Perhaps the most exciting thing about All the King's Men is not what's seen on-screen so much as what was happening off-screen to affect the finished film. Beginning with writer-producer-director Robert Rossen, his Best Motion Picture Oscar winner was something more than a thinly veiled biopic of former Louisiana senator Huey "Kingfish" Long. Targeted in 1947 by the House on Un-American Activities Commission (HUAC) as a communist sympathizer, the filmmaker was nearly derailed as a force in Hollywood. His allegiances and associations were put through the ringer of the late '40s Red Scare to jeopardize his professional life although he had the good fortune of finding a once in a lifetime firebrand on the best sellers list.

Capitalizing on Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the King's Men, he was able to comply with HUAC's demands well enough to put his eventual blacklisting from the industry on hold and stage his most celebrated film. By translating the controversial book for the big screen himself he also secured the production through a financing deal with Columbia Pictures that attached him as director to ensure the authenticity of his vision.

Concerned with Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford), Warren's white trash politician who becomes leader of the power elite, Rossen used Long's career to spice up the action and deliver a scalding critique of then-contemporary politics. Recognizing first and foremost how the "Kingfish" was finally an assassination victim stemming from his various actions, Stark is a corruptible leader of men once he realizes the rules of the political game.

Of course the underlying theme of the film isn't simply its story of a good man disrupted by the seduction of power. If that were the case cinephiles and moviegoers alike would have been better served watching Citizen Kane with its more complete, and cinematically innovative, approach to the same broad topic.

When given Rossen's real-life troubles and political difficulties, All the King's Men is partially concerned with the way laws are made, truths told and power formed by those in a position to name what's good and bad in society. Not unlike the HUAC trials and the paranoia of the late '40s and early '50s, the subtext of Stark's story concerns politicians looking for weakness in their enemies. More often than not such weakness is found in past failures and questionable relationships, much like how communism cast a pall over Hollywood despite the optimism surrounding its Depression-era exploration of a new society founded on the ruins of the old.

Tagged with the ad copy, "He thought he had the world by the tail - till it exploded in his face, with a bullet attached!" All the King's Men offers a vibrant performance by Crawford in the central role. Playing Willie Stark with the slow burn of corruption that's as natural as any of the righteous principles employed to begin his struggle, his journey is ever downward from humble beginnings.

Newspaperman and blue blood dilettante Jack Burden (John Ireland) is assigned to follow the local man Willie Stark who's running for a county seat. Arriving on scene Burden is immediately impressed with Stark's no-nonsense approach and profiles him in a series of editorials that ultimately end in Stark's election defeat.

Unable to forget the upstart politician Jack returns to his ancestral home where he courts his true love, Anne Stanton (Joanne Dru), and confronts his upper class background. Among the members of his circle are a cynical stepfather, a drunkard mother and the state's most powerful lawmaker, Judge Stanton (Raymond Greenleaf), Anne's uncle. Pleasantries aside, the older generation disagrees with Stark's humble pie and believes Jack has misplaced his trust in an undeserving clod.

Ridiculed for his beliefs, Jack leaves his ancestral world behind and struggles to make his way as an everyday Joe until Stark eventually finds him a few years later. Having since completed law school and discovered the way to affect social change through charismatic leadership Stark employs Jack as head of his close-knit crew. Later adding to the group a headstrong political advisor called Sadie Burke (Mercedes McCambridge), they help lead Stark to the governor's mansion just as his true colors unfurl in black and blue glory.

Unfortunately losing sight of his loving wife and son, Stark ends up taking Anne as a mistress much to Jack's frustrated impotence and starts politicking largely on the idea of the ends justifying the means. Thus, he surrounds himself with the best minds and businesspeople he can find, all the while having Jack look after their darkest secrets for leverage so he can force his hand whenever circumstances require it.

The ascent to power being a difficult one, Stark is equally hard to get along with and grandiose in his planned accomplishments that include new highways, hospitals and schools. To each of these public works he appoints a friend or foe, depending on the circumstance, and he ensnares Jack's former upper class cohort in his plans for wide domination. Because he's never more than a shill, however, when he crosses one man too many his world of straw and rhetoric begins to quickly blow away.

Jack withdraws from his former idol and Sadie learns to disregard him as an uncaring megalomaniac. Caught in the fray Anne reveals Judge Stanton's worst secrets to the dismay of her brother Adam (Shepperd Strudwick), another reluctant Stark appointee, and the governor uses it to end an impeachment threat directed by the good judge. Under duress Stanton shoots himself dead, releasing Stark from all claims of wrongdoing although the distraught Adam ends up killing him during a rally at the state capital. In the midst of the mayhem Jack and Anne finally face one another after so much disappointment and struggle to draw meaning from the loss of life around them.

Nominated for the top Academy Award against Battleground, The Heiress, A Letter to Three Wives and 12 O'Clock High the race for 1949's Oscar wasn't particularly strong in retrospect. Sure All the King's Men is an appropriate choice as movie of the year since it's a noble picture with its heart in the right place. All the more so when considering the alternative choices which haven't particularly distinguished themselves in the year's since their initial release. But Rossen's film is also a reasonable choice when considering its somewhat prescient ideas about the pairing of political corruption, showmanship and murder. History teaches us this combination is imminently commonplace and the natural order in many bureaucracies so it's a credit to the movie that it rather clearly connects the dots between these seemingly interconnected forces of avarice.

The overall experience of Rossen's movie, however, is not one of amazement or awe. Instead it is a well-executed character portrait of a limited person whose background is sketched rather quickly before settling into the story of his minions, but especially of Jack and Anne as romantic foils. This portrait of "all the king's men", and women as it were, is less brilliant than might have been hoped for. Then again there is clearly a difference in the impact of this highly topical film on audiences of today over 50 years after its initial release to a less media savvy and hopeful populace that was surely shaken by the story of Stark's rise and fall.

Not to unnecessarily exalt or minimize its place in history All the King's Men is not one of the masterpieces of American cinema. It is a well-told story about political death and the disruption of personalities involved in the quest to do good works for the taxi paying public. Yet it's equally a provocative film from 1949 that has since been minimized with the fulfillment of its warnings and pronouncements about the American bipartisan system that restrains it's originality letting it play like just another social problem picture.