All the king's men 1949 - A powerful political movie about corruption

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IMDB rating: 7,6

Director: Robert Rossen
Main Cast: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Joanne Dru, John Derek, Mercedes McCambridge

"Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men is a roman à clef inspired by the career of Louisiana governor Huey Long. As a powerful indictment of modern politics, All the King's Men represents a landmark in the maturation of United States cinema. It is dominated by the dynamic performance of Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark, a thinly disguised version of real-life populist demagogue Huey Long. In an era that was still churning out feel-good political dramas like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, audiences were shocked by the confrontational realism of a film that said not only that the American political system was corrupt but also that, absent the intervention of violence, it would remain corrupt. It has many cinematic descendants, most notably the similarly named All the President's Men about a real-life corrupt politician, and the observable fact of history that at least in this case, that the checks and balances did work to remove the corrupt official in ways that they did not for Huey Long.
Broderick Crawford won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Willie Stark and so did Mercedes McCambridge for the role of the campaign manager." - www.allmovie.com

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Rasputin and the empress 1932 - The three fabulous Barrymores together

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IMDB rating: 6,7

Director: Richard Boleslawski
Main Cast: John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Ralph Morgan, Diana Wynyard

"It's hard to separate fact and fancy from the many accounts of what happened on the set when all three of the fabulous Barrymores - Ethel, John and Lionel - appeared together for the only time in Rasputin and the Empress. As for the end result, John offers the subtlest (!) performance as Russian Prince Paul Chegodieff; Lionel throws all caution to the four winds in the role of 'Mad Monk' Rasputin; and Ethel comes off as rather artificial as Empress Alexandra (Ethel was more appealing in her character roles of the 1940s and 1950s). When seen today, Rasputin and the Empress seems rather choppy in spots, with isolated lines of dialogue and sometimes whole scenes completely missing. This is due to a million-dollar lawsuit brought against MGM by Prince Yusupov, the man who really engineered Rasputin's assassination. The Prince wasn't offended by being depicted as a murderer, but he was distressed when MGM suggested that his wife had been raped by Rasputin. As a result, Rasputin and the Empress was withdrawn from distribution, and all prints were later bowdlerized when released to television. Also as a result, all future Hollywood films were obliged to carry the 'Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental' disclaimer." - www.allmovie.com

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