Les fous du roi

Every dog has his day. Broderick Crawford (sometimes remembered for the TV series "Highway Patrol") hit the zenith of his career with an Oscar winning performance. As Willie Stark he reeks of the abuse of power we have seen in the year's since. Never again does Crawford turn himself loose in a role that was really written for him. (In Highway Patrol all the chases were shot on private land - Crawford's driving license was revoked for numerous DUI infractions). You can't leave out Mercedes McCambridge. She is the perfect second lead. Her performance is filled with depth. Mercedes is the role model for today's woman. Tough yet filled with compassion. She and Crawford provide sensation entertainment without one frame of CGI. If you haven't seen this film, rent it, buy it or go to a retrospective. Your film going life is incomplete without a viewing.

Recently I saw a pretty uninteresting movie, All the King's Men, starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, and Kate Winslet. I wasn't that impressed and I was embarrassed to see that it was actually a remake, I didn't realize there was another classic out there that had won best picture. But when I saw the remake, I was kinda scared to see this version due to the fact that maybe I was just not into the story, but it turned out to not only be a good film, but a great one that had no need to be a remake almost 60 years later.

Willie Stark is a crooked lawyer who decides to run for senator, swearing up and down the people that he is just like them and making crazy promises, he gets elected and finds that it's harder than he realized to keep those promises. Things start to fall apart more and more when his son gets into some serious trouble causing bad press, the people are not satisfied with his duties, and his marriage begins to fall apart as well eventually leading up to a horrific ending to his term when he is threatened with impeachment.

All the King's Men, the original, is a great movie that I would recommend for the classic lovers. The remake, trust me, it isn't worth watching, but in some sick way I am grateful for it, because I would have never had the opportunity to see this film. We have terrific performances and a great story that anyone could get into, not to mention the Oscar praise it got was well deserved. Sit back and enjoy the movie, the classics are always worth it.

8/10

You know what I really appreciated about this political story? The filmmakers went overboard NOT to paint the main character as either a Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal. It winds up, then, being more a human-interest story. In other words, there was no political agenda....unlike most films, especially in the last 50 years.

At any rate, Broderick Crawford does an outstanding job portraying the self- proclaimed "hick" Willie Starks, who rises from nothing to become governor of a state and then gets carried away with power and ego.

Mercedes McCambridge is equally riveting as one of his aides. She was a great actress, one of the most intense females I've ever seen on film. I'm sorry she didn't achieve stardom and make more movies than she did. She certainly had the talent. In fact, she won an Academy Award for this performance.

John Ireland also does very well here as another person helping "Willie." Add some good cinematography and you have a fascinating film start-to-finish. I look forward to viewing it again.

I viewed this film for the first time this past week. It was one of only a few "Best Picture" Oscar winners over the past fifty or sixty years that I had not previously seen. I have found most, but not all, of these films to be absorbing and/or entertaining with the majority deserving of the awards they received. I included this specific film in a personal test that I conducted recently. I initially viewed the current version of this film, which features an impressive cast headed up by Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet and Anthony Hopkins. Then I rented this 1949 award winner to compare both versions.

I am aware that when you first see a film or program that you find to be an excellent presentation and then you view a newer version of the same entity, the normal tendency is to find the new version not up to the standards of the original due to the unfairly high expectations. For the test conducted, I switched viewing order of the two versions. I anticipated finding the newer version more rewarding due to the more than half century difference in the two presentations and the fact that Sean Penn and Anthony Hopkins have each artistically created several roles which I have found to be top of the line performances. It did not work out that way in this case. I found the 1949 version withstood the test of time and in my opinion was the superior production. This had to do with several factors, the primary one being that the screen play of the older version seemed to be better paced and the presentation flowed more evenly. I believe this version more closely followed the novel and the depiction of the central character "Willie Stark". The novel loosely based this character on real life Louisiana politician "Huey Long". I concluded that the newer version tried to capture more of Longs' character along with his political successes and failures. In doing so it lost some of the novels flow and impact.

Both versions have excellent casts and the performances given by both Sean Penn and Broderick Crawford (Oscar winning) as Willie Stark are first rate. I consider this version to be a top 25 all time political drama and gave it an 8 out of 10 IMDb rating, but I would recommend both versions for fans of semi-biographical political dramas.

Story of Willie Stark, who starts out running for an Assemblyman in the south up against the local political machine, who eventually rises to governor of his state supported by the machine and every interest, Stark originally set out to fight, in the meanwhile ruining the lives of his family & associates. Crawford is very powerful in his role as Stark, delivering a very convincing performance. McCambridge is also excellent as Stark's conniving political aide (and mistress), Ireland effective as the reporter, from whom the story is viewed. Very good direction by Rossen, who turns the likeable Stark, into a despicable fink by the film's end. Sharp editing also by Clark. Nice moral play to watch. Rating, 10.