Dir: Robert Rossen | Cast: Mercedes McCambridge, Joanne Dru, John Ireland, Broderick Crawford | US Noir
John Carpenter’s Escape from New York has always seemed deeply flawed by the central implausibility that a man who looked like Donald Pleasance could have been elected President in the first place.
A fundamental shortcoming that has long afflicted Presidential politics in the United States is the stress perennially placed upon ‘charisma’ which perversely encourages style over substance, encouraging demagogues and going a long way towards explaining why two of the most grotesque chancers to have occupied the presidency since the turn of the current century had little more to offer than that overrated virtue.
Actual newsreel footage of the original Huey Long attests to his great vibrance and charisma, while the current pretender to the White House more strongly resembles the venal bully Willie Stark than Long himself.
Another major similarity between the final scene of All the King’s Men (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) based on what originally happened in Baton Rouge in 1935 and Saturday’s events in Pennsylvania was the sheer lack of finesse that characterised the response of the security details on both occasions. @RichardChatten