--- title: "All the King's Men" year: 1949 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/all-the-kings-men" fi1m_score: 74 critics_score: 73 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-20T01:57:46.120023+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T01:57:46.584919+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # All the King's Men (1949) Directed by Robert Rossen · 1h 49m · MPA NR · Drama **Fi1m score: 74** · Critics 73 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* Broderick Crawford sweats his way from a country rally to the statehouse and the film can barely keep up > Robert Rossen’s version of the Robert Penn Warren novel gives Broderick Crawford a part he fills to the edges and gives its first hour to the making of a demagogue. The second hour has years to cover in too few minutes, and it shows. ## Synopsis In a Southern state, Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford) is a backwoods politician who starts out honest and obscure, and begins to gather a following among the farmers and small-town crowds nobody in the capital courts. Jack Burden (John Ireland) attaches himself to Stark and watches him, close enough to see the man change. The state’s political machine, run by men like Tiny Duffy (Ralph Dumke), finds it has to deal with him, and Sadie Burke (Mercedes McCambridge), a hard-drinking operator, works his campaign. At home are his wife Lucy (Anne Seymour) and his son Tom (John Derek). On the other side of the state’s money sit Anne Stanton (Joanne Dru), her brother Adam (Shepperd Strudwick) and Judge Monte Stanton (Raymond Greenleaf), whose world Stark has begun to name in his speeches. ## Review Robert Rossen wrote, produced and directed this adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s novel, and he made one large decision at the start: the book belongs to the reporter Jack Burden, the film belongs to Willie Stark. For its first hour *All the King’s Men* is about as good as American cinema has been on how a decent man goes into politics and what politics does with him. Its second hour has too much story and too little time, and it hurries. Broderick Crawford plays Willie first as a joke, a stiff backwoods man with a prepared speech and nothing behind it, the sort of candidate a crowd talks over. He is honest, he means it, and he is dull. Then Sadie Burke (Mercedes McCambridge) tells him, over a bottle, what the men who put him on the platform really think of him, and the next morning he throws the prepared speech away and talks to the farmers as one of them. Crawford does not raise his voice so much as put his weight behind it. We felt the pull of that speech, we wanted him to win, and a moment later we noticed how quickly we had stopped asking what he would do with the winning. Burnett Guffey shot much of it on location in flat, hard daylight, and the rallies are full of faces that plainly came from the town rather than a casting office: men in braces squinting at the platform, women with babies and paper fans. It looks like a newsreel, which is the point, because the man on the platform has learned that a newsreel is what wins. Al Clark cuts the campaign as a rising tide of posters, motorcades and loudspeakers, so that Willie’s face spreads across the state faster than his promises do. Once he is in the governor’s mansion Guffey lights him from below and lets the rooms go dark around him, and the sweating amateur of the rallies becomes a shape in a doorway. McCambridge is the other reason to watch. Sadie smokes, drinks, tells Willie the truth when nobody else will and loves him without any hope of it doing her good, and McCambridge plays all four at once with a lift of the chin and a cigarette. Ralph Dumke’s Tiny Duffy is the machine made flesh, a man who changes sides in the time it takes to relight a cigar. John Derek, as the son Tom, gives the boy the father’s swagger with the substance taken out. The trouble is Jack. John Ireland plays him as a watcher, which is what the novel asks, but a watcher on the page has a mind we can hear and a watcher on screen has a face at the edge of the frame, and Ireland’s face is not given much to do. Joanne Dru’s Anne Stanton and Shepperd Strudwick’s Adam belong to the old money Willie is set against, and Rossen never has the minutes to make that world feel like more than a set of good manners. Louis Gruenberg’s score arrives with brass whenever a headline is printed, and it is louder than it needs to be. Jean Louis puts Dru in gowns that tell us she has moved up in the world before anyone says so. The second half has too much novel in it. Years pass in a montage of headlines, and things the book takes chapters to prepare land here in a scene apiece: a hearing, a football match, a family scandal. The last half hour is melodrama, and although Rossen keeps it moving, we wanted him to stop and let the damage register. There is a turn near the end we will not describe. It is well staged, and it is over before we could feel it. Rossen went on to make *The Hustler* (1961), where he gave one man in one room all the time he needed. Here he had a whole state and 109 minutes, and it was not enough. See it for Crawford, for McCambridge and for the first hour, which is as sharp about the making of a strongman as anything we know. It carries a U certificate, and it will be among the darker things you have watched under that letter. *Fi1m score 74, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are unanimous in their approval, and the praise