Best movie of this year hands down!

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The acting in this movie is really good.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

A poor farmer rises to the governorship, but in the process, loses perspective.The movie's a cautionary tale of mixing ego with politics that holds up pretty well, thanks to Crawford's bravura performance. Actually the movie's the best and worst thing to happen to the pudgy actor. The best because it was the role of a lifetime and seemingly one he was born to play; the worst because being an actor of narrow range, he never got anything like it again. Here, however, he dominates the screen like few others in Hollywood annals.Sod-buster Stark's (Crawford) rise to power is convincingly outlined as we watch him huff and puff and bellow louder as the crowds grow. Meanwhile, his political success expands, reaching eventually into the state's old money establishment. What's not so clear is why the well-bred Anne (Dru) switches her affections to the off-putting Stark, especially when he's already married. In fact, the screenplay is spotty in a number of places, probably from having to adapt a large novel to the smaller screen. On the other hand, I can see why itinerant journalist Jack (Ireland) and plain-faced Sadie (McCambridge) are drawn to Stark's growing orbit of political power. Of course, there's the feeling that Jack never fully leaves his conscience behind.As a whole, the movie's a dramatic powerhouse despite the occasional script lapses. Director Rossen makes good use of ordinary folks to flesh out Willie's down home appeal. I guess it's not too surprising that Willie's downfall comes from crossing the state's establishment once too often. But then, what did old money ever do for the "hicks" of the state except allow conditions to deteriorate, giving Willie's populist appeal real impetus. The trouble is that he gets power mad such that state improvements are no longer improvements for the people but symbols of Stark's greater glory.Of course, the movie walked away with a number of Oscars in 1949. I'm not sure, however, that a statuette was the best thing to happen to Crawford's career. Nonetheless, the lesson of Willie Stark remains an enduring one for all levels of government.

I've watched this movie many times over the past forty years and with changing opinion each time. There are some wonderful scenes that are tightly written, well-staged, and wonderfully acted, and they add tremendous color and life to the cinematization of a Great American Novel, but as years go by, my respect for the movie as art has diminished. Perhaps in its day, ATKM was a spectacular accomplishment, but I find it nowadays stiff and somewhat disjointed. The problem with trying to make a great book into a movie is that just cobbling the great parts out of the book together doesn't make the movie great. The Robert Penn Warren novel was extraordinarily complex and carefully paced to followed a dumb hick from the cotton fields to the pinnacle (and abuse) of power, but the movie tries to cram the entire story into the standard Hollywood two hours, and to do that, it has to lurch from high point to high point, like climbing all the Colorado Rocky Mountains by trying to hop from one fourteener to another. It just doesn't work. It's tough making a movie from a great book because lovers of the book like me will criticize it because it doesn't meet our expectations of the novel. "All The King's Men" as a book has aged like oak-casked whiskey; as a movie, the cork has leaked.

i was mesmerized by this film from the beginning.i thought the story was great,i as was the writing.the dialogue was also well written.especially the first fiery speech given by Broderick Crawford's character,Willie Stark.i can find no fault with the acting,especially Crawford.i thought he was brilliant.i couldn't take my eyes off him.talk about a powerhouse performance.the movie really packs a powerful wallop to the stomach.the story of political corruption and greed is just as topical(if not more so)today and could easily be based on one of many of our present day politicians.would the film be as good without the brilliant performance of Broderick Crawford.we'll never know.and that's just fine.for me,All the King's Men is a (1949) is a 9/10

This movie, although almost sixty years old now, is still interesting today mainly because human nature and thus the fundamentals of American politics haven't changed. What has changed is the average American's cynicism towards the political process, thus rendering this film possibly more interesting today than it was when it was first made. As others have mentioned, this film is based on a novel that was based on the life of Huey P. Long, governor of and then senator from Louisiana. The politician in this film is Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford), who starts out running for local office, but comes up against a corrupt local political machine that quickly shuts him down, even having his wife fired from her teaching job of many years. A few years later the same corrupt political machine is looking at their polling data and realizing that their candidate for governor will lose unless they can split the populist vote. They enlist Stark to run for office as governor, and his flattered pride doesn't allow him to see what their true motives are. Stark gives a few uninspired speeches until Sadie Burke (Mercedes McCambridge) explains to him what is really going on - that he is a patsy in a larger scheme. From that point forward he is a man transformed. He gives fiery speeches that rile up the people and almost actually wins the race. However, four years later he returns and does win. In order to do so, he has to "make some deals" with some moneyed interests. He starts out using power to help the common people of the state, but in the end he is helping the common people of the state just because he wants power, making sure that everything accomplished by his administration comes complete with a large landmark bearing his name to assure his legacy. His misdeeds in office - both professional and personal - escalate until they become even too large for him to cover up, leading to his ultimate downfall.The one character I found somewhat hard to understand was that of Jack Burden (John Ireland). He starts out covering Stark's story because he is assigned to do so by the newspaper for which he is working. He has such high ideals that he even quits the paper when his boss tells him that the state political machine no longer wants Stark's race covered. However, long after it is obvious what Stark has turned into, even after he knows that Stark has rewarded his friendship and loyalty by taking the girl he loves, Burden remains by his side. It takes Stark indirectly causing the death of Burden's long time mentor before he finally walks away.There have been plenty of movies made about how power corrupts otherwise good men, but in this film there is more than a hint that Stark was never actually a good man. He was just a man who wasn't in a position to be corrupt until power gave him an opportunity to do so. In the sixty years since this film was made we've seen offenses committed by Presidents of both parties that leave the average man wondering "What WERE they thinking?". However, in order to reach the top of the political heap, you probably need to possess a tendency for risk taking along with a great deal of self-confidence, just as Stark had, and these traits can be your enemies as well as your friends.