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1949 Best Picture:
All the King's Men
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Competition: Battleground, The Heiress, A Letter to Three
Wives, Twelve O'Clock High
Other Winners:
Best Actor:
Broderick
Crawford, All the Kings Men
Best Actress: Olivia de
Havilland, The Heiress
Best Supporting Actor:
Dean Jagger, Twelve O'Clock High
Best Supporting Actress: Mercedes McCambridge, All the Kings Man
Best Director: Joseph
L. Makiewicz, A Letter to Three Wives
Cast:
Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Joanne Dru, John Derek, Mercedes
McCambridge, Anne Seymour, Sheppard Strudwick
Storyline:
A
political thriller that takes a hard look at the rise to power, of a grass
roots politician, named Willie Stark, who campaigns on fundamental issues,
but who, once in power, becomes a bloodthirsty, corrupt dictator.
Did it deserve to
win: Yes! All the
King's Men is a taught political drama, presented in a way that was very
fresh and new at the time. A
Letter to Three Wives, although very good, was the kind of melodrama that
Hollywood had mastered over the past several years. Critique:
All the King's Men doesn't
beat around the bush with its story line. Ruthless characters,
gritty subject matter and a slick plot, make this a very unusual film for
its day.
Broderick
Crawford pulls off a brilliant performance here, playing the man who
becomes a monster. Meanwhile, McCambridge is brilliant as the
tough-talking political aide, Sadie. There
is a certain maturity that seems to blossom in film making of the day, and
it would be perfected the following year for All About Eve, but All the
King's Men marks a smooth transition from the melodrama previously, to the
slicker film making that was to come.
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Best Scene:
"I had small pox when I was a
kid!" Mercedes McCambridge gives the speech of her career, and
maybe the one the won her the Oscar, as she breaks down in front of
Jack, warning him that Willie will one day let him go to!
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Behind the
Scenes: All the
King's Men was based on the life of Louisiana Senator, Huey Long, but it
was rumored that Crawford was coached to base his performance on studio
boss, Harry Cohn. Cohn begrudgingly released the film, but ran no
Oscar campaign for it. McCambridge
played an atypical character for her time. She lacked the
conventional looks of an ingénue, thus she was typecast
in later roles as tough broads. Her most notable follow up was the
1953 film, Johnny Guitar, the cult-ish film starring Joan Crawford, where
the two fight a gun battle in the old west. Her most notable role
was as the voice of the Devil, in the 1973 horror classic, The Exorcist. Olivia
de Havilland trumps her sister in the Oscar race, winning her second, of
five nominations. Among the women she beat out were Jeanne Crain,
with her first and only nod, for playing a woman of mixed race, in the
message movie, Pinky.
The film was notable for also providing the second acting nod for a woman
of color, as Ethel Waters was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Art-house
favorite, The Bicycle Thief, wins an honorary Oscar for Best Foreign
film. Foreign films were not an official category yet. The
highlight of the ceremony that year was a peculiar performance of one of
the nominated songs, Baby It's Cold Outside, by Rock Hudson and Mae
West. The campy send up became so popular that black market copies
of the performance exist to this day!
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|
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| Dirty
politics is exposed in the 1949 Best Picture!
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| Grass
roots politician, Willie Stark, as played by Broderick Crawford. |
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| John
Ireland plays Jack Bruden, the reporter who covers the Willie Stark
story. Joanne Dru is girlfriend, Anne.
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| Best
Supporting Actress, Mercedes McCambridge is the political aide, Sadie. |
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| Crawford
makes the speech that puts his political name on the map to success.
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| Tough
talker, McCambridge is jilted by Willie.
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| Willie
Stark achieves ultimate power.
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| John
Derek plays Willie's trouble-ridden son, Tom, years before playing Bo
Derek's scandal-ridden hubby in real life. |
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| Willie's
opponents start the process of taking him down, when they uncover a
missing body. Did Willie's people do it?
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| Joanne
Dru, as Anne, finds herself more and more connected to the Willie scandal.
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Willie survives a
near-impeachment, by imploring the support of the people that voted him
in.
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Also in
1949:
January
22: Chinese
communists take control of Peking.
March
18: The US
joins several western European countries to form NATO.
July 13:
Rome excommunicates communists.
October 1:
China establishes the People's Republic.
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