gathers in one place: Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark. Every critic singles him out, whether for energy, conviction or the sheer force he brings to the backwoods politician’s rise and fall. Robert Rossen’s triple duty as producer, director and adapter of Robert Penn Warren’s novel is the other point of agreement, with most critics finding his grip on the material firm and the portrait of a Huey Long-style demagogue vivid, turbulent and never dull. The spread is narrow, and the reservations are about shape rather than substance. Time Out feels the second half slides into overheated melodrama, and The New York Times finds the middle section short on dramatic structure and deeper character insight. Empire stands apart only in warmth, arguing that the film’s biting cynicism and location shooting keep it relevant long after its release. ### Reviews we read (6) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's biting cynicism and authentic location shooting, highlighting Broderick Crawford's tour de force performance as the corrupt politician Willie Stark that keeps the story relevant decades later. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/king-men-review/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Edwin Schallert (70/100, inferred): The film is both great and terrible, a dynamic barrage of story power, effects, and brilliant acting that makes it one of the most impactful films of the year. It powerfully depicts the saga of a politician's corruption and the political machine, with standout performances especially from Broderick Crawford. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/story/2022-09-02/from-the-archives-all-the-kings-men-shocker-saga-of-mans-corruption) - **The New Yorker** (70/100, inferred): The picture is never dull as it explains how Huey Long used his rural following to rise to eminence, with Robert Rossen deserving praise for producing, directing, and adapting the novel. The cast, including Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark, delivers convincing performances, and the film mixes professionals and amateurs effectively. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1949/11/12/1949-11-12-101-tny-cards-000032348) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (70/100, inferred): The film is a rip-roaring, turbulent portrait of a Huey Long-type demagogue's rise and fall, with superb pictorialism that captures the dangers of ignorance and greed in politics. It excels in vivid scenes and Broderick Crawford's energetic performance but struggles with consistent dramatic structure and deeper character insight in the middle section. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1949/11/09/archives/all-the-kings-men-columbia-film-based-on-the-novel-by-warren-at.html) - **Time Out**, TM (70/100, inferred): A fine adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer novel about the rise and fall of a Southern demagogue modeled on Huey Long. Rossen maintains a firm grip with strong performances, particularly from Broderick Crawford, John Ireland and Mercedes McCambridge, though the second half veers into overheated melodrama. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/all-the-kings-men-3) - **Variety**, William Brogdon (70/100, inferred): The rise and fall of a backwoods political messiah is given graphic treatment in a film that vividly impresses with the chicanery of politics, stirring talk and controversy. Robert Rossen excels in his triple role, with Broderick Crawford delivering a standout performance and strong support from the cast in this dramatically sure production. [Read](https://variety.com/1949/film/reviews/all-the-king-s-men-2-1200416458/) ## Details - **Director:** Robert Rossen - **Director:** Robert Rossen - **Screenplay:** Robert Rossen - **Novel:** Robert Penn Warren - **Cinematography:** Burnett Guffey - **Editor:** Al Clark - **Music:** Louis Gruenberg - **Costume design:** Jean Louis - **Producer:** Robert Rossen - **Cast:** John Ireland as Jack Burden; Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark; Joanne Dru as Anne Stanton; John Derek as Tom Stark; Mercedes McCambridge as Sadie Burke; Shepperd Strudwick as Adam Stanton; Ralph Dumke as Tiny Duffy; Anne Seymour as Mrs. Lucy Stark - **Runtime:** 1h 49m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 16 November 1949 - **Genres:** Drama ## Where to watch in the US - The Roku Channel: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Tubi: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: CA, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1950: Best Director (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Supporting Actor (nominated); Best Actor (won); Best Picture (won); Best Supporting Actress (won) ## If you liked this - *A Face in the Crowd* (1957): Kazan’s drifter becomes a television demagogue; the same rise, ten years and one medium later. - *The Great McGinty* (1940): Preston Sturges plays the machine for laughs and still tells you how it works. - *Z* (1969), Fi1m 84: Costa-Gavras on a political killing and its cover-up, cut like a thriller. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/z.md) - *The Hustler* (1961), Fi1m 88: Rossen again, with one man, one room and all the time he needed. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-hustler.md) - *The Candidate* (1972): Robert Redford’s clean senator learns what winning costs; quieter, colder, just as bleak. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/all-the-kings-men