All the President's Men (Two-Disc Special Edition)

This movie, with an all star cast (including Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, F. Murray Abraham, Meredith Baxter, Polly Holliday, Stephen Collins, Ned Beatty, etc., and even the real Frank Wills, the Watergate security guard who first reported the break-in) is a must see film for any journalism student or anyone who is just fascinated by the biggest scandal of the 20th century. The jacket cover says it all: "Get the story -- and get it right."

Watch this movie, and you'll find out how Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein got the story, and how they refused to crack under incredible pressure to back off. We also learn among other things how they nearly blew it all when they got one part of the story right, but named the wrong source.

Today's crop of journalists don't hold a candle to Woodstein. After you see this movie, you'll know why -- and why we need guys and gals like them more than ever, especially in these troubled times.


Re-birth of a Nation   July 18, 2004
K. Gittins (CA USA)
"All the President's Men" is the well-made movie about the political fiasco known as "Watergate". Watergate remains the biggest political mess in American history and it led to the resignation of president Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon.

The movie has big stars, including Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford as the two Washington Post reporters who begin to unearth the story about the break-in at the Watergate hotel and subsequently piece together the details that implicate a long list of top politicians.

The intriguing story is helped by supporting actors Jason Robards, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, and Hal Holbrook who plays "Deep Throat", the still-unidentified informant who guided Woodward and Bernstein along the trail of information.

The DVD includes text-based cast/crew info, casting notes, location info, a bit about "Deep Thoat", a chronology of the Watergate activity, and a list of awards which include 4 oscars.

If you don't know much about the circumstances surrounding Watergate, this is a good place to start.


A 70's Time capsule.   June 28, 2004
Jeffrey (Oakland, CA)
Nixon resigned on my older sister's 4th birthday. The actual Watergate incident took place exactly one day shy of two monthes before I was born. For my parents its something they lived through. For me, it's American History. This movie is quintessential 70's. Redford, Hackman and tricky dick. Every 70's time capsule should have a copy of this movie tucked inside a folded brown dinner jacket. Even if you don't believe a word of it, you have to admit ATPM is tremendously well made and entertaining. All the cloak and dagger sneaking around, the high-pressure newsroom meetings, the breathless interviews and the clandestine deep throat meetings are perfect Cold War/X-Files/Michael Moore conspiracy theory what-iffing. The truth is out there: Nixon not only knew, he authorized the Watergate break-in it, Reagan knew about and authorized the Iran-Contra arms sales arangement, Clinton lied and he meant to lie, aliens are alive and well among us, and George W. Bush and Co. used 9-11 as an excuse for the hostile and unwarranted takeover of a sovereign nation for it's oil. And so on. Great stuff.


THEN REDFORD MADE THE KENNEDY-STOLE-1960-ELECTION MOVIE??   June 7, 2004
Steven R. Travers (CALIFORNIA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

"All the President's Men", based on the book by Woodward and Bernstein, was impossible to resist for Redford. Nixon! Oh boy! Again, Hollywood passed up the Kennedy-stole-the-election story. What a shock! You have to hand it to these guys, though; they have talent. "President's" was masterful, thanks in large part to Goldman, who knew how to condense the story. Redford tried to play it close to the vest, and comes close to making it come off as straight and narrow. The actual truth portrayed betrays the lack of objectivity, however, at the Washington Post. Redford is Bob Woodward, a former Navy officer and a Republican. This is revealed to Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) who gives him a furtive look upon learning this shocking truth. Jason Robards is Ben Bradlee, the Post's editor. We all know the story: The DNC is broken into by Cubans with White House phone numbers in their address books, and in investigating the burglary Woodward and Bernstein suspect a larger plot, which they uncover through dogged journalism that cannot be denied. The two writers are shown to be complete heroes. Hal Halbrooke plays "Deep Throat", the White House insider who gives Woodward the leads he needs to keep investigating. To this day his identity is unknown, and it remains entirely plausible that he was invented out of whole cloth.
The story is the story, and there is no room for liberal bias in that. To Redford's credit, he does not demonize the Republicans or sermonize. Implicit threat against the pair are made, but not expanded into anything. G. Gordon Liddy did volunteer to "off" Jack Anderson for revealing CIA assets in the U.S.S.R., but there is no evidence that Nixon's Republicans ever thought about blowing Woodward and Bernstein away. Domestic political murders, as best as I can tell, are the province of the Democrats. Even in Oliver Stone's "JFK", it is Lyndon Johnson who supposedly was in on the plan to kill the President.
The bias in "All the President's Men" is subliminal, but leave it to yours truly to see it. First, there is the acronym CREEP, which stands for Committee to Re-elect the President. There have been numerous such committees over he years, and they always go by the acronym CRP. But Woodward and Bernstein turned it into CREEP. Gotcha. There is also a scene in which Bradlee, who in real life was a drinking buddy (and God knows what else) of Kennedy's, getting the news that the story is progressing and has real legs.
"You run that baby," he tells Woodward and Bernstein, then does little jig as he leaves the office. This is telling. Redford and director Alan Pakula allowed it, probably because it let them impart their own happiness over Nixon's downfall through the character. In another scene, Robards/Bradlee tells the reporters, "There's not much riding on this. Just the First Amendment and the Constitution of the United States."
Now just hoooold on there, Ben. Was Watergate really about the Constitution? Was that august document threatened? This begs the question, Where was Bradlee and Post publisher Katherine Graham when the Constitution really was threatened by their pal JFK, who stole the 1960 election? Where were they when their pal Bobby Kennedy was wiretapping Martin Luther King? Democrat operatives had to break into homes, hotels and offices to wiretap Dr. King just as the Plumbers had to break into Dr. Fielding's office, and Larry O'Brien's. A free press is undoubtedly the cornerstone of Democracy, but it functions best when it is not populated by over-inflated egos who think they are the soul arbiter of freedom of expression.

STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"
STWRITES@AOL.COM


KENNEDY STOLE 1960 FROM NIXON, BUT NOBODY MAKES THAT MOVIE   June 7, 2004
Steven R. Travers (CALIFORNIA)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful

"All the President's Men" (1976) was Robert Redford's breakthrough from pretty boy star to filmmaker with clout. Redford, a former baseball player at L.A.'s Van Nuys High School whose classmates were Dodger Hall of Fame pitcher Don Drysdale and (...) Natalie Wood, had been typecast by his looks and blonde hair into Malibu beach boy roles early on. This offended his sensibilities as an artist. Redford is in some ways the patron saint of liberal movie stars, and his story is a common one. He is no Dumbellionite, even though he dropped out of college. Like so many, he was drawn like a bee to honey to the theatre, trekking to New York as a teenager. His liberal views apparently were formed in his youth, growing up in the Mexican section of Santa Monica and seeing racism up close (at least, that is the story he tells). His lack of formal education in no way speaks to a lack of political knowledge, but his success and looks speak to a certain amount of good luck while others his age were in Southeast Asia. This very likely created a guilt complex that Redford, a star with an ego, could not manifest upon himself, so he found a culprit in this country, which had provided him a forum to achieve so much (...)