All The President's Men

We have watched this movie numerous times. There's so much packed within this movie. Each time we've watched it, we grasp more and more of the events that took place, paying close attention to the names of individuals involved & specifically the time frame. We lived though this whole unsavory portion of our nations history. At the time, we wondered how in the world would our nation survive (intact) with such corruption at the highest level...the presidency. Yet, our nation prevailed due to the rule of law being upheld. Let's hope that is what takes place currently, within the administration in office now.

If you studied Journalism, then this is the dream. And if you didn't study Journalism, the movie will make you wish you did.Two young, hungry writers on the scoop of a lifetime. Redford and Hoffman speedwalk through libraries, suburbs, and DC streets (with Hoffman's glorious flowing locks), following a trail of money from a fairly minor break-in all the way to the top. And they often hit deadends, too: the movie takes great joy watching Bernstein and Woodward stumble and get stonewalled (like a White House librarian denying a conversation she had literally 30 seconds ago). But they doggedly pursue it all anyway, do-or-die -- first their jobs on the lines, and then their lives.You know how it goes. Of course they'll nick Nixon in the end. The sublime joy is watching them 'rassle the truth out. We want to see how many non-denial denials, how many TV tirades, and how many uncooperative witnesses Bernstein and Woodward need to topple before Nixon's tower of cards collapses.

“All the President’s Men,” is the Academy Award-winning film from 1976 that stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. This superb movie is based on the book of the same name written by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. It tells the dramatic true story of how Woodward (Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Hoffman) – investigate, uncover, and report the Watergate affair in 1972-1974.The film also features an Academy Award-winning performance from Jason Robards, Jr. (Best Supporting Actor, 1976), who plays Washington Post managing editor Ben Bradlee. There are also stellar supporting performances from, among others, Hal Holbrook as "Deep Throat," Jane Alexander as "the Bookkeeper," and Jack Warden as Washington Post local news editor Harry Rosenfeld.This particular 2-disc Special Edition of “All the President’s Men” features a new feature-length documentary entitled “All the President’s Men Revisited.” This superb film, executive produced and narrated by Robert Redford, features interviews with many of the central figures in the Watergate affair, and sheds new light on what actually happened during that critical period in American history.Although “All the President’s Men” can be a bit slow moving at times, I find the film always tense, taut, and thrilling. I watch this film frequently, and never fail to become totally engrossed as “Woodstein” slowly but surely unravel what became the single biggest political scandal in American history. “All the President’s Men” is one of my all-time favorite films, and simply should not be missed.

This is a wonderful film, one of the best. I was in DC having lunch at the Howard Johnson's across the street from the Watergate the day that the break-in occurred. If you didn't live through this time, you cannot know the magnitude of living in a suspensful historic time. A few years later I was playing Irina in The Three Sisters and on my way to the theatre, I stopped by to say hello to a friend who was working in the projection booth of a small movie theatre. He had a small black and white TV in the booth, so I watched Nixon resign in the projection booth of a small, seedy, smelly movie theatre. Then I scampered up 15+ blocks to do Checkhov. It was a wonderful day. This film captures all of that summer completely.

An excellent lesson on history and the important role that responsible journalism takes in protecting our freedom. A decades-old movie, but very relevant to current times.

This is a far less impressive film in retrospect. Most of all, we now know that the mysterious "Deep Throat" was FBI agent Mark Felt, who himself was active in the very kind of illegal covert "black bag" jobs (buggings, break-ins) that he exposed in Watergate. Felt was later convicted of crimes in connection with COINTELPRO (surveillance and suppression of political dissent) -- so whatever Deep Throat's agenda was in Watergate, it was not protecting the Bill of Rights.Of course, when "All The President's" was made, we didn't know that 'Deep Throat' was actually one of J. Edgar Hoover's 'black bag' boys. Nevertheless, the film is manipulative. It leaves us with Woodstein blinidly regurgitating Deep Throat's self-serving, disingenuous assessment that the cover-up was to "protect the CIA." Sure, Pollyanna. The cover-up was to keep E. Howard Hunt from revealing devastating state secrets of the Kennedy Administration (e.g., plot to assassinate Fidel Castro), not the Nixon Administration. And our hero "Deep Throat" could just as easily have been the trigger man on Castro or Gamal Nasser (the defiant President of Egypt) as not.If you're old enough to remember Watergate, you're old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and the very real fear that we would all die in a nuclear war. So you're old enough to realize that, by the time of Nixon's resignation, that acute threat of nuclear extinction was essentially over. If it never occurred to you that, by 1974, we were no longer doing atom bomb drills in kindergarten--thanks to Nixon's foreign policy!--then you might ask yourself if maybe your consciousness has been manipulated.In the end, Nixon had to go -- not because of Watergate but because he was a wartime President (I mean nuclear wartime, not Viet Nam war) who finally cracked up mentally under the strain of negotiating nuclear peace with Russia and China. "All The President's Men" is a sophomoric and incomplete story, at best.

Other reviewers have given a detailed description of the film, so there is nothing I can usefully add, apart from giving it the highest recommendation. Some information about the extras may be useful however. I found the most interesting to be Telling the Truth About Lies: The Making of All the President's Men on the main disc and All The President's Men Revisited, a full length documentary on the second disc. There is some overlap between them, but they are essentially complementary. The first of these gives a detailed picture of the gestation of the film and in particular the crucial role played by Redford, who was involved even before the book on which it is based was written. There are interviews with everyone involved, including Woodward and Bernstein. The film stops at the point where they had done the main part of their detective work and the remaining part of the story is shown only in a series of teleprinter messages.The film came out only two years after the events it describes, when were still fresh in peoples' memory, but for those coming to it for the first time "All The President's Men Revisited" fleshes out its sketchy picture of later events and gives us the full story up to Nixon's resignation. There are also a number of other extras, but these tend to cover much of the same ground, and are therefore less interesting.

All the President's Men is probably Pakula's all around finest film - the Blu-Ray includes:- Exclusive to this release: All the President's Men Revisited - documentary (HD 1:27:46)- Commentary by Robert Redford- Behind the Story (SD; 1:12:44) a feature length documentary that goes into great depth about the actual Watergate story itself (including real life Woodward and Bernstein), as well as the film. This section includes the vintage featurette Pressure and the Press: The Making of 'All the President's Men'.- Dinah! with Jason Robards (SD; 7:12), again like Network's own Dinah! snippet, offers the songstress in her talkshow mode interviewing co-star Jason Robards. Highly Recommended

All the President's Men [Blu-ray] [1976] [US this film tells the story realistically of President Nixons Watergate sacndal and the way the newspaper reporters obtained the startling revelations of the Presidents involvement. The acting, story, filming and directing are all brilliant.

This of course is simply the classic old school journalism homage that you really want to see. Its gripping throughout and leaping forward in time to the film "Spotlight" you see it in context as almost a benchmark. I'm certain both will feature in Journalism courses for a great many years. Wiki is a good starter but nothing beats getting out there and nosing around for leads & confirmations.

I showed this movie when it was first released many years ago when I was a projectionist in central London, it always stuck in my mind and I am very glad that it has now been released on Blu-ray.Both picture and sound are excellent on this transfer and it is well worth the price.