All the President's Men

Movie: All the President's Men (1976)

AFI List #77 on the 2007 list, was not included on the 1998 list.

My List #32

Starring: Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman

My rating: ˜˜˜˜˜

This is the story of the two Washington Post journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's investigation into the Watergate scandal. And truly, it was an investigation. I remember thinking in this movie, at what point does the detective end and the journalist start? This film is also been tageed "the film that launched a thousand journalism students". And it was very apparent as to why that is.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered the scandal that connected a break-in at the Watergate complex to a campaign to sabotage Democratic presidential candidates the year before when President Richard Nixon was behind Edmund Muskie, one of the Democratic candidates, in the polls. Muskie lost his democratic bid because of it and therefore, it could be said Nixon won his second election

I was very interested in this movie because I really didn't know that much about Watergate because almost all of my high school history classes (including AP History) sort of ends with the 60's. If you're even lucky to get into the 60's. I knew it led to the eventual resignation of Nixon and it involved Deep Throat, but I didn't know how or why or even what. Therefore, this inspired me to do further research. Well, sort of. I did my Wiki reading on a lot of this.

I was also amazed at how far technology has come in the past few decades. At one point, Woodward and Bernstein had a name, but they didn't know where this person lived or phone number, etc. And so, Bob Woodward started going through phone books. The Washington Post had an entire room full of phone books from all over the nation. Google anyone? Also, Carl Bernstein had to go to Florida for part of the investigation and once his meeting was over, he had to leave the building, walk to a pay phone, insert a quarter, then dial Woodward, hoping that he was near his land phone. And I went crazy for an hour last week in Seattle when I misplaced my cell phone. What's going to come in the next few decades?

I had seen this movie before, saw it again, and I'm sure I'll be just as interested and fascinated when I watch it again.