All the President's Men Trivia

1. What two popular 1970's actors played the lead roles of real-life "Washington Post" reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein?

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman

"All the President's Men" was released in April 1974. For Hoffman, it was his first appearance on screen in almost a year and a half, after Lenny in late 1974. For Redford, it was basically the opposite; other than a brief cameo in Richard Attenborough's 1977 war epic "A Bridge Too Far", this film would mark Redford's last appearance on screen for more than three years, until "The Electric Horseman" came out in late 1979.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Washington Post

Woodward and Bernstein worked for "The Washington Post". Their work on exposing the Watergate scandal earned them the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1973. "All the President's Men" tells the story of their investigation, which began with a simple burglary and ended with the fall of the President of the United States. "The Washington Post" began publishing in 1877, and has won dozens of Pulitzer Prizes. It was purchased by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, in 2013.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Jason Robards

Robards would win the Best Supporting Actor award for this film, and again in 1977 for his portrayal of Dashiell Hammett in the film "Julia." Although Martin Balsam was not the winner in this instance, he did win Best Supporting Actor in 1965 for his work in "A Thousand Clowns", which just happened to star,-you guessed it - Jason Robards.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman

Redford was Woodward and Hoffman was Bernstein. It was actually fairly good casting, as the actors did look like the real-life reporters. Redford and Newman teamed in two of the greatest films of the 1970s: "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) and "The Sting" (1973). To see Hoffman and Voight together, watch "Midnight Cowboy" (1969). Hoffman and Beatty starred together in "Ishtar" (1987), which would make an AFI list of the 100 worst American films. Woodward and Bernstein actually wrote the book "All the President's Men" after a conversation with Redford. He was interested in buying the film rights to their story, which inspired them to write the book. Hoffman is one of the best actors of his generation. He has received numerous Academy Award nominations, and won for "Kramer vs Kramer" (1979) and "Rain Man" (1988). Both were named Best Picture. Redford has won an Oscar for directing "Ordinary People", the Best Picture of 1980. Redford did receive acclaim for his work in the 2013 one-man film "All is Lost". Redford actually recruited Hoffman to work on "All the President's Men" in order to balance out the star power.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: The door lock was taped

At the start of the film, a security guard discovered a door where the lock was taped over, and he called the police. In a bizarre case of art imitating life, Frank Wills, the guard who discovered the break-in, played himself. And the duct tape is the actual reason the burglars got caught. For a quick glimpse of a future Oscar winner, F Murray Abraham played one of the cops who arrested the burglars. If you want to see someone call up about strange flashlights that expose the Watergate break-in, watch "Forrest Gump" (1994). The Watergate break-in took place on June 17, 1972. It involved five men with ties to the Central Intelligence Agency and the Committee to Re-elect President Nixon. The break-in was the first domino that led to revelations of rampant criminal behavior within the Nixon administration, which led to many administration officials going to jail.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Bernstein rewrites one of Woodward's articles without asking.

This scene sets the tone for the Woodward/Bernstein relationship throughout the film. In addition to the tension between the reporters, it shows Bernstein as being somewhat impulsive and not always respectful of protocol, while Woodward is more controlled and ethical. Toward the end of the film, the two actually start to adopt some of each other's traits.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: James McCord

James McCord was the non-Cuban. At the arraignment shown in the film, McCord identified himself as a security consultant for the Central Intelligence Agency. It is this CIA connection that first led Woodward to think this might be more than a simple burglary. All five burglars were revealed to have CIA connections. In January 1972, McCord was hired by the Committee to Re-elect the President as a security consultant. He used the electronics expertise he had gained in the CIA to attempt to bug the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. McCord only served two months in prison for his connection with the Watergate burglary. Sturgis' real name was Frank Fiorini, and Barker was born in Havana. It was Barker who identified his profession as "anti-Communist". Segretti (played by Robert Walden) was an attorney for CREEP who helped establish the "dirty tricks" squad which sabotaged Democratic candidates.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Deep Throat

The nickname is given because Woodward and Bernstein will not reveal the source's actual identity. In real life, the two reporters kept this secret for more than 30 years, until Deep Throat himself admitted his identity in 2005. He turned out to be Mark Felt, Associate Director of the FBI at the time of the Watergate investigation.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Hunt was involved in the JFK assassination

Woodward uncovered a great deal about Hunt, but his link to the Kennedy Assassination was not one of the things covered in the film. Hunt worked for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1949 to 1970. He has been linked to the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1953. During World War II, Hunt had worked for the OSS, the fore-runner to the CIA, and during that time he wrote quite a few spy novels. In the early 1970s, Hunt worked for Colson at the White House, and was a key member of the "Plumbers" squad that engaged in illegal activities. There is a great deal of evidence linking Hunt to the Kennedy assassination. Mark Lane's book "Plausible Denial" (1991) gives a fascinating account of a lawsuit by Hunt which provided Lane the chance to cross-examine Hunt under oath.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Jason Robards

Robards won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing Bradlee. Throughout the film, Bradlee was pressing Woodward and Bernstein to verify their stories. Considering they were going after some of the most powerful people in the US government, this was actually quite prudent. Robards had the very last lines of the film, telling Woodward and Bernstein of the stakes of their investigation: "Nothing's riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys [mess] up again, I'm going to get mad." Ben Bradlee was Executive Editor of "The Washington Post" from 1968 to 1991. He was a key figure in the publication of the Pentagon Papers and in the coverage of Watergate. Jack Warden was Metro editor Harry Rosenfeld, Martin Balsam was Managing Editor Howard Simons, and John McMartin was the foreign desk editor.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Jane Alexander

"All the President's Men" is one of three films that Jane Alexander appeared in with Robert Redford and/or Dustin Hoffman. She appeared alongside Redford in 1980 in "Brubaker" and with Hoffman in 1979 in "Kramer vs. Kramer". She received Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress for both "All the President's Men" and "Kramer vs. Kramer".

