Taglines: At times it looked like it might cost them their jobs, their reputations, and maybe even their lives.
All the President’s Men movie storyline. On June 17, 1972, the Washington DC police apprehend five men who broke into the National Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate building. The Washington Post newspaper assigns Bob Woodward, a reporter relatively new to the paper who works the local news desk, to cover the seemingly minor story. When Woodward sees that the five men – primarily Cuban immigrants – have high powered lawyers working for them in the background, he sees a potentially larger story.
That’s when a fellow reporter at the newspaper, Carl Bernstein, who is more of a hack who was close to being fired, wants in on the story as well, which Woodward eventually welcomes. One of Woodward’s Washington insider contacts, who is given the code name Deep Throat, implies that the break-in is indeed part of a larger story. Deep Throat will neither confirm or deny information, but will lead Woodward in the right direction if Woodward does get confirmation of information.
Deep Throat eventually tells him to “follow the money”, which leads them to uncover that the burglars had moneys in their bank accounts that were originally donated to the Committee to Reelect President Richard Nixon. They have to uncover who controlled the diversion of those funds to see how high up the story goes, which may lead them into the White House itself.
Through the process, they have the obstacles of the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Benjamin C. Bradlee who needs their story to be confirmed by reliable source after reliable source to prevent liable, few sources tied to the Committee who will speak to them on the record (their silence which is as telling to Woodward and Bernstein as actual information), and public apathy as no one but them, their newspaper and those to who they speak seem to believe there is a story at all. As they get closer to the truth, there may be those who will do anything to quash the story, all in the name of national security.
All the President’s Men is a 1976 American political thriller film about the Watergate scandal, which brought down the presidency of Richard M. Nixon. Directed by Alan J. Pakula with a screenplay by William Goldman, it is based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the two journalists investigating the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post. The film stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein, respectively; it was produced by Walter Coblenz for Redford’s Wildwood Enterprises.
Unlike the book, the film covers only the first seven months of the Watergate scandal, from the time of the break-in to Nixon’s second inauguration on January 20, 1973. The film introduced the catchphrase “follow the money” in relation to the case, which did not appear in the book or any documentation of Watergate. The film was nominated in multiple Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA categories, and, in 2010, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
Hoffman and Redford visited The Washington Post’s offices for months, sitting in on 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 photographed everything. 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.[5] Nearly 200 desks at $500 a piece were purchased from the same firm that sold desks to the Post in 1971. The desks were painted the same color as those of the newsroom. 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.
All the President’s Men (1976)
Directed by: Alan J. Pakula
Starring: Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook, Jason Robards, Jane Alexander, Meredith Baxter, Ned Beatty, Penny Fuller, John McMartin
Screenplay by: William Goldman
Production Design by: George Jenkins
Cinematography by: Gordon Willis
Film Editing by: Robert L. Wolfe
Set Decoration by: George Gaines
Music by: David Shire
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: April 9, 1976
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