"All the Way" on HBO- LBJ's First Year in Office

[Linda Anderson]

I found "All the Way" fascinating. I was young when LBJ was in office and I remember him mostly for sending troops into Vietnam and not so much, (if at all, unfortunately) for the Civil Rights Act and the Great Society programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. I also remember him for picking up his dog by his ears!

Bryan Cranston was superb as LBJ. Sometimes I thought I was watching the real LBJ. I also liked Melissa Leo as the long suffering Lady Bird Johnson. Frank Langella was great as Georgia Senator Richard Russell. The last scene between them was riveting. As my husband pointed out, the relationship between them would never be the same.

http://deadline.com/2016/05/frank-langel...201758933/

"There’s a visual in HBO’s All The Way when the powerful Georgia Sen. Richard Russell registers the fact that his protégé Lyndon Johnson has sacrificed him, and Dixie, on the pyre of the Civil Rights movement. The camera moves from Johnson’s bespectacled, crinkle-eyed smirk to Russell’s once-implacable mask as it flickers, ever so slightly but unmistakably, with disappointment and resignation. It is a master class in subtlety as Frank Langella’s Russell and Bryan Cranston’s LBJ, formidable gladiators in the crude Colosseum of 1960s American politics, measure the triumph of the student who has vanquished his teacher."