All the President's Men (1976) * * * *

Directed by:  Alan J. Pakula

Starring:  Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, Martin Balsam, Stephen Collins, Jack Warden, Jane Alexander, Ned Beatty, Hal Holbrook

Watergate, both the story and the scandal which led to President Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974, began as a local Washington news story in June 1972.   Five burglars were apprehended breaking into Democratic National Headquarters in Washington and it was expected to be left at that.   Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward (Redford) notices the burglars have high-profile representation and discovers connections to E. Howard Hunt and Charles Colson, both members of the Nixon White House.    Woodward is teamed up with fellow reporter Carl Bernstein (Hoffman) and the story leads down a rabbit hole no one anticipated. 

All the President's Men tells the story of how hard-nosed journalism eventually brought down a presidency.    Director Alan J. Pakula's taut direction keeps everything tight and in front of us.    Names, dates, organizations, and leads are hurled at us, but the film manages to keep it all going in the right direction.    All the President's Men doesn't make the mistake of turning its leads into heroes, even though there must have been temptation to do so.    Woodward and Bernstein (or Woodstein as they are eventually dubbed) make mistakes, fail to make connections, and miss things, but with the support of their experienced, savvy executive editor Ben Bradlee (Robards), they keep on the story. 

We know little of the reporters' personal lives, which is just fine.    Nothing sinks a movie pace quite like obligatory scenes in which a spouse lectures her husband (or vice versa) about how he isn't home anymore, the kids miss him, you're losing your family, etc. etc. blah, blah, blah.    There are enough balls to juggle without any detours.    The story itself becomes a morass of leads, quotes, confirmations, sources which give crucial information, but then dance away, scared witnesses, obstruction, deadlines, and of course the possibility of surveillance and death threats against cooperative parties.    All the President's Men was released in 1976, a mere two years after Nixon's resignation, and the story and its effects still feel fresh.     There aren't any computers to assist with searches or information at the reporters' fingertips.     When a potential lead has to found, Woodward wades through every phone book in the country to find him.     No Google for these guys.     Stories are typed on manual typewriters and correcting means you have to tear out the paper and start over.

The performances are all the more absorbing because there are no star turns.    The movie isn't a Redford/Hoffman star vehicle.   Robards, who won the first of two consecutive Best Supporting Actor Oscars with this role, is completely authentic as a lifer newspaperman with correct instincts on what the story needs to lead anywhere.     We witness almost an insider's view of the 1970s newspaper business, in which editor meetings are just as much about marketing as they are about content.    Bradlee's editors bemoan the lack of reprints of their stories in other papers, and there is competition with the New York Times to gather facts and scoops.  

The journalism profession is different now.    The news cycle can be measured in seconds.    People don't want to wait until the next morning's paper to read the news.    They want constant updates, even if those updates aren't accurate.     The Washington Post is now under fire by conservative groups for their coverage of Donald Trump, both as candidate and President, because the news media is somehow expected to temper negative stories.     Anything negative is dismissed as a "witch hunt" or the overused "fake news".     If the landscape were different in 1972, Nixon would have tried the same distraction tactics.    But, back then, and I am not one of those people who laments that things aren't what they used to be, there was an infallible concept of freedom of the press.    Nowadays, some people wish the press would go away, not understanding the connections between it and how a democracy can turn into a dictatorship.     All the President's Men understands that and, in its own fascinating way, the idea of rule of law.