All The President’s Men (1976) – Alan J. Pakula (Friday’s Finest)

Ben Bradlee: You know the results of the latest Gallup Poll? Half the country never even heard of the word Watergate. Nobody gives a shit. You guys are probably pretty tired, right? Well, you should be. Go on home, get a nice hot bath. Rest up… 15 minutes. Then get your asses back in gear. We’re under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there. Nothing’s riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys fuck up again, I’m going to get mad. Goodnight.

All the President’s Men is is one of the slowest burn political dramas I have ever seen and it doesn’t even have a significant pay off since it only covers the first seven months of the Watergate scandal; from the time of the break-in to Nixon’s second inauguration on January 20, 1973. I don’t know how many times I revisited it in my early adulthood trying to put all the jigsaw pieces together as if it were a whodunit detective story. I agree with Roger Ebert who wrote: ‘It provides the most observant study of working journalists we’re ever likely to see in a feature film‘.

All the President’s Men is based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the two journalists investigating the scandal for The Washington Post.  In 2010, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Frank Wills, the security guard who, in 1972, discovered the break-in at the Watergate complex, played himself. He had been fired from his Watergate job a few days after the break-in, although no reason was given for this. The one day he spent (in 1975) playing himself in this movie was his first day’s work since that had happened. As for the aftermath, Wills found himself unemployable as security guard due to his act and he lived in extreme poverty until his death on September 2000 from a brain tumor.

IMDB Storyline:

In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of White House fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the White House.

Interesting Trivia from IMDB:

• Nothing was allowed into the script unless it had been meticulously verified and confirmed by independent sources.
• The two lead actors memorized each other’s lines so that they could interrupt each other in character. This unsettled a lot of the actors they were playing opposite, leading to a greater sense of authenticity.
• Hoffman and Redford visited The Washington Post‘s offices for months, attending news conferences and conducting research for their roles. As the Post denied the production permission to shoot in its newsroom, set designers took measurements of the newspaper’s offices and took many photographs. Boxes of trash were gathered and transported to sets recreating the newsroom on two soundstages in Hollywood’s Burbank Studios at a cost of $200,000. The filmmakers went to great lengths for accuracy and authenticity, including making replicas of outdated phone books. Nearly 200 desks at $500 each were purchased from the same firm that had sold desks to the Post in 1971. 
• While meeting with Carl Bernstein, Dustin Hoffman noticed that Bernstein smoked so much that there were traces of cigarette ash on all of his shirts and ties, so he made sure that was included in the movie, as well as the line directed at Bernstein, “Is there any place you don’t smoke?”

References:
1. All the President’s Men (film) – Wikipedia
2. All the President’s Men – IMDB

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“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand