All the President's Men
All team (56)
Short description
Two reporters at The Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, are assigned to a break-in at the Democratic Party's headquarters in Washington. What begins as a routine story about a burglary grows into a wide-ranging investigation as the two men track down witnesses and press sources to talk. The deeper they dig, the more the trail leads toward the Nixon administration, whose attempts to cover up its involvement eventually force the president from office.
Alan J. Pakula directed the film, working from a screenplay by William Goldman and produced by Walter Coblenz. It was Pakula's third feature, following Klute and The Parallax View in a run of films he made through the 1970s and beyond. Dustin Hoffman plays Bernstein and Robert Redford plays Woodward, with Jason Robards as editor Ben Bradlee, Martin Balsam as Howard Simons, Jack Warden as Harry Rosenfeld and Hal Holbrook as the source known as Deep Throat. The production credits list 105 cast members and 56 crew.
Made for about 9 million dollars, the film took roughly 71 million dollars worldwide, a strong return on its budget. On IMDb it holds 7.9/10 from around 137,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.7/10 from about 2,158 votes. A critics' rating of 9.2/10 from 75 reviews places it above both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Screenwriter William Goldman (1931-2018) had to make several changes to the lines of editor Harry Rosenfeld. He believed that otherwise the audience would find it implausible, and that possessing Goldman’s sense of humor was simply impossible.
- Frank Wills (1948-2000), the security guard who first raised the alarm about the intrusion of strangers into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington on June 17, 1972, was fired a few days later without explanation. He remained unemployed for three years until he played himself in this film (shooting took one day). After that, Wills never worked again and died in 2000 at the age of 52.
- Robert Redford believed that filming him as Bob Woodward would lead all the attention in the film to focus on his character, unless he had a co-star of equal stature. That's why he approached Dustin Hoffman with the offer to play Carl Bernstein (he made the offer to Hoffman during a basketball game).
- While preparing for filming, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman visited the Washington Post newsroom every day for several weeks, observing journalists and attending editorial meetings. One day, a group of high school students on a tour appeared in the lobby and, upon seeing Redford, began to film him. At that moment, Bob Woodward walked by. Redford said to the students, “Here comes the real Bob Woodward, whom I am playing. Maybe you should film him instead?” – but the students did not start filming Woodward. Hoffman later recounted that, while in the newsroom, he was once mistaken for one of their own and asked to run and fetch some office supplies. He had long hair at the time, dressed simply, and was taken for a courier.
- The names of both lead actors were presented as follows: Redford’s name appeared above Hoffman’s on posters and in trailers, while Hoffman’s name came before Redford’s in the film itself.
- When Robert Redford's character received a call from Kenneth Dahlberg (1917-2011) informing him that his wife had been kidnapped, this was not a fabrication by the filmmakers. On July 27, 1972, a few days before the call to Dahlberg, Virginia Piper, the wife of a prominent businessman in the state and a good friend of Dahlberg, was kidnapped from her home in Minnesota. A couple of days later, her husband paid a $1 million ransom, and the woman was released.
- The sounds of typewriters at the beginning of the film were created by layering the sounds of gunfire and whip cracks onto the sound of a typewriter. The scene symbolized the film’s main message: words are weapons. Hence the final scene, in which the teletype prints headlines with the sound of artillery fire (the sound of a 21-gun salute was used here).
- Hal Holbrook (1925-2021) was the first and only actor the filmmakers envisioned in the role of the informant known as “Deep Throat.” Holbrook initially refused the offer to play the part, considering it insignificant, and was only persuaded by Robert Redford. He personally went to Holbrook's home and convinced him that audiences would remember his character better than anyone else.
- Both lead actors memorized each other's lines, allowing them to interrupt each other mid-sentence without breaking character. This made it difficult for the other actors, but created an unparalleled atmosphere of realism.
- In one scene, Robert Redford's character talks on the phone continuously for six minutes. The scene was shot in one long take. Towards the end, the actor forgot and addressed the person on the other end by the wrong name, but he didn't notice it himself, remaining fully in character. As a result, the final edit used this particular take.
- Every detail and nuance in the screenplay was meticulously checked and rechecked.
- The film is based on the eponymous non-fiction book by journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who investigated the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post newspaper in 1973.
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