All the President's Men (film)

On June 17, 1972, security guard Frank Wills at the Watergate complex finds a door's bolt taped over to prevent it from locking. He calls the police, who find and arrest five burglars in the Democratic National Committee headquarters within the complex. The next morning, The Washington Post assigns new reporter Bob Woodward to the local courthouse to cover the story, which is considered of minor importance.

Woodward learns that the five men—James W. McCord Jr. and four Cuban-Americans from Miami—possessed electronic bugging equipment and are represented by a high-priced "country club" attorney. At the arraignment, McCord identifies himself in court as having recently left the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the others are also revealed to have CIA ties. Woodward connects the burglars to E. Howard Hunt, an employee of President Richard Nixon's White House counsel Charles Colson, and formerly of the CIA.

Carl Bernstein, another Post reporter, is assigned to cover the Watergate story with Woodward. The two young men are reluctant partners but work well together. Executive editor Benjamin Bradlee believes that their work lacks reliable sources and is not worthy of the Post's front page, but he encourages further investigation.

Woodward contacts a senior government official, an anonymous source whom he has used before and refers to as "Deep Throat." Communicating secretly, using a flag placed in a balcony flowerpot to signal meetings, they meet at night in an underground parking garage. Deep Throat speaks in riddles and metaphors, avoiding substantial facts about the Watergate break-in, but advises Woodward to "follow the money."

Woodward and Bernstein connect the five burglars to corrupt activities involving campaign contributions to Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP or CREEP). This includes a check for $25,000 paid by Kenneth H. Dahlberg, whom Miami authorities identified when investigating the Miami-based burglars. However, Bradlee and others at the Post still doubt the investigation and its dependence on sources such as Deep Throat, wondering why the Nixon administration should break the law when the president is almost certain to defeat his opponent, Democratic nominee George McGovern.

Through former CREEP treasurer Hugh W. Sloan, Jr., Woodward and Bernstein connect a slush fund of hundreds of thousands of dollars to White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman—"the second most important man in this country"—and to former attorney general John N. Mitchell, now head of CREEP. They learn that CREEP was financing a "ratfucking" campaign to sabotage Democratic presidential candidates a year before the Watergate burglary, when Nixon was lagging Edmund Muskie in the polls.

While Bradlee's demand for thoroughness compels the reporters to obtain other sources to confirm the Haldeman connection, the White House issues a non-denial denial of the Post's above-the-fold story. Bradlee continues to encourage investigation.

Woodward again meets secretly with Deep Throat and demands that he be less evasive. Deep Throat reveals that Haldeman masterminded the Watergate break-in and cover-up. He also states that the cover-up was not just intended to camouflage the CREEP involvement but also to hide "covert operations" involving "the entire U.S. intelligence community," including the CIA and FBI. He warns Woodward and Bernstein that their lives, and those of others, are in danger. When the two relay this information to Bradlee, he urges them to carry on despite the risk.

On January 20, 1973, Bernstein and Woodward type the full story, while a television in the newsroom shows Nixon taking the oath of office for his second term as president. A montage of Watergate-related teletype headlines from the following years is shown, ending with the report of Nixon's resignation and the inauguration of Gerald Ford on August 9, 1974.

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.[5] The film introduced the catchphrase "follow the money" in relation to the case, which did not appear in the book or in any Watergate documentation.[6]

Watergate scandal
Watergate complex
Events
List Presidency of Richard Nixon Timeline Nixon White House tapes Operation Sandwedge Operation Gemstone 1972 presidential election "Saturday Night Massacre" Impeachment process against Richard Nixon United States v. Nixon Resignation speech Inauguration of Gerald Ford
People
Watergate burglars Bernard Barker Virgilio Gonzalez Eugenio Martínez James W. McCord Jr. Frank Sturgis
Groups Master list of Nixon's political opponents Nixon's Enemies List Watergate Babies Watergate Seven White House Plumbers
CRP Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP) Fred LaRue Jeb Stuart Magruder Robert Mardian John N. Mitchell Kenneth Parkinson Hugh W. Sloan Jr. Maurice Stans
White House President Richard Nixon Alexander Butterfield Charles Colson John Dean John Ehrlichman Gerald Ford H. R. Haldeman E. Howard Hunt Egil Krogh G. Gordon Liddy Gordon C. Strachan Rose Mary Woods
Judiciary Archibald Cox Leon Jaworski John Sirica
Journalists Carl Bernstein Bob Woodward Barry Sussman Harry M. Rosenfeld Howard Simons Ben Bradlee Katharine Graham Lesley Stahl The Washington Post
Intelligence community Mark Felt ("Deep Throat") L. Patrick Gray Richard Helms James R. Schlesinger
Congress Howard Baker Sam Ervin Peter W. Rodino U.S. Senate Watergate Committee Impeachment process
Related Frank Wills (security guard) James F. Neal (prosecutor) All the President's Men (book, film) The Final Days (book, film) Blind Ambition (miniseries) Dick (1999 film) Mark Felt: The Man who Brought Down the White House (2017 film) Slow Burn (2020 series) Gaslit (2022 series)

