All the King's Men Reviews

Details the rise and fall of a Southern politician

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4/5

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.

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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.

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A fine adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer novel.

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Smart, fascinating and horrifying, All the King's Men is an example of late 1940s filmmaking at its best.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 84/100

A savage indictment of the system.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4/5

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.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: B-

Today, its realism seems bland, its moralizing forced.

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Broderick Crawford gives an outstanding performance as the corrupt politician Willie Stark.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/4

It's inspired by the career of populist Louisiana governor (1928-32) and Democratic U.S. Senator (1932-35) Huey Long.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: B

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.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4/4

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.

Comment | Original Score: A

A classic tale of power corrupting absolutely

Comment | Original Score: 5/5

It features one of the great performances in movie history.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 5/5

Outstanding poltical commentary, rife with tension.

Comment | Original Score: 4/5

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.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4/5

Splendid portrait of political corruption. More timely than ever.

Comment | Original Score: 5/5

Mr. Rossen has assembled in this starkly unprettified film a piece of pictorial journalism that is remarkable for its brilliant parts.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4.5/5

This political allegory adapted from Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is an on-target portrait of a backwoods populist (reminiscent of Huey Long) who becomes the electorate's messiah.

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The acting is way over-the-top, however, Broderick Crawford is great!

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 2.5/4