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Reporter Jack Burden (John Ireland) is sent to Kanoma County (in a never-named state) cover the campaign of Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford), a small-town Southern reform candidate for county treasurer. Willie is in the midst of a campaign speech when local authorities tell him he needs to disperse since he's disturbing the peace. Refusing to do so, Willie is arrested, and Jack winds up having his camera confiscated. Later, two of the corrupt local politicians, Tiny Duffy (Ralph Dumke) and Dolph Pillsbury (Will Wright), order Willie released from prison, and introduce him to Jack, who has gotten back his camera (minus the slate with the photos that were taken on it). Willie befriends Jack and brings him to his home, where he meets Willie's wife and father. While they all dine, Lucy tells Jack about how she was fired a couple weeks back from her schoolteacher job and believes it's because of Willie trying to clean up the local political situation. Soon, the Starks's son Tommy (John Derek) arrives home. He's been beaten up by some other kids while he was giving out political flyers. Then, a rock gets thrown through the window. Willie runs outside and sees no one, but yells out that he's going to still run for office.
Jack is impressed by the entire family's fortitude and especially of Willie's honesty, so he writes a series of favorable articles about him. He then takes a vacation to where he grew up, Burden's Landing, and has dinner with his mother (Katherine Warren) and stepfather (Floyd McEvoy). There's strife with Jack and his stepfather, as Jack feels his mom drinks too much and that the way his stepfather treats her is the reason. Jack's stepfather also thinks Willie isn't as infallible as Jack would like to believe he is. Jack's next stop is to visit the Stantons, specifically Anne (Joanne Dru). Soon, both families have dinner together amongst a spirited political debate that turns to talk of Willie. Jack hears one too many insults from his stepfather about Willie and throws a drink at him. The stepfather simply says to Jack that it's a waste of liquor and his mother wouldn't approve.
Jack and Anne head outside, where Jack tries to convince Anne to go away with him and get married, saying Burden's Landing is just a fantasy. Jack then changes his tune, worrying that he can't provide for her as he'd like to, so they both agree they'll marry in due time.
Willie loses the county treasurer election. A tragedy occurs in Kanoma County where during a fire drill at the new elementary school, a shoddily-built staircase collapses and kills a number of children. At one of the funerals that Willie attends, several of the locals tell Willie they should have voted for him instead, because he was right about his claims of cost-cutting by the current regime in that school building contract. Willie files a lawsuit against the builders. The voters, remembering his campaign charge that the building contract went to a relative of the county commissioner, are now willing to support Willie. Threatened by a serious reform movement, corrupt state politicians convince Willie to run for governor, thinking that he will split the reform vote and allow their candidate to win. Jack is once again sent to cover the campaign.
One evening, while Jack works with Willie on a speech, Sadie Burke (Mercedes McCambridge), who has been sent on the campaign by the political machine to keep an eye on Willie, tells him the truth--that he is a "sacrificial goat" and a decoy. Jack and Sadie, in fact, both agree that Willie would likely not win with the speeches he's giving right now. The next day, Willie shows up at a campaign BBQ hung over but delivers an incredible speech that presents the facts to his audience, telling them that they are "hicks" just like him. Jack winds up quitting his newspaper because they suddenly changed their tune and now support Willie's opponent, and Jack thinks the paper has been pressured into doing that. Willie does lose the election, but it was a very close vote, and Willie is not at all upset. He's excited, because he has learned what it will take to win in the future.
Four years later, Willie again runs for governor and hires Jack to assist him. Jack questions Willie on rumors he's heard that Willie is financing his campaign by making deals with anyone who will help him. On a trip to Burden's Landing with Jack, Willie admits that he has made promises, but argues persuasively that good can come out of evil, and all the deals were made with no strings attached. Willie even offers Judge Monte Stanton (Raymond Greenleaf) the position of Attorney General to help win over the Stanton family.
Willie wins and is the new governor, but immediately things get dark. Jack is the holder of what Willie calls a "black book full of sin." Sadie doesn't like Willie's wife, but is even angrier that Willie is turning into a womanizer. Willie forces Pillsbury to write a resignation letter to cover up charges of embezzling. Judge Stanton questions why Willie is covering up the crime, and ultimately decides to resign since he isn't allowed to prosecute Pillsbury. Willie even double-crosses Jack, getting romantically involved with Anne.
Judge Stanton has gone to the newspapers with some unflattering information about Willie's political antics. After being alerted to this by Sadie, Willie strongarms the newspapers to keep it quiet, and then orders Jack to dig up dirt on the Judge. Reluctantly, Jack does so, and he does indeed find something but chooses not to tell Willie what it is yet. Jack also learns about the Willie-Anne affair from Sadie, who continues to both love and be angry with Willie. Anne's brother Adam (Shepperd Strudwick) is offered a major position at a new hospital, but refuses it without saying why.
