Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971)

          Dismissed by critics during its original release and not subsequently elevated to any special status, the lugubriously titled Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? is nonetheless an interesting piece of work bursting with offbeat characterizations and unique dialogue. This is a rare example of a movie that has considerable virtues even though it doesn’t “work” in any conventional sense. It helps a lot, of course, that Harry Kellerman reflects a peculiar historical moment by portraying the anguish of a celebrity who seeks a reason to live after finding the goals he pursued all his life (fame, money, respect, women) to be insufficient. While it’s true that the early ’70s were lousy with “I gotta be me” character studies, the best of these movies turn a mirror on a period when the line separating egotism and introspection blurred.

          Written by Herb Gardner, best known for his plays I’m Not Rappaport and A Thousand Clowns, the picture depicts the last day in the life of Georgie Soloway (Dustin Hoffman), a pop songwriter living in a palatial New York penthouse. Delusional after several days without sleep, Georgie fantasizes about killing himself and experiences surreal visions that mix imagination and reality. At various times, he interacts with his aging father, Leonard (David Galef); his long-suffering accountant, Irwin (Dom DeLuise); his confrontational psychotherapist, Dr. Moses (Jack Warden); and troubled actress Allison Densmore (Barbara Harris), whom Georgie meets while she auditions for a show Georgie has cowritten. Adding to the otherworldly quality of Georgie’s experiences is the fact that he owns a small plane and spends many hours cruising the skies above New York City—in one of Gardner’s effective but unsubtle literary flourishes, Georgie literally has his head in the clouds.

          Many of the stylistic affectations in Harry Kellerman were commonplace at the time of the film’s release, including jump cuts that instantly shift Georgie from one location to another, and the way Dr. Moses magically appears in various situations wearing costumes suiting the situations (e.g., a ski instructor’s uniform, etc.). Furthermore, like so many “I gotta be me” stories, Harry Kellerman faces an uphill battle generating sympathy for a lead character who has everything but wants more. What makes the piece consistently interesting, however—besides the brisk pace and the way director Ulu Grosbard’s dark visual style unifies disparate scenes—is the humanity of the acting and the writing.

          Hoffman, who had a reputation at the time for being phenomenally self-involved, inhabits the character comfortably, and the boyish charm he brought to The Graduate (1967) shines through especially well during scenes when Georgie sings silly ditties. (The movie’s tunes were penned by poet/songwriter Shel Silverstein.) As for Harris, she’s heartbreaking, giving arguably the best performance of her career as a neurotic with a poetic streak. In fact, Harris netted an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, the sole major honor bestowed on the film.

          Fitting a movie written by a playwright, Harry Kellerman truly shines in long dialogue passages, even though Gardner and Grosbard contrive several intricate scenes that rely upon surprising visual juxtapositions. Beyond the occasional zippy one-liner (“Her head belongs in a Cracker Jack box, and her ass in the Louvre”), Gardner fills the script with melancholy pensées. “I’m auditioning every day,” Harris’ character says sadly. “I wake up every morning, and the world says, ‘Thank you, Miss Densmore, that’ll be all for now.’” Gardner also does a fine job of illustrating the distance that exists in most relationships, making the way his leading characters strive for connection seem like a heroic act, albeit—thanks to the movie’s fatalistic worldview—a doomed one.

Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?: GROOVY

Lenny (1974)

          Leaving the discussion of whether this Bob Fosse-directed biopic “accurately” captures Lenny Bruce’s soul to others with more knowledge of the matter, it’s fair to describe Lenny as one of the boldest attempts ever made to find a cinematic style perfectly suited to a real-life subject. In many ways echoing the vibe of the smoky jazz clubs where the real Bruce earned his reputation as an iconic counterculture comedian, Fosse employs a freewheeling storytelling approach that jumps back and forth in time, frequently lingering on extended re-creations of famous Bruce monologues. Furthermore, Fosse presents the whole picture in stark black-and-white cinematography that suggests rare footage of an underground performer caught in the act. One could easily argue, in fact, that Lenny has an overabundance of directorial imprint, bludgeoning its story with razzle-dazzle showmanship and a self-consciously grim tone. Yet that might actually be how Fosse employs his artistic license to the greatest effect. Perhaps this isn’t a film about who Lenny Bruce was, per se, but rather a film about what Lenny Bruce meant—in the sense of representing onscreen the milieu that Bruce painted with the incendiary words of his comedy routines.

