“Goddammit, when is somebody going to go on the record in this story?”
British director John Schlesinger declined an offer to direct as he felt the story should be told by an American. Robert Redford (the film’s producer), director Alan J. Pakula, along with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein called an impromptu meeting with screenwriter William Goldman. At the time, his screenplay had been accepted and he was waiting to hear from Woodward and Bernstein. At the meeting he was presented with a new screenplay written by Bernstein and his future wife Nora Ephron. Goldman refused to read their screenplay and walked out of the meeting. Only one scene from their screenplay ended up in the film: the scene where Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) outsmarts Miami District Attorney Martin Dardis’ secretary to get in to see him. The scene was pure fiction. Bob Woodward was also unhappy with Bernstein’s script, because it depicted him as a novice reporter that hero-worshipped Bernstein’s superior talent. On May 31, 2005, in advance of the July Vanity Fair article written by his attorney, 91 year old Mark Felt acknowledged publicly for the first time that he was ‘Deep Throat’, a fact corroborated by Bob Woodward and the Washington Post. At the time of the Watergate break-in, Felt had been second in command at the FBI. While filming in Washington D.C., Robert Redford stayed at the Watergate hotel. The number Redford dials in the film (456-1414) for the White House is the actual number of the White House switchboard. This was the first film Jimmy Carter watched after being elected President.
