The Montreal Star from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 52

mw)iH rn iy Oi w'1'1' I i i The DE LAURENTHS All the Men Mem UNO Presents a FREDDIE FIELDS production Eipsttidk story of a woman's outrage and a revenge DC and the clean bright newsroom of The Post) are Imaginative original solutions to quite unique problems There were so many risks so many invitations to disaster and Pakula avoided them all A lot of the credit must also go to the low-key but energy-charged performances by an excellent cast Especially Robert Redford This film is really Redford's labor of love It was Redford who got interested in the story back in 1972 who to sane extent inspired the best-seller and who persisted in seeing an intelligent and entertaining movie where many people saw only a Hollywood ripoff It was Redford who first visualized Watergate as a thriller it was Redford who insisted on steering the picture toward naturalism and it was he who provided the chief resistance to star turns By and large that resistance was successful Jason BesBradlee (The managing editor) is the only principal performance that spills over into melodrama Perhaps the only important criticism to be made of All the President's Men is that it places too much Importance on the rule of the press in general and that of The Post and the team in particular In demolishing the bid Front Page myth the film may have helped to tablish a new one of the press chief repository of truth in America In the book there was a broader perspective The movie often gives the impression that only two Journalists in the entire country were working to uncover Watergate But no one can quarrel with the description of that work This is the biggest and the best portrait of newspaper reporting that Hollywood has yet achieved This is not essentially a political film There are no special insights Into what makes Washington tick and no Capra-like state of the union messages though the film will undoubtedly have some effect on this year's presidential race (the newsreel footage of Rep Gerald Ford nominating Nixon at the 1972 Republican Convention is sure to embarrass the president in his primary and election campaigns) All the Men is narrowly conceived as a newspaper picture It could easily have degenerated Into a scrapbook of names and dates people and places of interest only to historians or collectors of political trivia It could easily have degenerated into a polemic against Nixon It preserved its effectiveness by preserving the point of view of the book which is that of two young reporters who smell something rotten ami are determined to trace the true source of the odor The film unravels like a detective story The slow meticulous naturalistic accumulation of clues the conspiratorial phone calls and clandestine meetings with sometimes timid and rather reluctant government officials the surprising connections the increasing risks of reputation and perhaps even life the enormous cast of heroes and villains it adds up to not only the most accurate depiction of investigative Journalism the screen has yet witnessed but also one of its most exciting thrillers Naturally if its stay weren't known to be true and about Watergate the picture's emotional impact would be considerably weaker But Pakula's documentary-style direction Goldman's elegant narrative devices Gordon expressionist ic camerawork (including a highly suggestive if somewhat simplistic contrast between the dark mean streets of Washington Introducing MARGAUX HEMINGWAY Starring CHRIS SARANDON PERRY KING and ANNE BANCROFT Produced by FREDDIE HELDS Directed by LAMONT JOHNSON Screenplay by DAVID RAYHEL Music by MICHEL POLNAREFF TECHNICOLOR A PARAMOUNT RELEASE 05in6masB ILAVAIO1 PALACE: 1SSL Ml fMW IM SN0W00N: SATURDAY A SUNDAY 1 44 141 tZL 7 JS 141 WEEKDAYS CONTINUOUS FSOM IN PM LAVAL NIGHTLY 7H A 12k SATURDAY A SUNDAY ML 141 I lk I 121 SATURDAY LATE SHOW AT 1 11 A DORVAL (SKI Dm Ml NIGHTLY A MG SATUROAY 2 1 A SUNDAY IN JJG US IMIH CENTRE LAVAL 688-7778 I PALACE I SNOWDON DORVAL 698 ST CATHERINE bob-6991 260 DURVALAVE 631-8586 5225 The coach is waiting for his next beer The pitcher is waiting for her first bra The