7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
All The King's Men is the story of the rise of politician Willie Stark from a rural county seat to the spotlight. Along the way, he loses his initial innocence, and becomes just as corrupt as those who he assaulted before for this characteristic. Also included is the romance between one of his "right hand women" and the up-and-coming journalist who brings Stark to prominence. Written by Neal Scoones - verty@ritz.mordor.com
Starring: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland (I), Joanne Dru, John Derek, Mercedes McCambridgeDrama | 100% |
Film-Noir | 40% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
There’s a regular right wing talking point that likes to emphasize what is perceived as President Obama’s efforts to “redistribute the wealth”. Whether or not that effort is fact based or not is of course open to debate, but it would be interesting to see how many of these same pundits would have responded to Huey Long during his heyday (it should be stated for some readers that this is not the same Huey Long of Ink Spots pop music fame). Though Long is not that well remembered nowadays, with a reputation that is largely confined to political junkies (not to mention certain film aficionados who love All The King’s Men), in the late twenties and early thirties he was one of the most famous— or perhaps infamous—politicians in the United States. Long rose to national fame as the Governor of Louisiana from 1928-1932, but after he was elected to the United States Senate in 1932 he became even more of a flashpoint when he promulgated a “Share the Wealth” program which probably would have caused several of the usual right leaning suspects’ heads to explode. Long didn’t just dance around ideas of “redistribution”, he met them head on, arguing that the Depression had been caused by what is commonly referred to nowadays as income inequality. Long proposed actually limiting personal wealth through an arcane formula which to those opposed smacked of anti-Capitalism if not outright Communism. Long, who had at one point been a staunch ally of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, decided to take on his former mentor in the upcoming 1936 presidential contest, but fate intervened when Long was assassinated in 1935, not as a direct result of his wealth distribution schemes, but for a more mundane attempt to remove a Judge whom Long hated from the bench, an attempt which was not greeted well by the Judge’s son-in-law. (Though not exactly analogous, Roosevelt himself ironically ran into some judicial trouble of his own which nearly derailed his Presidency a year or so later when he attempted to “pack” the Supreme Court with appointees more in line with his way of thinking.) Long’s legacy is still hotly debated in political circles, with some claiming he was a hero to the working class and a prescient prophet of a growing class struggle in the United States, while deriders allege he was little more than a garden variety demagogue. Author Robert Penn Warren never denied that Huey Long provided some grist for the mill of creating the iconic character of Willie Stark, an initially idealistic southern man who rises to the pinnacle of power only to see it all slip through his fingers like so much sand, a victim of his own hubris and the corruptive influence of that selfsame power. But Warren also cautioned about equating Stark with Long, even though some have pointed out that the title of Warren’s novel, All the King’s Men, could be seen as a direct reference to Long’s own slogan “Every man a king”. The only true king in both the novel and the Academy Award winning 1949 film adaptation is of course Willie Stark himself, though his tenure on his self made throne is short lived and tumultuous.
All the King's Men is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.34:1. This is another fantastic looking high definition presentation from the Columbia archives, one which offers resolute contrast, deep, pleasing blacks and extremely well modulated gray scale. The elements utilized are largely pristine, and there's really no damage of any major import to mention. Grain structure is natural looking, though at times just slightly variable, as is sharpness (it's important to keep in mind that there's a glut of multi-pass opticals in this piece, which will naturally tweak the appearance of grain and sharpness). Also, on just a few occasions there are some minor density variances that show up for just an instant or two, creating slight, almost imperceptible, flickering.
All the King's Men's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track quite capably reproduces the film's largely dialogue driven sound mix. Louis Gruenberg's brass inflected score also sounds fine, if occasionally just slightly boxy. Fidelity is just fine with no damage to report.
Willie Stark remains one of the most iconic characters in the annals of American political fiction, and he's brought vividly to life by Broderick Crawford in a performance that still rings true and has impeccable power and, ultimately, disturbing tragedy. Some of the secondary plot points are a bit hackneyed, but overall this film is amazingly contemporary feeling, filled with an expert supporting cast, and bolstered by sure direction by Rossen and some interesting editing choices by Robert Parrish. This Blu- ray doesn't have much to offer in the supplements department (Gruenberg's music is fine, mind you, but not especially brilliant), but the video and audio are top notch. Highly recommended.
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Includes Elia Kazan: Outsider 1982 Documentary
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4K Restoration
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