Redford began asking about the Watergate break-in while promoting The Candidate and then read Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate stories in The Washington Post while waiting to start filming The Way We Were. Redford first spoke with Woodward in November 1972 after the mistake involving Hugh Sloan.[7]

Redford bought the rights to Woodward and Bernstein's book in 1974 for $450,000 with the idea to adapt it into a film with a budget of $5 million.[8] Ben Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post, realized that the film was going to be produced regardless of his approval and believed that it made "more sense to try to influence it factually."[8] He hoped that the film would show newspapers "strive very hard for responsibility."[8]

Redford hired William Goldman to write the script in 1974. Goldman has said that Woodward was extremely helpful to him but that Bernstein was not. Goldman wrote that his crucial decision regarding the screenplay's structure was to discard the second half of the book.[9] After he delivered his first draft in August 1974, Warner Bros. agreed to finance the film.

Redford was not happy with Goldman's first draft.[8] Woodward and Bernstein read it and also did not like it. Redford asked for their suggestions, but Bernstein and his girlfriend, writer Nora Ephron, wrote their own draft. Redford showed this draft to Goldman, suggesting that it might contain some material that he could integrate, but Goldman later called Redford's acceptance of the Bernstein–Ephron draft a "gutless betrayal."[10] Redford later expressed dissatisfaction with the Ephron–Bernstein draft, saying, "a lot of it was sophomoric and way off the beat."[8] According to Goldman, "in what they wrote, Bernstein was sure catnip to the ladies."[10] He also said that one of Bernstein and Ephron's scenes was included in the final film, a bit in which Bernstein deceives a secretary in order to see someone, something that was not factually true.

Alan J. Pakula was hired to direct and requested rewrites from Goldman. In a 2011 biography, Redford claimed that he and Pakula held all-day sessions working on the script. Pakula spent hours interviewing editors and reporters, taking notes of their comments.

In 2011, Richard Stayton wrote an article for Written By magazine[11] following his comparison of several drafts of the script, including the final production draft. He concluded that Redford's and Pakula's contributions were not significant, that Goldman was properly credited as the writer and that the final draft had "William Goldman's distinct signature on each page."[12]

Sundance Productions, which Redford owns, produced a two-hour documentary entitled "All the President's Men" Revisited.[35] Broadcast on Discovery Channel Worldwide on April 21, 2013, the documentary focuses on the Watergate case and the subsequent film adaptation. It simultaneously recounts how The Washington Post broke Watergate and how the scandal unfolded, going behind the scenes of the film. It explores how the Watergate scandal would be covered in the present day, whether such a scandal could happen again and who Richard Nixon was as a man. W. Mark Felt, deputy director of the FBI during the early 1970s, revealed his identity as Deep Throat in 2005, and this is also covered in the documentary.

Footage from the film is included, as are interviews with Redford and Hoffman as well as with real-life central characters including Woodward, Bernstein, Bradlee, John Dean, Alexander Butterfield and Fred Thompson, who served as minority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee in his first major public appearance. Contemporary media figures such as Tom Brokaw, who was NBC News' White House correspondent during the scandal, Jill Abramson, Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart also are featured in the documentary, which earned a 2013 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special.[36][37]

• The Final Days (1989 film)
• The Post (2017 film)
• All the Prime Minister's Men (2021 documentary)

• Goldman, William (1982). Adventures in the Screen Trade. Warner Books.

Wikiquote has quotations related to All the President's Men (film).

• All The President's Men essay by Mike Canning at National Film Registry
• All the President's Men at IMDb
• All the President's Men at the TCM Movie Database
• All the President's Men at AllMovie
• All the President's Men at Box Office Mojo
• All the President's Men at Rotten Tomatoes
• Slovick, Matt (1996). "'All the President's Men'". The Washington Post.
• "Cinema: Watergate on Film". Time. March 29, 1976. Archived from the original on September 22, 2008.
• Lyman, Rick (February 16, 2001). "WATCHING MOVIES WITH/Steven Soderbergh; Follow the Muse: Inspiration To Balance Lofty and Light". The New York Times.
• Savlov, Marc (April 15, 2011). "From the Watergate Break-in to a Broken News Media". The Austin Chronicle.
• Ann Hornaday, "The 34 best political movies ever made" The Washington Post (Jan. 23, 2020), ranked No. 2