BEFORE: Yes, politics is the new chain topic, spinning off rather nicely from the royalty chain. Since it's an election year, I figure I'm somewhat obligated. And this is the 2nd Best Picture Oscar winner this week, so glad as always to cross one of those off the list. Linking is not easy when I dip back for a classic film, though - but veteran actor Eli Wallach from "The Ghost Writer" was also in "Mistress" with Ernest Borgnine, who was also in the 1951 film "The Mob" with Broderick Crawford. I know very little about Crawford, couldn't even pick him out of a lineup.
THE PLOT: The rise and fall of a corrupt politician, who makes his friends richer and retains power by dint of a populist appeal.
AFTER: This is based on a Pulitzer-winning novel, but I went into it knowing almost nothing about the story, other than that it's roughly based on the career of Louisiana politician Huey Long. Despite the lack of chase scenes and female skin, it did manage to hold my attention, so that's saying something. I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that someone was just as cynical about U.S. politics back in the 1940's as I am today.
The story wants to be told from the point of view of a reporter/writer, Jack Burden (Hey, he's got a name! Which someone says every few minutes, so we'll remember it!) But someone didn't pay attention during films like "Citizen Kane" to learn how to tell this sort of story, so eventually the focus drifts to the politician character, Willie Stark. (Pick a horse, and then stick with it!) At the start of the film, he's a simple, illiterate pig farmer who wants to run for city council, since he thinks he can do a better job - the reporter wants to cover him because he's supposedly an honest man (how novel!) being beaten down by the system.
We see glimpses of the sort of insider politics that are designed to keep out newcomers - Stark's speeches violate the town ordinances against crowds assembling, and his handbills violate the town ordinances against littering or something, and his son keeps getting beaten up because he violates the town ordinances against being a pussy. (I'm paraphrasing here)
At first, Stark is just a patsy, a placeholder candidate recruited by the other party as someone they can easily beat. But with the help of the reporter, Stark hits upon the secret to getting elected - he pitches himself as the simple, folksy outsider (hey, it almost worked for Ross Perot - wait, no it didn't) who hasn't been corrupted by special interests. He points out the fact that the city planners rebuilt the town's school with cheap bricks and cheaper labor - because there's no way THAT can come back to haunt you. So when disaster strikes, Willie takes advantage of it - yet somehow that's not considered shameless at all (P.S. it is)
Once elected, Stark becomes part of the political machine, making promises to everyone, including even some voters, and claims that he's going to "do good". Ah, but who determines what is "good" and what is "less good"? "That's easy", says Stark, "next question. Oh, did you want an answer? Next question. What do you mean, I'm not answering these questions? Next question."
"Good" arrives in the form of bigger roads, a football stadium, and a hospital, the biggest and best that money can buy. And it turns out you can staff a hospital well by blackmailing doctors into working there, which is good to know. I don't mean to second-guess a Pulitzer Prize winning author, but if they really wanted to show Stark's career come full-circle, they should have shown him cutting corners in the construction of the hospital - that ties back into the school incident, see? Tell me I'm not the first one to think of that...
The novel's Wikipedia page says that it explores themes of Calvinist theology such as original sin, also nihilism, and the revelation that actions have consequences. That's fine for a book report, but I think a better take-away from the film is the old stand-by "Power corrupts", or even "Politicians are dicks". Stark is part of a love rectangle with the reporter character - you see love triangles all the time, but the rectangles are harder to pull off. However, this also reinforces the belief that politics is the best career to go into if you want to cheat on your wife - that might have been true in the 1940's, but with today's paparazzi, investigative reporters, tapped cell phones, I no longer recommend it.
Overall, it's a rather bleak portrayal of American politics, which may in fact be accurate, but it's still a downer of a topic for a film. But if everyone in the system is supposedly corrupt, and beholden to special interests, I have to wonder - it's now 60 years later, how come the system hasn't self-destructed by now? Hasn't everything like schools and city services managed to find a way to work during all that time?
Also starring John Ireland, Joanne Dru, Mercedes McCambridge (last seen in "Giant"), Shepperd Strudwick, Raymond Greenleaf, and a young John Derek (future husband of Ursula Andress + Bo Derek)
RATING: 4 out of 10 letters of resignation
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