Crashing the set at `All the King’s Men’
September 14, 2006
By Kevin Duchschere
McClatchy Newspapers
I had an early sneak preview of “All the King’s Men,” not in a theater but on the broad steps of Louisiana’s capitol building in Baton Rouge.
That’s where I crashed the movie set.
“I cain’t believe they let yoo awl in,” said the genteel lady who greeted me at the capitol’s information counter.
“They didn’t,” I said. “I just walked in.”
She flashed a tight smile and told me not to get in the way.
It was pure happenstance. Robert Penn Warren’s novel “All the King’s Men” has been one of my favorite books since I first read it years ago for a college English class.
When I visited Louisiana in February 2005, I pulled out my dog-eared copy to read again.
It’s the engrossing story of Southern political tyrant Willie Stark, based on the life of legendary Louisiana governor and senator Huey Long. It’s also a timeless tale of love and power and the compromises we sometimes make to secure them.
Until then, I hadn’t heard about the movie or that it was being shot at Louisiana’s skyscraper capitol, a striking Art Deco tower that rises 34 stories above the Mississippi River.
Now here I was on a sunny February morning in Baton Rouge, witness to the filming of Willie’s funeral for the movie adaptation that opens Friday in theaters nationwide.
On my way to New Orleans to meet my brother for a few days of sightseeing (six months before Katrina), I had decided to look for traces of Long, who built the capitol over staunch opposition and was assassinated in a marble corridor there by a young doctor in 1935.
Those traces aren’t hard to find. Almost immediately after stepping onto the grounds I came upon a heroic statue of Long, facing the capitol and looking as though he was getting ready to jawbone some thick-headed bayou legislator.
The statue stands atop his tomb, just as Huey to want to keep an eye on things.
I noticed a long row of antique black squad cars, and a couple of fellows appeared to be taping over parking stall numbers. Floral sprays lined the capitol steps, and black crepe hung over the main entrance. That’s odd, I thought.
Police were everywhere, dressed in what appeared to be vintage uniforms “ preparing for a memorial to fallen officers, I figured.
I started inside, then stopped. At the top of the steps rested a bronze casket being rubbed and burnished by a young woman in jeans.
It was Willie’s casket. And that’s when I found out about the movie.
Reams of thick power cords threaded the hallways off the Capitol’s ornate Memorial Hall, where scores of film extras waited in period mourning garb for the cameras to roll. Jazz musicians in hats and band uniforms, some holding tarnished brass horns, stood by impatiently. No one seemed to notice as I snapped a few quick pictures.
I took the elevator to the observation deck on the 27th floor, about 350 feet above Baton Rouge. The views “ of downtown, the wide river and a line of belching petrochemical plants in the distance “ were impressive. But I was eager to get back downstairs to watch the filming.
That’s when my luck ran out. A security guard, looking almost sheepish, approached and said, “Are you a member of the crew?” Nope, just a tourist from Minnesota, I said.
“We’d appreciate it if you kept your camera under wraps,” he said. “We don’t want any pictures popping up on the Internet.”
I hung around for a while, until another apologetic security person asked that I watch from “over there” beyond a crane about 200 feet away. It was time to go.
By the way, I said, who’s in the cast?
“Jude Law,” he said. “Sean Penn. Kate Winslet. Anthony Hopkins.”
Well. If Huey Long isn’t a big enough box-office draw in the year 2006, these other guys ought to do.
Source: Pop Matters
Posed in: All the King's Men
