So far I haven't been able to stay awake to watch the whole movie but I am wondering if anyone else had watched it yet. And if so what did you think about it?
One thing that I did learn before I nodded off and that surprised the heck outta me, in the introduction and description of the movie, was that John Wayne was offered the part of Willie Stark and turned it down flat. He was so upset that he sent a note describing how he felt about the movie to his agent advising him, in essence, to warn off others against having anything to do with the movie.
Producer-director
Robert Rossen offered the role of Willie Stark to
John Wayne. Rossen sent a copy of the script to Wayne's agent,
Charles K. Feldman, who forwarded it to Wayne. After reading the script, Wayne sent it back with an angry letter attached. In it, he told Feldman that before he sent the script to any of his other clients, he should ask them if they wanted to star in a film that "smears the machinery of government for no purpose of humor or enlightenment," that "degrades all relationships," and that is populated by "drunken mothers; conniving fathers; double-crossing sweethearts; bad, bad, rich people; and bad, bad poor people if they want to get ahead."
He accused Rossen of wanting to make a movie that threw acid on "the American way of life." If Feldman had such clients, Wayne wrote that the agent should "rush this script... to them." Wayne, however, said to the agent that "You can take this script and shove it up Robert Rossen's derrière . . . " Wayne later remarked that "To make
Huey Long a wonderful, rough pirate was great . . . but, according to this picture, everybody was sh!t--except for this weakling intern doctor who was trying to find a place in the world."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041113/trivia
I don't know, I just can't seem to picture The Duke...