Double Feature: ‘All The President’s Men’ and ‘Dick’ Are Two Very Different Looks At The Watergate Scandal

In the glory days of theater-going, movie fans would sit back, relax, and enjoy not one but two features at their favorite movie theater. While it’s more difficult to find in our multiplex era, the wide variety of movie titles on streaming services means movie lovers can have their own double feature in the comfort of their own homes — and we’re here to help you decide what to watch. In this edition of the Decider Double Feature, we look at two movies about one of the most infamous political scandals of the 20th century: Alan J. Pakula’s thriller All the President’s Men and Andrew Fleming’s Dick.

I don’t know about you, but over the course of the last two years I’ve found myself thinking about Watergate for no particular reason at all! I won’t investigate why my brain has found itself occupied with details American political scandal (I’ll do my best to keep this column bipartisan, *winky face emoji*), and instead get right to it. We’ve got two great movies about the Watergate scandal which led to the resignation and disgrace of President Richard Nixon. One is a straightforward account based on the book by the Washington Post reporters who uncovered the White House’s connection to the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters thanks to an infamously mysterious source. The other, released two decades later, is a revisionist history comedy that parodies the official account of the scandal — and presupposes the Nixon administration crumbled at the hands of two naive, yet ingenious, teenage girls.

The Watergate scandal itself was an unprecedented moment in American history when the country’s citizens, on all sides of the political spectrum, lost all faith in the people running the country. Reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward became household names when they published their book about the June 1972 break-in at the DNC office; published in 1974, All the President’s Men made the connection between the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP, often referred to as “CREEP”) and the five Watergate burglars. Relying on an anonymous source who called himself Deep Throat, named after the popular porn film released in 1972, the pair revealed that the FBI knew of the connection and an eventual cover up orchestrated by the White House.

American politics are rarely so dramatic, and journalism isn’t exactly a sexy profession. (Sorry, all of my professional peers.) But this was no ordinary scandal, and Nixon’s August 1974 resignation following the release of the book was the biggest political scandal of the 20th century. Hollywood quickly jumped on the material, with William Goldman adapting the book for the screen and Alan J. Pakula hired to direct. (A fun fact: Bernstein and his then-girlfriend Nora Eprhon did a pass on the script, a detail sadly missing from the biographical film later made about their marriage.) Cast as the leads were Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford as Bernstein and Woodward, respectively.

The result is a slow-burn, neo-noir that is part detective story, part behind-the-scenes look at the painstaking process of investigative reporting. As with any film that depicts recent events, All the President’s Men strives for accuracy as much as it depicts the unsettling mystery the reporters uncover. Rather than follow the entire scandal from the break-in to Nixon’s resignation, however, the film focuses solely on Bernstein and Woodward’s investigative practices, the editorial process under Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards, who earned an Oscar nomination), and their secretive communication with their anonymous source, Deep Throat (played by Hal Holbrook).

All the President’s Men does not feature the various White House players in its dramatic recreations, focusing instead on the bit players who helped the reporters break the story. (Jane Alexander, also an Oscar nominee for the film, is particularly great as CRP-bookkeeper-turned-source Judy Hoback Miller.) But if you’re hoping to see what happened within the White House between the burglary and Nixon’s resignation, and all of the absurd efforts to which the administration tried to cover up its political espionage, you’re in luck: Andrew Fleming’s 1999 film Dick provides all of that, but with a hilarious twist.

Former FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt revealed in a 2005 Vanity Fair article that he was, in fact, Deep Throat. Six years earlier, however, Fleming and his co-writer Sheryl Longin came up with a much more hilarious version of Deep Throat’s identity: two teenage girls named Betsy Jobs (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene Lorenzo (Michelle Williams), the latter of which lives with her single mother in the Watergate complex and happen upon G. Gordon Liddy, who orchestrated the break-in. Afterward, on a school field trip to the White House, Liddy recognizes the girls, and they are whisked into the West Wing by White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman and introduced to the President himself, who offers the unsuspecting teenagers the post as Official White House Dogwalkers. No one at school or at home believe them, of course — they are simply too ditzy and daffy to be telling the truth — and so they return to the White House in secret to walk Checkers, offer political opinions about the issues that affect American teens the most, and provide the staff with cookies laced with marijuana (thanks to Betsy’s stoner brother hiding his weed in a container of walnuts).

The result, as you may imagine, is completely bonkers. The two girls discover Tricky Dick’s nefarious plots thanks to the secret recording device in the Oval Office, which also reveal the President’s unpresidential foul language and racist remarks. When they also obtain the CREEP list, which offers proof that campaign funds have gone toward spying on the DNC, they call up Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward at the Washington Post, setting up the sequence of events that lead to Nixon’s downfall. (Bernstein and Woodward, too embarrassed to admit their source are a pair of 15-year-olds, are just fine keeping the identity of Deep Throat a secret.)

Dick wasn’t exactly a box-office success when it was released — how exactly do you market a Watergate comedy to a teenage demographic? — but it did receive positive reviews from critics (although nowhere near the glowing acclaim of All the President’s Men, understandably the more canonical depiction of the Watergate scandal). But it’s absolutely worth watching and thinking about in context of the Pakula film. First of all, it’s legitimately hilarious, and Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams are perfect as the unexpectedly politically savvy teens who bring down the President. (It also makes me wish Williams did more comedy.) But it’s a treasure trove for comedy nerds, with its supporting cast full of comedy titans as real-life political players: Dave Foley as Haldeman, Harry Shearer as Liddy, Saul Rubinek as Henry Kissinger, Jim Breuer as John Dean, Teri Garr as Arlene’s mother Helen, Will Ferrell as Bob Woodward, and Bruce McCulloch as Carl Bernstein. And, of course, stealing the entire show is Dan Hedaya as a pitch-perfect Richard Nixon, both a lovable goof (with whom Arlene falls in love) and a paranoid would-be tyrant.

All the President’s Men goes for precise seriousness, and Dick successfully pokes fun at the whole enterprise. The former, made in the ’70s, is full of warm and dark tones, deep browns and stodgy fashion; the latter, made in the ’90s, has a general ‘70s vibe that is frothy and floral, its pop-centered soundtrack offering a lightened mood to depict a somewhat heavy and confusing time. More importantly, Dick doesn’t make total fools of its two heroines; while Betsy and Arlene might look like blonde boneheads, it’s the adult men in the room who blunder and stumble and allow themselves to be hoodwinked by the exact people they think they are smarter than. All the President’s Men exposes the truth about the corruption that those in power can (and often do) exhibit. Dick, on the other hand, holds up its essential truth: that young people can claim the culture on their own, often molding it and leading it forward for the better. The kids, as they say, are alright, and they might be our best chance to lead the resistance.

Tyler Coates is a writer who lives in Los Angeles.

Where to stream All The President's Men

Where to stream Dick