Willie's family is also falling apart. Tom is disobedient on the football team. Willie tells him to play honestly, which makes Tom scoff and ask Willie who needs to learn about honesty. Tom goes out drinking and gets into a car accident, killing his female passenger. Willie tries to cover up the incident, doctoring the police report and offering a bribe to the passenger's father, but Tommy shows up during that meeting and admits he was drunk and for Willie to stay out of it. The bribe is refused. Willie gets drunk and Jack chides him for it, saying he'd love for Anne to see him now. Some time later, the father is reported to have vanished, and the press doubts Willie's claims that he has no knowledge of where he is.
Tommy's high school football team is playing badly and getting booed. Willie wants Tommy to go into the game despite Tommy claiming to feel dizzy. Ultimately, Tommy collapses and it's later learned he's now partially paralyzed because of injuries sustained (and ignored) from his car crash. Willie feels responsible and wants the doctors to do whatever they can to heal him, but the doctors tell him some things money can't buy.
Jack confronts Anne about Willie, and Anne admits everything but also says she would never marry him. Jack shows Anne the evidence he has uncovered about the judge and offers to keep it a secret from everyone, but especially from Willie, if Adam takes the job. Willie has now started his re-election campaign. At home with his family (who are all at this point completely indifferent to Willie and his career), he turns on the radio and hears that the father's body was found beaten, and initial accusations from most (and especially from Judge Stanton) are all right at Willie. His response to the threatened impeachment is to give speeches, telling the public that "They're after you!" As impeachment proceedings begin, Willie demands that Jack disclose what he has discovered about Judge Stanton.
Jack goes to the Judge and tries to convince him to release his votes for impeachment. In walks Willie, who tells all the dirt on the Judge that Jack had pretended not to have dug up. The Judge had actually forgotten all about it as it was many years ago. The Judge then goes into another room and kills himself. Adam confronts Jack, who swears he never gave Willie that information. Jack then realizes who did: Anne.
Anne has now been ostracized by everyone, including Willie, who has no further use for her. She begs Jack for forgiveness and to help her. At a rally outside where the impeachment hearings are taking place, Jack sees Adam lurking about. Willie gets enough votes to not be impeached, no doubt successfully completing another shady political action. As Willie speaks outside, Adam shoots him dead before being shot and killed himself by one of Willie's assistants. Jack tries to convince Anne to reveal the truth about Willie to the crowd, saying their own lives need to continue, but she refuses to destroy their image of Willie.
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Mercedes McCambridge, who played Sadie, was given the role in a rather unusual manner. She was waiting to audition with a number of other actresses, and apparently the wait stretched into a long period, so she stormed in, told the producers off, and left. They chased after her and cast her, because what they saw in her angry outburst was exactly what they wanted for the role. Broderick Crawford was cast as Willie Stark after John Wayne turned down the part. John received the script, read it and sent it back with an angry letter chastising the film as glorifying bad people and drunken mothers and such, basically saying the whole movie was full of corrupt government and citizens. I'm sure John was thrilled come Oscar night when he lost out the Best Actor award (Sands of Iwo Jima) to Crawford.
Oddly, I came up empty in trying to find budget and box office information for the film. Critically, it seemed to be popular, although one reviewer who apparently saw the completed film before it was edited into its final product did say it was a meandering narrative mess that turned into a great film only because of the editing work of Robert Parrish and Al Clark. They were nominated for an Oscar, but didn't win. Neither did Robert Rossen, who lost both Best Director and Best Screenplay to Joseph L. Mankiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives. Also nominated but beaten was John Ireland for Best Supporting Actor (Dean Jagger, Twelve O'Clock High). However, the movie did take home three Oscars, those for Best Supporting Actress (McCambridge, although personally I wasn't bowled over by the performance), Best Actor (Crawford) and Best Picture. The top award was won over Battleground, The Heiress, A Letter to Three Wives and Twelve O'Clock High. The Heiress was the night's big winner, taking home four statuettes. As an aside, this was the last year where all of the nominated films for Best Picture were in black-and-white.
My final thoughts? Personally, I'm a fan of A Letter to Three Wives but as a whole, I think it's one of the weaker sets of Best Picture nominees we've encountered so far in this blog series, including the film we've discussed here as 1949's winner. All the King's Men was OK, but I had difficulty really caring about most of what was presented. Everything just kind of happened without much impact to me, and John Wayne wasn't too far off the mark with his opinion because just about every character was unlikable on one level or another. I think Jack and the Judge are perhaps the only exceptions. Still, there's no doubt in my mind this was indeed a better film than it would have been telling the story of Humpty Dumpty.
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