          Accordingly, the world of Lenny is a dour space filled with drugs, rage, sex, and trouble. Moreover, just as Bruce eventually succumbed to his own darkness, wasting the last years of his life on fruitless censorship battles before dying of a drug overdose at age 40 in 1966, Lenny hurtles into bleaker and bleaker terrain with each passing scene. It’s unlikely anyone will ever make a more depressing film about a funnyman.

          Cast wisely for his skill at channeling Bruce’s self-destructive intensity, rather than any superficial ability to replicate Bruce’s comedic technique, Dustin Hoffman drives the film with a merciless performance. He incarnates Bruce as a self-involved, self-righteous son of a bitch who fascinates and repels people at the same time. Admirable for his chutzpah and for his messianic crusade to draw taboo subjects into the light, Bruce comes across as a man who must die for postwar America’s sins—in aggravating the establishment, Bruce changes the world even as he damns himself.

          Amid this provocative situating of Bruce as a free-speech hero, Fosse investigates Bruce’s private life primarily through Bruce’s courtship with and marriage to a stripper named Honey. Working from a literate script by Julian Barry, who adapted his own play of the same name, Fosse lingers on curvaceous actress Valerie Perrine (who plays Honey) in a way that echoes Bruce’s fascination with sleazy sexuality. (One typical flourish: Fosse intercuts a threesome in the Bruce bedroom with the nightclub routine it inspires, during which Bruce memorably opines in a sing-song voice, “I like dykes.”) Advancing the idea of Bruce-as-martyr, much of the film explores Bruce’s attempt to clean up his act for the mainstream, an endeavor that results in spectacular failure. Then, finally, the film dramatizes Bruce’s descent into oblivion with harrowing realism.

          Despite its exquisite artistic and technical qualities—notably Fosse’s quicksilver storytelling and Robert Surtees’ crisp cinematography—Lenny is a rough ride, presenting a barrage of anger and emotional abuse and wasted talent. A bit much? Perhaps. Nonetheless, the film garnered myriad accolades, including Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. The film also serves, although to a much lesser degree than All That Jazz (1979), as something of a veiled autobiography for Fosse, whose life had parallels to Bruce’s toxic combination of onstage pizzazz and offstage extremes.

Lenny: GROOVY

Papillon (1973)

          This minor classic, which tells the real-life story of a Frenchman who endured 10 years of harsh imprisonment in South America during the 1930s, arose from a turbulent development process. After screenplay drafts by writers on the order of William Goldman were rejected, the film went into preproduction with a script by the fine popcorn-movie scribe Lorenzo Semple Jr. By that point, Steve McQueen was committed to play the title character. Then Dustin Hoffman agreed to co-star in the picture, only there wasn’t a role for him to play. Enter Oscar winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was hired to weave Hoffman into the picture. Trumbo’s writing continued well into production—he was generating pages just a few days ahead of when they were being shot—so after Trumbo fell ill, someone had to finish the work, fast. Trumbo’s son, Christopher, did the job, writing the movie’s poignant final scenes. Thus, if the resulting movie has a bit of a patched-together feel, there’s a good reason—and it’s a testament to the skill of everyone involved that despite the convoluted gestation, Papillon works.

          The film was adapted from a memoir by French criminal Henri Charrière, whose claim to fame was escaping from Devil’s Island, the infamous prison in French Guyana. (Never mind that many people have questioned the veracity of Charrière’s recollections.) When the story begins, Charrière (Steve McQueen) is convicted for a murder he did not commit, and then sent across the ocean to a lifetime term on Devil’s Island. (Charrière is nicknamed “Papillon,” French for “butterfly,” and an image of the winged insect is tattooed across his chest.) While in transit to Devil’s Island, Charrière befriends a bespectacled crook named Louis Dega (Dustin Hoffman), who has money but isn’t physically formidable. Charrière, on the other hand, is a tough guy, so they strike a protection deal. Yet what begins as a pragmatic arrangement evolves into a full-blown bromance over the course of several years; among other incidents, Charrière protects Dega from assailants and Dega smuggles food to Charrière while Charrière endures inhumane solitary confinement.

          The movie combines intense scenes of prison suffering with thrilling escape attempts. Along the way, Charrière earns the respect of nearly everyone he meets by displaying superhuman determination. In one vivid but far-fetched vignette, the hero even curries favor with the charismatic leader (Anthony Zerbe) of a leper colony.

