This was the first time I had ever really learned the details surrounding the events of that night, and of course it would be through a movie.
The movie picks up the night of the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. The men are caught, arrested and reporter Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) is put on the story. What starts out as a page 3 story, quickly turns into something much bigger than Woodward can handle with only 9 months of experience on the job. Enter Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman), another young reporter but with much more experience who has the wit and connections to help along their story. However, Woodward takes the cake when it comes to connections, it is his buddy "deep throat" who leads him in the right direction to finding the root of the break-ins.
Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman are amazing in this movie. The whole time they were walking around interviewing people, trying to get someone to go "on the record", I was clinging to my pillow thinking, "Don't push them so hard! You are going to scare them off!!!" But they must have been doing something right, because they got their story.
The movie really kept me on the edge of my seat, even though I knew what the outcome was. It kept me thinking about when their next big break in the story would be, and I couldn't stop watching! I also looooved the sound of the typewriters and the spin dial phones through out the movie. It really added to the feel and suspense.
Did you know?
- Frank Willis, the security guard who discovered the break-in at the Watergate complex, plays himself.
- The furious volley of typewriter keys striking paper in the opening scenes was created by layering the sounds of gunshots and whip-lashes over the actual sounds of a typewriter, accentuating the film's theme of words as weapons. This is also why the closing scene has a teletypewriter printing headlines with the sound of cannon fire from a 21-gun salute in the background.
- On Tuesday, May 31, 2005, in advance of a revelatory July 2005 "Vanity Fair" article written by his attorney and spokesman, 91-year-old W. Mark Felt acknowledged publicly for the first time that he was in fact the informant "Deep Throat," a fact corroborated by Bob Woodward and the Washington Post. At the time of the Watergate break-in, Mr. Felt was the Deputy Director, the second-in-command, of the FBI.
When to See It: With a classy glass of wine
Run Time: ~2 hrs