Trivia / All the King's Men

• Acting in the Dark: During the making of the 1949 film, director Robert Rossen deliberately witheld the script from his actors to encourage spontaneity and authenticity, going so far as to film so-called "rehearsal" takes and then using them in the final cut. According to Broderick Crawford, Rossen only let them see the entire script once, at the beginning of principal photography, and never again.
• Amateur Cast: Robert Rossen gave dialogue to locals originally hired just as extras, and encouraged them to ad-lib.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In French: Les Fous du roi ("The King's Fools").
  • In Polish: Gubernator ("Governor").
  • In Ukrainian: Все королівське військо/Vse Korolivs'ke Vijs'ko ("The Whole Royal Army").
  • In Georgian: მეფის მთელი მხედრიონი/Mepis Mteli Mkhedrioni ("The King's Whole Cavalry").
  • In German: Der Mann, der herrschen wollte ("The Man Who Wanted to Rule").
  • In Spanish: El político ("The Politician") and Decepción ("Disappointment"), as well as directly translating the original title as Todos los hombres del rey.
  • In Brazilian Portuguese: A Grande Ilusão ("The Great Illusion"). In European Portuguese: A Corrupção do Poder ("The Corruption of Power").
  • In Chinese: 当代奸雄/Dāng Dài Jiān Xióng ("A Contemporary Traitor").
  • In Bulgarian: Цялото кралско войнство/Tsyaloto Kralsko Vojnstvo ("The Whole Royal Army").
  • In Macedonian: Сите луѓе на кралот/Site Luǵe na Kralot ("All the King's People").
  • In Greek: Όλοι οι Άνθρωποι του Βασιλιά/Óloi oi Ánthropoi tou Vasiliá ("All the King's People").
  • In Norwegian: Det kan hende overalt ("It Can Happen Anywhere").
  • In Romanian: Cariera de politician ("Career of a Politician").
• Denied Parody: Willie Stark is widely held to be a parody of Gov. Huey Long. The author claims that this belief is "innocent boneheadedness."
  Warren: One of the unfortunate characteristics of our time is that the reception of a novel may depend on its journalistic relevance. It is a little graceless of me to call this characteristic unfortunate, and to quarrel with it, for certainly the journalistic relevance of All the King's Men had a good deal to do with what interest it evoked. My politician hero, whose name, in the end, was Willie Stark, was quickly equated with the late [US] Senator Huey P. Long. ...
  This equation led, in different quarters, to quite contradictory interpretations of the novel. On one hand, there were those who took the thing to be a not-so-covert biography of, and apologia for, Senator Long, and the author to be not less than a base minion of the great man. There is really nothing to reply to this innocent boneheadedness or gospel-bit hysteria. As Louis Armstrong is reported to have said, there's some folks that, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em ... But on the other hand, there were those who took the thing to be a rousing declaration of democratic principles and a tract for the assassination of dictators. This view, though somewhat more congenial to my personal political views, was almost as wide of the mark. For better or worse, Willie Stark was not Huey Long. Willie [Stark] was only himself. ...
  [T]he difference between the person Huey P. Long and the fiction Willie Stark, may be indicated by the fact that in the verse play [Proud Flesh] the name of the politician was Talos – the name of the brutal, blank-eyed 'iron groom' of Spenser's Fairie Queene, the pitiless servant of the knight of justice. My conception grew wider, but that element always remained, and Willie Stark remained, in one way, Willie Talos. In other words, Talos is the kind of doom that democracy may invite upon itself. The book, however, was never intended to be a book about politics. Politics merely provided the framework story in which the deeper concerns, whatever their final significance, might work themselves out.
• Uncredited Role: Future Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Dirty Harry auteur Don Siegel was the uncredited second unit director.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the 1949 film, Robert Rossen offered the role of Willie Stark to John Wayne. Wayne sent the script back to Rossen with an angry letter claiming the film was "unpatriotic". Ironically, Wayne ended up losing his Best Actor Oscar to the man cast in his place, Broderick Crawford.
  • Humphrey Bogart was considered for the lead role. Columbia Pictures President Harry Cohn wanted Spencer Tracy, but Rossen disagreed, saying that the audience would like him too much.
  • Meryl Streep was originally cast as Sadie Burke in the 2006 film, but had to back out due to schedule conflicts.

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