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: follow the money

In the first meeting, Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook) played his cards close to the vest. When Woodward mentioned a bag with $25,000, Deep Throat said "follow the money". He repeated the advice about a minute later. "Follow the money" turned out to be pretty good advice. Bernstein started by looking at checks given to the Watergate burglars, which linked them to Kenneth Dahlberg, the Midwest finance chair for the Committee to Re-elect. Dahlberg led them to Maurice Stans, the national finance chair for CREEP. Later revelations about money led them to H.R. Haldeman, Richard Nixon's right hand man in the White House as Chief of Staff. Haldeman resigned in April 1973 and spent 18 months in prison in connection with Watergate. "Deep Throat" was the name that Howard Simons gave to Woodward's deep cover informant. He was played by Hal Holbrook. Bob Woodward, the only one to know Deep Throat's true identity, was the one who selected Holbrook. "Follow the Money" has remained sound advice in covering almost every major political scandal in the decades since Watergate. Strangely enough, the phrase is original to the screenplay. It is not found in the book by Woodward and Bernstein.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Woodstein

Both Jack Warden and Jason Robards use the term at different points in the film. Warden uses it without anger; Robards, not so much.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Parking garage

Woodward met with Deep Throat in a parking garage. It is implied the garage was somewhere in the vicinity of the Kennedy Center. The Deep Throat scenes were actually shot at the parking garage at the ABC Entertainment Center, which is in Century City, California. Most shots that were not on location in Washington were done at Warner Brothers studios in Burbank, California. It was revealed in 2005 that Deep Throat was W. Mark Felt - at the time of Watergate he was the second highest ranking official in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Felt died in December 2008, at the age of 95. The Howard Johnson hotel does play a role in the film. It was the base for the lookout men during the burglary. Rooms 419 and 723 were used by the "Plumbers" team.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: The writing of the Canuck letter

In the movie the female coworker is a reporter named Sally Aiken, who simply tells Bernstein that the Deputy Director claimed to write the letter; in real life, the female reporter was Marilyn Berger, and Woodward and Bernstein did publish an article about her claim. The Canuck letter was real; it was first made public in February 1972 and implied that then-Presidential candidate Edmund Muskie was biased against Americans of French-Canadian ancestry. This contributed to the collapse of Muskie's campaign. The FBI would later insist that the letter was part of a 'dirty tricks' campaign coordinated by Nixon's re-election committee.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Nixon's second Inauguration

The film only covered the six months between the Watergate break-in of June 1972 and the Inauguration in January 1973. Nixon's inauguration was on television as Woodward and Bernstein are shown working on the stories that would ultimate end his presidency. John Dean testified before the Watergate Committee on July 26, 1973. It was when Dean referred to "a cancer on the presidency". Richard Nixon made the famous "I am not a crook" statement on November 18, 1973. By that point, many of his key lieutenants were either indicted or actually in jail. Richard Nixon resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974, and left the White House the next day. The shot of Nixon giving the peace sign as he stepped onto the helicopter remains one of the most iconic images of the American presidency. The film closes with a series of teletype messages of "Washington Post" stories, the last being Nixon's resignation.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: H.R. Haldeman

H.R. Haldeman was Nixon's Chief of Staff from January 1969 until he was forced to resign in April 1973. The confirmation of Haldeman is thus a major breakthrough in the story, and sets up the conclusion of the film.

From Quiz All the President's Men

Answer: Bookkeeper

Jane Alexander played the bookkeeper for the Committee to Re-elect the President. She was listed in the credits only as "bookkeeper". Alexander is only in the film for eight and one-half minutes: a seven minute scene with Hoffman, and a 90 second scene with Hoffman and Redford. While she was not named in the film, her real life counterpart was Judy Hoback, who did report the criminal wrong-doing at CREEP to the FBI. Alexander's character exposed many of the key details of the slush fund that was used for the illegal activities of CREEP. "If you guys could get John Mitchell, that would be beautiful" is her most memorable line. Alexander has four Academy Award nominations. Her first was for "The Great White Hope" (1970), her film debut. "All the President's Men" was her second nomination. She received another nomination working with Dustin Hoffman in "Kramer vs Kramer" (1979), which did win Best Picture. Her fourth nomination was for "Testament" (1983). Meredith Baxter played Debbie Sloan, the wife of CREEP treasurer Hugh Sloan (Stephen Collins). Penny Fuller was Sally Aiken, who dated a member of the "dirty tricks" squad. Lindsay Crouse was Kay Eddy, another reporter at "The Washington Post".

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