          Despite extraordinary production values and the sure hand of director Franklin J. Schaffner guiding the story, Papillion drags somewhat at a bloated length of two and a half hours. Ironically, however, the narrative’s most expendable element is also one of the movie’s strongest virtues: Hoffman’s character. Because the myriad scenes of Charrière’s imprisonment are painful to watch (at one point, he eats bugs for survival), producers were wise to add the leavening agent of a major friendship. Hoffman is oddly appealing, affecting a cerebral, sarcastic quality while peering out through Coke-bottle glasses. Better still, his tightly wound energy complements McQueen’s he-man stoicism, giving the picture contrast it would otherwise have lacked. (The last scene between the main characters also has an undeniable emotional tug.) Is Papillon overlong and repetitious? Sure. But is it beautifully made and sensitively acted, with a reassuring theme of man’s indomitable spirit? Yes. And that’s what matters, at least in terms of what this memorable movie offers and delivers.

Papillon: GROOVY

Straw Dogs (1971)

          Director Sam Peckinpah liked to play rough, whether he was bombarding viewers with slow-motion bloodshed or defying good taste by showcasing the terrible behavior of evil characters, but in many ways he never put audiences through more abuse than he did with Straw Dogs. A complicated movie with a simple story, the picture is frequently misunderstood as a revenge tale, but a close examination of its storyline reveals something more devious; the motivation for the horrific violence the protagonist commits during the film’s climax is ambiguous, layered, and provocative.

          Dustin Hoffman stars as David Sumner, an American mathematician who receives a grant to work in a remote English village that happens to be the hometown of his wife, Amy (Susan George). We meet the Sumners at the same time we meet the residents of the strange little village, so in just a few moments, Peckinpah and co-writer David Zelag Goodman establish how woefully out of place David is in a clannish, working-class enclave. Amy, meanwhile, is quite literally right at home; she’s also young and unsophisticated enough to think she can get away with flirtatious behavior around local young men who drink themselves stupid at the neighborhood pub every night. Out of boredom and a childish desire to be the center of attention in her household, Amy wears revealing clothes and even, at one point, parades naked in front of local men who are working on the remote farmhouse she and David have rented.

          Meanwhile, an adult simpleton named Henry Niles (David Warner) lurks around the village, taunted by everyone because of some past offense in which he menaced a young girl. As the film progresses, these divergent elements—combined with a running trope of hyped-up young men, led by Charlie Venner (Del Henney), lusting after Amy and openly mocking David—come together during a bloody siege that comprises nearly the entire last half-hour of the movie.

          Often cited in academic studies of cinematic violence, Straw Dogs is ostensibly a meditation on the idea of a civilized man pushed to savagery by circumstance, but it’s the nature of those circumstances that makes the film so thorny. It’s giving nothing away to say that Amy is assaulted partway through the movie, since the attack is foreshadowed almost from the first scene. However, people who talk about Straw Dogs often suggest the violence David subsequently commits is a response to his wife’s violation. It’s not, because Amy never tells her husband about the crime. Instead, David’s descent into brutality is triggered by random events. The implication, then, is that David was churning with animalistic fury all along, and that he was, psychically speaking, waiting for an excuse to unleash his inner demons.

          This nuance helps define Straw Dogs as a deeply cynical film, because if Peckinpah had simply told a story about a man responding to an unspeakable crime, the picture would have become something like Death Wish (1974). Straw Dogs is entirely different. It’s an unpleasant film to watch, of course—there’s nothing fun about two hours of abuse, murder, rape, and excruciating tension—and the film has been debated and dissected so many times that whether it actually delivers meaningful insights is best left for individual viewers to decide. What’s beyond question, though, is that Straw Dogs represents Peckinpah’s artistry at its most forceful—and perverse.

          Plus, the movie contains one of Hoffman’s nerviest performances, a meticulous balancing act in which Hoffman charts tiny, moment-to-moment changes in his character’s psyche while also giving himself over to scenes in which his character loses control. Leading lady George is hopelessly outclassed by Hoffman (a talent disparity that actually serves the story), and the English players portraying the locals all contribute salty flavors. Warner, whose performance is uncredited, stands out with his disquieting mixture of innocence and menace.

