Movie Monday: All the President's Men

Movie Monday: All the President’s Men

Photo: IMPA Awards
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Typically, biographical films are produced years, sometimes decades after the person or significant event has long passed. Not so in the case of the 1976 film All the President’s Men, based on the 1974 book written by journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward who investigated the Watergate scandal for “The Washington Post.”

While he was promoting his film, The Candidate, Robert Redford heard about the scandal (along with everyone else in the U.S.) and began asking questions. He delved into the newspaper articles, then contacted Bernstein and Woodward in late 1972. Two years later after having read their book, Redford bought the rights to the story for $450,000 with the intention to adapt it to a movie through his company Wildwood Enterprises.

Having worked with William Goldman on the Academy Award Winning Butch Cassidy and the

Sundance Kid, Robert hired him to pen the screenplay for All the President’s Men. His first draft secured funding from Warner Bros, but Redford wasn’t happy with the script. Bernstein and then-girlfriend Nora Ephron wrote their own draft which was presented to Goldman who didn’t like it and saw Redford’s action as “betrayal.” Ultimately, Alan J. Pakula was hired to direct the film, and he worked with Goldman to secure rewrites that everyone could accept.

Unlike the book, the movie only covers the first seven months of the scandal, from the break-in to President Nixon’s second inauguration on January 20, 1973, Robert Redford as Bob Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein were joined by an all-star cast including Hal Holbrook, Jason Robards, Stephen Collins, Ned Beatty, Meredith Baxter, F. Murray Abraham, and Richard Herd. Frank Wills, the actual security guard at the Watergate complex appeared in the movie as himself. Costing $8.5 million to produce, the movie would earn more than $70 million worldwide.

Nominated for eight Academy Awards and winning four, All the President’s Men would go on to win additional Golden Globe, BAFTA, and other awards, including Best Drama from the Writer’s Guild of America for William Goldman. In 2010, the Library of Congress selected the movie for preservation in the National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” See the official trailer.

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Dial S for Second Chances

Can years of hurt and misunderstanding be transformed into a second chance at love?

Jade Williams agrees to be on the high school reunion committee because the-one-that-got-away is out of the country and won’t be home in time to attend the festivities. Now, he’s not only home, but joined the committee. Is it too late to back out or can she set aside forty-five years of regret and pretend she isn’t to blame for her broken heart?

One of the downsides of being rich means fielding requests for money and favors. But when an old high school buddy contacts Derek Milligan to be on the reunion committee as just one of the gang, no strings attached, he can’t resist. At the first meeting, he’s dismayed to find himself sitting next to his former high school sweetheart. He should be angry. Instead, he’s attracted. Can he risk his heart a second time?

Reunion festivities include calling into to WDES’s program No Errin’ for Love with fake relationship problems. When both use their real situation, the stakes are raised higher than either imagined.

Pre-order link: https://amzn.to/43tXBlp

Movie Monday: Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

Movie Monday: 

Murder on the Orient Express

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We’re still in the 1970s, and today we’re going to look at the 1974 version of Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express. With a budget of just under $1.5 million, the film was a resounding box-office success, earning over $35 million. The producers’ choice of directors, Sidney Lumet, was no doubt a calculated move. He is reportedly one of the most prolific filmmakers in the modern era, directing more than one move a year on average since his debut in 1957. Actors loved working for him, and critics could count on a well-executed film. Although fourteen of his movies were nominated for Academy Awards, and Lumet himself was nominated for five, he never won an individual Oscar. Late in life, he received an Academy Honorary Award. Intriguingly, he directed Murder in between Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon.

The cast is star-studded and included Sean Connery, Albert Finney, Ingrid Berman, Lauren Bacall, Jacqueline Bisset, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, and Michael York. Connery was the first actor approached and said yes immediately. He would ultimately make five films with Lumet. Lumet wanted Bergman to play Princess Dragomiroff, but she chose instead, the smaller role of Greta Ohlsson. Obviously, a good choice because she won Best Supporting Actress.

Exterior filming was mostly done in France, and the scenes of the train going through Central Europe

Pixabay/Jorg Vieli

were filmed in the Jura Mountains on the Swiss-French border. There were concerns about the lack of snow proceeding the scheduled shooting of the snowbound train, therefore snow was trucked in (at quite a large expense). Ironically, heavy snowfall occurred the night before the scheduled filming making the extra snow unnecessary, and stranding the snow-laden backup vehicles.

Christie only liked two of the film adaptations of her novels, and Murder was one of them, the other being Witness for the Prosecution. She passed away fourteen months after the movie’s release. Roger Ebert was effusive with his praise, specifically saying, “What I liked best about this movie is its style, both the deliberately old-fashioned visual strategies used by director Sidney Lumet, and the cheerful overacting of the dozen or more suspects.”

A classic that’s not to be missed.

____________________

Dial S for Second Chances

Can years of hurt and misunderstanding be transformed into a second chance at love?

Jade Williams agrees to be on the high school reunion committee because the-one-that-got-away is out of the country and won’t be home in time to attend the festivities. Now, he’s not only home, but joined the committee. Is it too late to back out or can she set aside forty-five years of regret and pretend she isn’t to blame for her broken heart?

One of the downsides of being rich means fielding requests for money and favors. But when an old high school buddy contacts Derek Milligan to be on the reunion committee as just one of the gang, no strings attached, he can’t resist. At the first meeting, he’s dismayed to find himself sitting next to his former high school sweetheart. He should be angry. Instead, he’s attracted. Can he risk his heart a second time?

Reunion festivities include calling into WDES’s program No Errin’ for Love with fake relationship problems. When both use their real situation, the stakes are raised higher than either imagined.

Pre-order Link: https://amzn.to/45uf9Qj