The rather heavy-handed movie, which also gained the Best Picture Oscar, benefited from bull-necked Crawford's hard-hitting performance and the effective blend of location photography and studio work.
Comment
02/19/08
All the King's Men (1949)
96 %
Reviews Counted: 27 Fresh: 26 Rotten:1 Average Rating: 7.9/10
Consensus:
Broderick Crawford is spellbinding as politician Willie Stark in director Robert Rossen's adaptation of the Robert Penn Warren novel about the corrosive effects of power on the human soul.
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Synopsis: Broderick Crawford stands out in this fine drama about the rise and fall of a corrupt southern governor who promises his way to power. Crawford portrays Willie Stark, who, once he is elected, finds that his vanity and power lust prove to be his downfall. The film is based on the 1946 Pulitzer... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Broderick Crawford, Mercedes McCambridge, John Ireland, John Derek, Joanne Dru
Reviews
Top Critic Top Critic Top Critic
It is a film that vividly impresses, with dramatic sureness the chicanery of politics as have been practiced in the past and may crop up again.
02/19/08
Top Critic
Smart, fascinating and horrifying, All the King's Men is an example of late 1940s filmmaking at its best.
05/15/07
While [Crawford's] full-bodied performance still holds up nearly six decades later, the rest of Robert Rossen's Best Picture winner has lost a good deal of its fierce luster.
01/17/07
Broderick Crawford gives an outstanding performance as the corrupt politician Willie Stark.
10/31/06
It's inspired by the career of populist Louisiana governor (1928-32) and Democratic U.S. Senator (1932-35) Huey Long.
09/25/06
Stark is a work of art; a walking id whose momentum surges like the adrenaline that busts through his veins as he delivers his fist-pumping speeches.
09/24/06
Based on the Pulitzer-prize winning novel, Robert Rossen's film is a grimly realistic study of the corrutive nature of personal and poltical power via the tumultuous career of Senator Hughey Stark.
07/22/05
Broderick Crawford is no Orson Welles, but this meditation on the underbelly of American politics is at least in the same league as Citizen Kane.
04/11/04
Mr. Rossen has assembled in this starkly unprettified film a piece of pictorial journalism that is remarkable for its brilliant parts.
05/20/03
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• All the King's Men at Rotten Tomatoes
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