Straw Dogs: GROOVY

Agatha (1979)

          Elegant and smart, Agatha has so many virtues it should be a better movie, but a sloppy script and questionable casting get in the way of the film’s lush production values and sensitive performances. An imaginary exploration of what might have happened in 1926, when the internationally famous mystery novelist Agatha Christie disappeared for 12 days, the movie presents a complex intrigue involving adultery, deception, romance, and a wicked plan to kill someone using an offbeat weapon—obviously, the idea was to entangle Christie in a murder plot as ornate as those found in her books. Alas, the piece is more ambitious than successful, largely because the filmmakers fail to properly define Christie and the other main character, an American journalist working in England, before things get weird; thus, viewers are forever racing to catch up with what’s happening, which precludes any real emotional involvement in the storyline.

          Furthermore, leading lady Vanessa Redgrave, playing Christie, and leading man Dustin Hoffman, as the journalist, are mismatched aesthetically and artistically. While it’s refreshing to see a female star tower over her male counterpart, the duo lacks chemistry, and Redgrave’s spacey detachment feels natural while Hoffman’s affectation of globe-trotting sophistication feels contrived.

          The story proper begins when Englishwoman Christie has a quarrel with her awful husband (Timothy Dalton), who wants a divorce so he can marry his attractive secretary (Celia Gregory). Meanwhile, popular columnist Wally Stanton (Hoffman) has become infatuated with Christie, whom he saw from afar at a press conference. When a distraught Christie flees her home, Wally tracks her down to a spa, where she has registered under an alias. He also learns that the secretary is a guest there. Disguising his true identity, Wally courts Christie and determines she means to harm the secretary.

          As written by Kathleen Tynan and Arthur Hopcraft, Agatha wobbles indecisively between drama, romance, and thrills for much of its running time, thereby failing to excel in any of the three genres. Versatile director Michael Apted guides actors well (even though the geography of scenes is muddied by arty camera angles), and legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro elevates the material considerably with his luminous images. Both leading actors are strong, though they seem to be starring in totally different movies: Hoffman’s charming turn is all surface, while Redgrave’s intellectualized performance is all subtext. So, while Agatha has many admirable qualities, not least of which is a genuinely imaginative premise, the lack of a solid narrative foundation prevents these qualities from coalescing into a satisfying whole. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Agatha: FUNKY

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

          There’s a bit of wish-fulfillment inherent to Kramer vs. Kramer, which depicts a modern man rising to the occasion when an unexpected divorce suddenly transforms him into a single parent, since statistics don’t paint the prettiest picture of men caught in that situation. Yet even if the film tweaks reality by portraying star Dustin Hoffman’s character as a man of superlative integrity, Kramer vs. Kramer features many emotional truths. The movie succinctly expresses the ennui of an era when divorce rates spiked to unprecedented levels, in part because married women inspired by the feminist movement began exploring social roles beyond that of homemaker. No other ’70s picture did a better job of exploring the ambiguous moral issues faced by adults struggling to balance familial responsibilities with self-realization.

        Hoffman stars as Ted Kramer, a fast-rising New York City ad man whose life is thrown off-kilter when his wife, Joanna (Meryl Streep), announces that she’s ending their marriage. Caught in the middle is the Kramers’ young son, Billy (Justin Henry). As the story progresses, Ted must leave his careerist/narcissist shell in order to handle caretaking tasks for which Joanna was previously responsible, and it’s to Hoffman’s great credit that he lets himself be completely unattractive during early scenes; rather than immediately realizing he took his wife for granted, Ted explodes with rage. In the signature moment, Ted burns his hand on a frying pan and throws the pan to the ground, but instead of yelling “Damn it!” he yells “Damn her!”

          Hoffman delivers a compelling performance filled with contradictory emotional colors, effectively sketching the outline of a complete human being. And despite appearing in far fewer scenes, Streep matches him on every level. (Her character returns with a vengeance when Joanna sues Ted for custody of their son.) Streep’s mixture of fragility and strength as a woman trying to align her maternal and spiritual needs is formidable, demonstrating how the intricate emotional life of women is something that men like Ted cannot ever fully comprehend. Adding to the indelible impression Streep makes here, the actress is also at her most radiantly beautiful.

          Writer-director Robert Benton, who adapted this movie from a novel by Avery Corman, was never this sharp elsewhere, even though he was involved with several fine pictures before and after Kramer vs. Kramer. Working with famed cinematographer Nestor Almendros, Benton built an intimate cushion around his actors and photographed the movie with gentle warmth; the sum effect of these directorial choices is that the characters never lose primacy and the story never loses focus. Even when minor characters played by skilled actors including Jane Alexander, George Coe, and a young JoBeth Williams drift through the story, Benton’s attention never departs the core theme of a man, a woman, and a child riding the currents of confusing social change.

