Themes: Conspiracies, Members of the Press, Political Corruption
Main Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook, Jason Robards, Jr.
Release Year: 1976
Country: US
Run Time: 138 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Conspiracy film specialist Alan J. Pakula turned journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's best-selling account of their Watergate investigation into one of the hit films of Bicentennial year 1976. While researching a story about a botched 1972 burglary of Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate apartment complex, green Washington Post reporters/rivals Woodward (Robert Redford, who also exec produced) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) stumble on a possible connection between the burglars and a White House staffer. With the circumspect approval of executive editor Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards), the pair digs deeper. Aided by a guilt-ridden turncoat bookkeeper (Jane Alexander) and the vital if cryptic guidance of Woodward's mystery source, Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook), Woodward and Bernstein "follow the money" all the way to the top of the Nixon administration. Despite Deep Throat's warnings that their lives are in danger, and the reluctance of older Post editors, Woodward and Bernstein are determined to get out the story of the crime and its presidential cover-up. Once Bradlee is convinced, the final teletype impassively taps out the historically explosive results. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Review
Following Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's book, director Alan Pakula and scripter William Goldman make this film a dynamic detective yarn, even though everyone already knows the ending, by covering only the reporters' investigation of the scandal and keeping the administration criminals offscreen. The reporters may be able to expose the truth this time, but who knows what other government conspiracies remain in the shadows. With a heightened realist style that recreated the Washington Post newsroom down to its garbage, All the President's Men became a popular and critical success, indicating that the public had not yet tired of the Watergate story -- at least when it featured Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. Despite winning several critics' prizes, All the President's Men lost the Best Picture Oscar to Rocky, although it did pick up awards for Robards, Goldman, and its meticulous art direction. Cannily appealing to both an audience's desire for a "happy" ending and the 1970s knowledge of that ending's limitations, All the President's Men told a true-life suspense tale about the triumph of a free press, even though what Woodward and Bernstein exposed about Richard Nixon's White House was hardly reassuring. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Jane Alexander - Bookkeeper; Stephen Collins - Hugh Sloan, Jr.; Ned Beatty - D.A. Dardis; Penny Fuller - Sally Aiken; John McMartin - Foreign Editor; Robert Walden - Donald Segretti; Frank Wills - Frank Wills; Allyn Ann McLerie - Carolyn Abbot; F. Murray Abraham - 1st Arresting Officer; David Arkin - Bachinski; Henry Calvert - Barker; Dominic Chianese - Martinez; Stanley Clay - Assistant Metro Editor; Nicolas Coster - Markham; Lindsay Crouse - Kay Eddy; John Devlin - Metro Editor; Gene Dynarski - Clerk; Nate Esformes - Gonzales; John Furlong - Newsdesk Editor; Richard Herd - McCord; Basil Hoffman - Assistant Metro Editor; Polly Holliday - Dardis' Secretary; Jamie Smith Jackson - Post Librarian; James Karen - Hugh Sloan's Lawyer; Paul Lambert - National Editor; Frank Latimore - Judge; Jeff MacKay - Reporter; Anthony Mannino - Arresting Officer; James Murtaugh - Library Clerk; John O'Leary - Attorney; Jess Osuna - FBI Man; Neva Patterson - Angry Woman; Penny Peyser - Sharon Lyons; Louis Quinn - Salesman; John Randolph - Voice of Bob Haldeman; Joshua Shelley - Al Lewis; Sloane Shelton - Bookkeepper's Sister; Richard Venture - Assistant Metro Editor; George Wyner - Attorney; Valerie Curtin - Miss Milland; David Gilbert; Ralph Williams - Ray Steuben; Christopher Murray - Photo Aide; Wendell Wright - Assistant Metro Editor; Gene Lindsey - Baldwin; George Pentecost - George; Bryan Clark - Arguing Attorney; Meredith Baxter-Birney - Debbie Sloan
Credit
Art Levinson - First Assistant Director, Alan J. Pakula - Director, Robert Wolfe - Editor, C. Timothy O'Meara - Editor, David Shire - Composer (Music Score), George Jenkins - Production Designer, Gordon Willis - Cinematographer, Jon Boorstin - Producer, Walter Coblenz - Producer, Robert Redford - Producer, George P. Gaines - Set Designer, Jim Webb - Sound/Sound Designer, Richard Alexander - Sound/Sound Designer, Les Fresholtz - Sound/Sound Designer, Arthur Piantadosi - Sound/Sound Designer, William Goldman - Screenwriter, Carl Bernstein - Book Author, Bob Woodward - Book Author
The book, also titled All the President's Men, was adapted for the screen by William Goldman. The story chronicles the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporting of Woodward and Bernstein from their initial report on the Watergate break-in through to their revelation of the Nixon Administration's corrupt campaign of sabotage against its political rivals. It relates the events behind the major stories the duo wrote for the Washington Post, naming some sources who had previously refused to be identified for their initial articles, notably Hugh Sloan. It also gives detailed accounts of Woodward's secret meetings with his source "Deep Throat", whose identity was kept secret for over 30 years. Only in 2005 was Deep Throat revealed to be former FBI Associate Director W. Mark Felt.
Robert Redford bought the rights to Woodward and Bernstein's book in 1974 for $450,000 with the notion to adapt it into a film with a budget of $5 million.[2] Ben Bradlee realized that the film was going to be made regardless of whether he approved of it or not and felt that it made "more sense to try to influence it factually".[2] The executive editor of the Washington Post hoped that the film would have an important impact on people who harbored a negative stereotype of newspapers.
Director Alan J. Pakula and Redford were not happy with screenwriter William Goldman's first draft.[2] Woodward and Bernstein also read it and did not like it. Redford asked for their suggestions but Bernstein and writer Nora Ephron wrote their own draft. Redford read and did not like it, saying, "a lot of it was sophomoric and way off the beat".[2] He and Pakula held all-day sessions working on the script. The director also spent hours interviewing editors and reporters, taking notes of their comments.
Dustin Hoffman and Redford hung out in the Post offices for months, sitting in on news conferences and conducting research for their roles.[2] The Post denied the production permission to shoot in its newsroom and so set designers took measurements of the newspaper's offices, photographed everything, and 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 phone books that were no longer in existence.[2] Nearly 200 desks at $500 apiece were purchased from the same firm that sold desks to the Post in 1971. The desks were also colored the same precise shade of paint. The production was supplied with a brick from the main lobby of the Post so that it could be duplicated in fiberglass for the set. Principal photography began on May 12, 1975 in Washington, D.C.[2]
Unlike the book, the film itself only covers the first seven months of the Watergate scandal, from the time of the break-in to Nixon's inauguration on January 20, 1973. A series of teletype headlines finishes the film, revealing the snowball results of Woodward and Bernstein's efforts to break the story, ending with the announcement of Nixon's resignation in August 1974.
