Resurrecting LBJ: All the Way

The HBO Jay Roach All the Way, with Bryan Cranston as LBJ, is a really good adaptation for screen of a successful play (by Robert Shenkkan, had to look that up) and it gives Cranston and several other of the lesser-known leads opportunities for some fine soliloquies about politics and power. It kept me engaged for + two hours - beginning with a great and harrowing sequences of the assassination of JFK and then taking us through LBJ's first years in office, focusing on his fight to get Congress to pass his civil-rights bill and to win the nomination and ultimately e elected to his own term in 64. All of the interest centers on the civil rights struggle - which we see not only from Johnson's perspective as he threatens, cajoles, charms, and cons various congressional leaders to win passage while trying to appease MLK and other civil rights leaders who cannot fathom the political process and the need for compromise and delay. The play/movie makes the process clear and has some pretty entertaining scenes: LBJ's many meetings with "Uncle Dick" Russell, of Georgia (Frank Langella) and HHH, the hapless liberal and later the unhappy second fiddle; LBJ's instant dismissal of Walter Jenkins after Jenkins was picked up on a "morals" charge - and LBJ's probing Hoover about how to identify a homosexual; his brutal treatment of Lady Bird (one of, I think, only two female roles in the play/film - a reflection of the time, I guess). Overall, though, here's little or no new ground in this story; anyone who's read the Caro LBJ bio will be familiar w/ all this material and w/ LBJ's domineering and bullying personality, and his deep insecurity. Vietnam is a shadow - only barely referenced, but of course we know that it was LBJ's undoing; this play (and Caro's bio, to a degree) serve to resurrect LBJ's posthumous reputation; for decades, his legislative accomplishments, which were significant - far more than any president other than Reagan (unfortunately) has accomplished in the past half-century, has been completely obscured by the tragedy and folly of the war.