          While the picture has its detractors, some of whom rightly questioned the plot’s use of Joanna as a villain, Kramer vs. Kramer received countless accolades, including Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Hoffman), and Best Supporting Actress (Streep). It also holds up beautifully today, a heartfelt story made with immaculate craftsmanship in front of and behind the camera.

Kramer vs. Kramer: RIGHT ON

Straight Time (1978)

          After the flurry of activity that followed his star-making performance in The Graduate (1967), Dustin Hoffman became incredibly selective in the ’70s and ’80s, sometimes letting years pass between projects. Not coincidentally, his commitment to the parts he actually took was incredible, manifesting as deep involvement with story development and meticulous research into the lifestyles of his characters. The excellent drama Straight Time is rooted in this uncompromising craftsmanship: Hoffman’s character appears in virtually every scene, so his performance shapes the film.

          Hoffman stars as Max Dembo, a small-time crook recently released from six years in prison. After a few halting attempts at living within the law, Max drifts back to criminality in part because his hard-driving parole officer, Earl Frank (M. Emmett Walsh), finds drug residue left in Max’s dingy apartment by Max’s useless friend, fellow ex-con Willy Darin (Gary Busey). Feeling like he’s damned to incarceration whether he commits crimes or not, Max starts executing risky robberies despite the promise of his new romance with Jenny Mercer (Theresa Russell), a sweet young woman he met at an employment agency.

          The intense drama of Straight Time stems from an exploration of whether Max ever really has the opportunity to go straight. In a way, the picture is an indictment of the social structures that ensure a lifetime of punishment for any significant infraction. Based on a novel by real-life criminal Edward Bunker and directed by Ulu Grosbard, all of whose films are distinguished by extraordinary acting, Straight Time has authenticity to burn. It’s uncomfortable watching Max gauge the reactions of people who discover the truth about his past, and excruciating to see him tossed back in the slammer on the mere suspicion of a parole violation.

          The genius of Hoffman’s performance is that he plays Max as an addict: Whenever Max gets his teeth into a promising score, he loses the ability to perceive anything except the loot in front of him, so he frequently overstays his welcome at crime sites, endangering himself and his accomplices. Therefore, the movie provides a resonant portrait of a career criminal, someone who, accurately or not, believes no other options exist.

          The performers supporting Hoffman are terrific, with Busey and a young Kathy Bates playing an impoverished couple trying to steer clear of trouble despite the Busey character’s many weaknesses. Harry Dean Stanton essays a frightening professional crook whose ruthless discipline makes him a public menace. Russell is credible and sensitive in one of her first roles, and Walsh does wonders with the movie’s thinnest characterization. Although a slew of writers worked on the script (including A-listers Michael Mann and Alvin Sargent), it’s to Grosbard’s and Hoffman’s credit that the film comes together as smoothly as it does: Straight Time is essentially a character study, but the movie also works, at least in moments, as a gripping thriller. More importantly, it resonates.

Straight Time: RIGHT ON

Little Big Man (1970)

          The kind of cinematic oddity that could only have been made on this lavish a scale during the New Hollywood era, Arthur Penn’s revisionist Western Little Big Man is as entertaining as it is completely bizarre. Based on a novel by Thomas Berger, the film tells the story of 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman), who claims to be the only white survivor of the Little Big Horn massacre that claimed the life of notorious Indian fighter Gen. George Custer. As the ancient Crabb relates his story to a doubting interviewer (William Hickey), the picture flashes back to Crabb’s childhood and then presents wild episodes from his life leading up to the slaughter at Little Big Horn. Along the way, Crabb spends time personifying virtually every archetype of the Old West, from gunfighter to snake-oil salesman to town drunk. Most of Crabb’s recollections detail his upbringing by Cheyenne Indians—after his parents were killed during a Pawnee raid, young Crabb was adopted by a Cheyenne elder named Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George).

          Crabb’s story is outrageous, and part of the charm of Little Big Man is that it doesn’t matter whether you buy into the myth or even the possibility of the myth—the point is reconsidering Old West iconography from the fresh perspective of the Plains Indians, rather than the usual viewpoint of the “civilized” whites who systematically eradicated those Indians.

