Saturday Matinee: The Political Winner of its day

No  matter which side you’re on this election season, you’re likely as fed up and disenchanted as I am with the whole election process. If reality is bringing you down, down, down, today’s Saturday Matinee may just cement your discontent and disgust with the notion of corruption in American politics. The fictional story of populist candidate, Willy Stark, is based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren. 

The rise and fall of a corrupt politician, who makes his friends richer and retains power by dint of a populist appeal.

The 1949 movie won three of its seven Academy Award nominations: Best Picture with Broderick Crawford taking home the Best Actor statue along with Mercedes McCambridge winning Best Supporting Actress. 

Loosely based on the rise and fall of Huey Long, All the King’s Men is available to stream on Amazon, YouTube, iTunes, Vudu and GooglePlay. As always check Netflix’ ever changing database.

The movie was remade in 2006 with a tremendous cast, Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins and Mark Ruffalo. Maybe we’ll take a look at that next week.

For now, here’s the vintage trailer for All the King’s Men from 1949.