team is waiting for a miracle Consider the possibilities WALTER MATTHAU Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in AM the Martin Molina NEWSPAPER PICTURES are an old not always respectable genre ranking somewhere between crime exposes and Bible epics Its classics are Deadline USA Five Star Final and especially The Front Page (Citizen Kane is too big to fit into any one genre) and its paradigm protagonists are generally middle-aged men with hard noses boozy livers printer's ink in their veins and hearts made of corn-oil margarine buttinskis with dandruff on their shoulders" sighs Hildy Johnson in The Front Page The movies' mythical Journalist is an endearing composite of cliches a romantic cartoon created from elements of the starstruck slum kid the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold the lone rider and the cynical private eye The freewheeling wisecracking reporter is also a convenient vehicle for all sorts of messages and a handy hero as Hecht and MacArthur discovered and others were quick to appreciate who seemed to touch a public appetite for brass and basic meliorism Times have changed but not our appetites Brass and basic meliorism are what make Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) run in All the President's Men (at the Avenue and Fairview) That and sheer ambition In real life in the book and now in the very fine multi-million dollar movie Woodward and Bernstein were two hungry reporters looking for the main chance with scarcely a thought for anything so lofty as democracy or the US constitution That their ambitions happened to co-incide with Watergate and the bCst interests of America is not "fate" or (apologies to Trudeau) history unfolding as it should but a stroke of damned good luck the most remarkable and quite chilling message of All the Men- So much has been written about the intrinsic of a) the American system of government b) the American press and c) American public opinion that we tend to overlook the role that luck played Had Watergate guard Frank Willis not stumbled onto five men breaking in to Democratic Party headquarters the night of January 12 1972 had Washington Post Metropolitan Editor Harry Ro-senfeld (Jack Warden) not assigned a rookie reporter named Bob Woodward to cover the preliminary court hearing of these men and so on down this and various other lines We all know how the story ends (at least one chapter of the story other I chapters are continuing to be added and published) The central drama and suspense of All the President's Men the splendidly austere film that Alan Pakula has directed from James screen adaptation lies in its reminder of how close the story I came to having a different ending msm 7:45 fM 14 Vn JK fell RBUEIItti HBMftMIWi 7 48 Stm 7m 19 AMI Ntti Pisiihs I Sin hr 7M Mur Wmd tm Smt Fmr AM Ul 1 Imk Erlzztf Min Lin Ay RntHWir Li33 STEl- ANNE: ST7 45? 534Vt nirfTErtNNE CE-MUEViJEMw Hny 401 20 Ont Qua Bonier ONLY 30 MINS FROM MONTREAL STARTING FRI SAT SUN RntilcMd IB yn fe Owr BONNIES" "VIRGIN ON THE Bonus Feature Sat DIRTY DOLLS Information: 631-6995 DIRTY Information: 631-6995 A man of wisdom and stengthrajaed his staff and crashed an empireRYlsis his stay DECARIE 482-1322 TATUM 'Vl 7U040t SOT LATE SHOW AT 1141 DOLLAR DRIVE-IN 2: GATES SPEN AT IM SHOWTIME! AT DUSK Paramount Pel urn Pmcni A STANLEY RJAFEE PRODUCTION A MICHAEL RITCHIE FILM "THE BAD NEWS 99 SIR LEW GRADE Presents BURT LANCASTER MOSES emmmm ANTHONY QUAYLE INGRID THULIN IRENE PAPAS LAURENTTB0EFF wANTHONY BURGESS WORK) BONICEUJ GIANFRANCO DE DOSIO nmmuiVINCENZO DE BOSK) JtSSST ENNK) MORRCONE- wSSSSfcDOV SELTZER-nmunW0 MNA'icoiNMcralNpNdHytamNinNcMm'-Mom-TiiiLaapwr" Aho Starring VIC MORROW l-FIi Written by BILL LANCASTER Produced STANLEY RJAI IE Directed by MICHAEL RITCIIIE Muik Adapted by JERKY FIELDING NnrAMPapvback ICalw APifiaMM Pirlarr AT 3 THEATRES! TRANS-CANADA EXIT 35 684-8442 CLARLM0HT: 1240 2 4 7 It I OS PARIIIEG 114 1ZIL 12 STARTS FRIDAY APRIL 16th 8150 COTES-DES-NEIGES I IT- 6038 SHERI GREY AVE 486-7395 410 UIHIRINI ISi-3151 i I mem mmmmm mm mm tm I Tilt MHMHM1 STAR KISTtKTAINHKSTS RATI GUAY A2HU HL IT wl yrrTT toft ynhjQgfc' yMfa iajammi J)-12.