You know what makes for thrilling cinema?  Research.  I am being facetious, of course.  Today, I am discussing the American Film Institute’s (AFI) 77^th movie on its list of the 100 greatest American films of all time, All the President’s Men (1976).  While us today in 2023 might not find this subject interesting, keep in mind that it came out less than two years after President Richard Nixon resigned from office following the Watergate scandal.  The movie is based on the book of the same title by the two reporters from The Washington Post who broke the story, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, played respectively by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.  Indeed, the ink was barely dry on the tome when the film premiered.  Considering how long it takes to get most things done in our nation’s capital, this is a positively breathless pace.  Then again, it appears that Robert Redford worked closely with Woodward and Bernstein, and they even changed the narrative for the book to match more with what was to be put into the film.  And this is how you get a movie that is essentially about research.

As somebody who has done a fair bit of archival and interview work myself, I appreciated All the President’s Men.  In describing it to you, I will not be taking you through every twist and turn in Woodward and Bernstein’s investigations.  What is important to know is how it all started, and why they were put on the case.  It begins with a break in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Hotel on June 17^th, 1972.  A security guard notices a door with tape over the latch, indicating that it had been forced to remain open.  He calls the police and they send a group of plain clothes cops to investigate.  They enter the building and find five men inside the rooms rented by the Democrat Party for their operations, and they are arrested.  News of the attempted burglary reaches The Washington Post, and Woodward is sent to the courthouse where the five suspects are being arraigned.  Being the reporter that he is, he begins asking questions.  When he does not get straight answers from people, he begins to suspect there is something more to the story.  Adding to the intrigue is the fact that one of the men on the docket, James W. McCord Jr. (Richard Herd), claims to work for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  With this information, Woodward begins his investigation.  In these initial stages, one of his fellow journalists at the paper, Bernstein, takes an interest in the notes and gives some direction.  Soon, they are both assigned to the story.  Here is the thing to understand about this duo’s activities, and it forms a theme throughout the proceedings: they are uncovering a major scandal with many layers to it that goes all the way up to the White House.  At the moment, they are at the start, and they do not know where the path will take them.  Yet, every step along the way they get stonewalled by orders from the president, though they are not aware of where these commands originate.  Not to bury the lead here, but this is the nature of why Watergate is (and was) such a major problem.  Whether Nixon ordered the break in at the DNC is still a mystery.  What is known is that he demanded that the matter be covered up.  This is what Woodward and Bernstein have to contend with at every step in the process.  It also makes the nature of the information they garner ephemeral.  With the reputation of the newspaper at stake, executive editor Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards) is forever telling them to keep digging.  This is frustrating for Woodward and Bernstein as there are several moments along the way that they feel they have enough to go to press.  They are kept going by a few turns of events.  The first is a connection they uncover between the robbers and one E. Howard Hunt, an employee of Charles Colson, counsel to the White House.  This is the first inkling that something bigger is happening.  This leads them to contacting other government employees about their knowledge of Watergate, but also a series of denials and changed stories.  One that does come forward, and turns out to be the key to their entire story, is a highly placed official that history knows by the unfortunate nickname “Deep Throat” (Hal Holbrook).  It is Woodward that meets with him, following an elaborate set of protocols to avoid detection.  In the beginning, Deep Throat will only confirm or deny the nature of what Woodward and Bernstein have learned.  As such, he cannot be listed as a credible source, never mind the fact that he will not reveal his true identity.  Still, he is able to help point them to others that can be trusted to go on the record, even if it takes a great deal of arm-twisting and patience to get the scoop.  Another thing to remember about this is that the paper is competing with other news outlets of the day to be the first ones to bring this news to the public.  The pressure of this weighs on Bradlee, as does what the scandal could potentially mean for the country.  In this way Woodward and Bernstein work some extreme hours in tracking down every lead to the nth degree, which means sometimes leaning on people who are nervous about imparting what they know.  However, as the story begins to come out, the government reacts viciously, calling Bradlee’s patriotism into question.  He sticks by his reporters, and despite potential threats to their lives, they publish the article that eventually leads to Nixon’s resignation.  This is the only time in American History this has happened, and it forms the final moment in the film.

I realize there have been movies made about scandals in the Catholic Church, but unlike All the President’s Men, AFI has not seen fit to put any of them on its list of the 100 greatest American films of all time.  This is also aside the point.  I just wanted to put that little disclaimer out into the universe.  At the same time, it must have been difficult for Woodward and Bernstein to do what they did.  If you do not get that sense while watching the movie, then you can read subsequent interviews with them that say as much.  There is a telling scene at the end when you see Nixon in stock footage as he is being sworn in for his second term as president, while in the background Woodward and Bernstein are typing away, paying no attention to what is happening on the television.  It is because what they are doing mattered.  One of the things that faith prepares people to do is to face hard truths.  At the time of these events, there were still many Americans who saw their activities as treason.  It involved dragging the good name of our country through the mud, and no loyal citizen likes to see this occur.  This is true in a general sense, on a personal and public level.  It is why so many Catholics avoid going to Confession: they do not want to face the fact that something is truly wrong with their lives.  I cannot speak for Americans broadly, but I know God does not judge us as harshly as our fellow citizens do.  What I can say collectively is that Americans have been caring more about what others think and less about how God sees us.  What Woodward and Bernstein do is cathartic and necessary.  I just wish more Christians would be as honest with God.

All the President’s Men is a difficult watch, but not for the usual reasons.  There are a few swear words in it, but it does not overwhelm the dialog.  It is also one of the rare movies from the 1970s that I did not come away from feeling like I needed to take a shower, even if it is about dirty politics.  I do not know as though I would widely recommend it, but I got something out of it for the reasons already covered.