he does he becomes very popular with the common people. Eventually he corruption starts to unravel and he begins to feel the pressure of all he has done and leads to his downfall.
The rise and fall of Willie Stark is a great story. It is amazing to see how people can change and how power goes to some people head even when they start out with the best of intentions. We see the humble beginnings of Willie dedicated husband, good father, looking out for the little people. Then he turns into a political machine only thinking about himself, cheating with multiple women, and making sure anything his son does makes him look good. While the story is good and interesting the movie it's self is kind of clunky. I don't know what it is about how the movie was edited or what but I feel it kind of leaves a lot off. They skip from one phase in Willies life to the next without giving much detail about what happens in between. He loses one election then the movie jumps to 4 years later and all of sudden he is the most corrupt politician. If it wasn't for the great story and the great acting the movie would just fall apart. The movie earned two deserving acting awards one for Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark and one for Mercedes McCambridge(who later in life became the voice of possessed Linda Blair in the Exorcist) for Best Supporting Actress as Wilie's political aide, secretary, and mistress. The movie lost best Director and Best Screenplay to Joseph Mankiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives. Mankiewicz would win the same to awards the following year for All About Eve. Making him the second director to repeat winning. There was a remake of the movie in 2006 starring Sean Penn as Willie Start. I never saw that version but am going to check it out to see how it compares to the original because if done right it could be even better. But seeing as it didn't get that many good reviews I am guessing it wasn't done right.
What I most got out of the movie is that nothing really changes. This movie is from 1949 and talking about political corruption. How has things changed? Power still corrupts, politicians still look for the easy way to get elected, and they will always tell the people what they want to hear. Makes me wonder when the good old days were that all these people talk about today. It seems to me that things have always been this way and there really is no way to change it. It reminds me of the Billy Joel song lyric "The good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems".
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