All the President’s Men ***** (1976, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook) – Classic Movie Review 899

Director Alan J Pakula’s 1976 four-Oscar-winning classic real-life thriller stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in two of their finest and most famous performances as The Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. It takes its place high in the great tradition of the newspaper story movies of old Hollywood.

It all starts in the run-up to the American 1972 elections when Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. Some apparent CIA agents were arrested for breaking and entering, and later held at a trial. But top lawyers are already on the defence case, and the names and addresses of Republican fund organizers are discovered on the accused. The editor of the Post assigns Woodward and Bernstein to investigate. They find the intruders worked for the government.

They risk everything doggedly to pursue the story of the century and eventually blow the whistle on the Watergate break-in, uncovering all the details of the national scandal that finally leads to President Nixon’s resignation. But, at times, it looks like it might cost Woodward and Bernstein their jobs, their reputations and maybe even their lives.

Pakula’s film is a spellbinding occasion, combining the attractions of a newspaper story, a detective mystery and a political thriller. There are smooth, subtle and superlative performances all round, although Redford and Dustin Hoffman failed to win Oscar and indeed weren’t even nominated, leaving Jason Robards Jnr to carry off the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Post editor Ben Bradlee. Jane Alexander was Oscar nominated as Best Supporting Actress as the Bookkeeper.

There is a riveting, dazzlingly written screenplay by Oscar-winning William Goldman, who seems to show no strain or trouble in adapting Woodward and Bernstein’s book and carving a clear narrative through an almost impenetrable story. And it is all masterminded by the tense, craftsman-like, tightly controlled direction from Pakula, who doesn’t waste a second of screen time. It is a great story, brilliantly told.

The other Oscars were for art direction/set decoration (George Jenkins, George Gaines) and sound.

Hal Holbrook (as the informant Deep Throat), Martin Balsam, Jack Warden, Meredith Baxter, Stephen Collins, Ned Beatty, Robert Walden, F Murray Abraham, Lindsay Crouse, John McMartin and Allyn Ann McLerie (as Carolyn Abbott) are all also notable in support.

In 2005, 91-year-old W Mark Felt acknowledged publicly for the first time that he was Deep Throat, a fact corroborated by Woodward and The Washington Post. At the time of the Watergate break-in, Felt was the Deputy Director of the FBI. Felt’s story is told in Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House (2017)

In 2007 Woodward said:’ The movie is an incredibly accurate portrait of what happened. To limit  the number of characters, the city editor, Barry Sussman, was merged  into another character. That is regrettable, and something Carl Bernstein and I should have fought, because Sussman played a critical role in guiding and directing our reporting.’

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 899 derekwinnert.com