          Hoffman’s casting is pure genius, not only because he gives such a funny and humane performance, but also because the sight of him slathered in war paint is so incongruous; the juxtaposition that Hoffman creates in every single frame underscores the film’s mischievous intentions. And even if Jack is ultimately somewhat of a cipher—the blank screen onto which the film’s political agenda is projected—other major characters are presented so clearly and cleverly that a full emotional experience emerges.

          Several Native American actors lend authenticity to featured roles, with Robert Little Star adding absurd humor as a flamingly gay Indian, and Ruben Moreno lending intensity as Crabb’s main rival in the Cheyenne community. Chief Dan George’s deadpan line deliveries are perfect for the vivid character of Old Lodge Skins, a man utterly at peace with his understanding of the universe (“I’ve never been invisible before!”); George was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Faye Dunaway, at her most beautiful, gives a nuanced performance by playing a woman in her prime and, later in the story, gone to seed; she appears as the wife of a religious nut who takes in an adolescent Crabb after he’s separated from the Cheyenne. Jeff Corey is sly as a twitchy but endearing Wild Bill Hickock, and Martin Balsam lends campy amusement as Mr. Merriweather, Crabb’s unlucky mentor in the snake-oil business.

          Best of all is Richard Mulligan as Custer—he plays the general as a megalomaniacal loon given to pronouncements like, “Are you suggesting the reversal of a Custer decision?” Since Mulligan has to, in essence, personify the theme of white hubris, it’s impressive that he delivers such an individualistic performance while playing a symbol. (At the time of the picture’s release, Little Big Man was seen as a veiled indictment of America’s involvement in Vietnam; the film’s thematic content is a bit more malleable when viewed with modern eyes.) Plus, even though Crabb is an intentionally chameleonic character, Hoffman is terrific in a wild range of settings. He’s sweet as a young man trying to find his way in a new world, ridiculous as a duded-up gunfighter called “The Soda Pop Kid,” and finally resolute once tragedy drives him to ensure that Custer meets an unhappy end.

         Little Big Man moves at an impressive pace throughout its 139 minutes, and it pulls off that special New Hollywood trick of blending wild tonal extremes into a weirdly coherent whole. Alternately harrowing and hilarious, it’s as unique as its protagonist.

Little Big Man: RIGHT ON

All the President’s Men (1976)

          Easily one of the most important American films of the ’70s, this spellbinder about the Washington Post reporters whose coverage of the Watergate break-in helped topple Richard Nixon works as an exciting character piece, a meticulous journalism procedural, and a taut political thriller. Producer-star Robert Redford, deep into a run of great movies that proved he was more than a pretty-boy leading man, nurtured the project from day one. He prodded real-life Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward to adapt their Watergate stories into the nonfiction book All the President’s Men, which was released in 1974, and coached them through shaping the book’s narrative. For the film adaptation, he recruited screenwriter William Goldman (who won an Oscar for his work) and director Alan J. Pakula, both of whom contributed enormously to the magic act of generating suspense even though everybody already knew the ending. The development of the picture was rocky. At one point the real Bernstein and his then-girlfriend, Nora Ephron, wrote a draft of the script without Goldman’s knowledge, fabricating a scene portraying Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) as a kind of journalistic secret agent who worms his way past a secretary to reach an elusive source. The scene made it into the final picture, and Goldman has lamented that it’s the only made-up moment in the story.
          Despite the offscreen intrigue, All the President’s Men is a watershed moment for its participants. From Redford and Hoffman to Goldman and Pakula to composter David Shire and cinematographer Gordon Willis, everyone involved does some of their best-ever work. Beautifully capturing the haphazard beginnings of the investigation, when Woodward (Redford) wasn’t even sure he’d found a real story, and frighteningly depicting the private conversations among men who realized they were about to take down a commander-in-chief, the movie is as fascinating about process as it is entertaining. Among the spectacular supporting cast, Jason Robards is the Oscar-winning standout as gruffly principled editor Ben Bradlee, and Hal Holbrook is chilling as government informant “Deep Throat,” who meets Woodward a series of shadowy parking garages. Jane Alexander, Martin Balsam, Stephen Collins, Nicholas Coster, Robert Walden, and Jack Warden all excel in smaller roles. As for the above-the-title players, Hoffman and Redford generate palpable oil-and-water friction. Among the many great things this movie offers, perhaps most impressive is the fact that the film never forgets—or overplays—the importance of the history it depicts. Not exactly the easiest needle to thread, but All the Preisdent’s Men accomplishes the task gracefully.

All the President’s Men: OUTTA SIGHT