The untold story of All the Presidents Men
Fifty years ago today, five men broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, located in the posh Watergate building in D.C. Nobody knew it at the time, but the break-in was the first in a series of events that spiraled into the Watergate scandal, and eventually, the downfall of President Richard M. Nixon.
For many people, their memories of this event have become encapsulated in a movie: the iconic 1976 film \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men.\u201d Based on the book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the film follows the pair as they dig into the break-in and crack open the scandal, tracing the source of the burglary back to the White House.
Ann Hornaday, The Post\u2019s film critic, calls the movie a metonym for Watergate \u2014 a stand-in for this entire period in history \u2014 \u201cthat from the moment it opened seemed to fuse seamlessly with private memory and collective myth.\u201d
Today, guest host and media reporter Elahe Izadi talks with Ann about what it means for a film to function in this way. And, we hear a dramatization of a deleted scene from an early draft of the screenplay, as Ann reveals that the classic we know almost didn\u2019t exist.
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Film critic Ann Hornaday explains how \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men\u201d went from buddy flick to masterpiece in her Washington Post Magazine story.