MovieChat Forums > All the King's Men Discussion > Mercedes McCambridge... a great and prog...

Mercedes McCambridge... a great and progressive actress...

posted 16 years ago by lforde_2001
7 replies | jump to latest

Food for thought: I've always enjoyed Mercedes McCambridge in everything she's ever done whether it was All the King's Men or Johnny Guitar, or the voice of Pazuzu in the movie The Exorcist, incidentally Joan Crawford was so fearful of Mercedes McCambridge's talent as an actor and actress that she stole Ms.McCambridge's wardrobe for the movie Johnny Guitar and threw it out of her speeding car along a Arizona highway where the movie was being shot on location.
Mercedes was a great actress! Anyway, the point I wanted to make here was if you pay close attention to Ms.McCambridge's character Sadie Burke in the film All the King's Men, specifically the scene on the train when Willie Stark is composing another of his lousy speeches, she references and acknowledges the Negro pullman car waiter with her eyes and acknowledges him as being a man and a human being and not just a subservient waiter, I'm sure the script didn't call for that improvisation, very heady stuff and progressive acting for a film that was made in 1949!
She was the best!

Lawrence Forde
Lawrence Forde Enterprises, LLC
All Rights Reserved

[–] flan99 16 years ago

Yes, Great Talent and excellent performance.

[–] stephan-128 15 years ago

i watched this film last night after wanting to see it for years. i thought crawford did a good job, but that most of the rest of the film - the other leads, and the direction, were stilted and weak. i felt the film did not hold up well and was a dissapointment.

the one thing that stood out was Mercedes McCambridge. I thought she was phenomenal. Smart, intense, funny, unpredictable (i love how she laughed when Jack slapped her!) -she was by far the best part of the movie. Wish she'd been a bigger start later.

[–] guy_in_west_houston 9 years ago

Progressive? Maybe she is really conservative. You see, a conservative is not racist by simply not being a racist. A "progressive", on the other hand, has to make a spectacle of themself to show they're not racist.

[–] IEatWords 8 years ago

She acted and looked like a total lesbian. Most likely was a hardcore socialist, as those types seem to be. Weird acting that stuck out like a hairy thumb. Just not my thing.

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[–] JacintoCupboard 9 years ago

About the only thing I like about this movie. The early scenes of MMc, before the character idiotically becomes a slave to love, are a tour de force of control, and gives us a portrayal decades ahead of its time.

The rest of the movie? Imo infantile rubbish that made bugger all sense and on a technical level, rank amateur. Best film of the year? Jebus.

[–] tisdalebalt 8 years ago

It's a damn shame this actress has nearly been forgotten. Reast In Peace Mercedes McCambridge.

[–] prplayer 8 years ago

she was the standout performance in a movie with great acting overall

so many movies, so little time