watergate Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Tony Danza Wants to Play Nixon Aide
Filed under: Casting », New Releases », Celebrities and Controversy », Box Office », Politics »
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Yesterday's New York Post contained a gossip item in Page Six taken from the book party for James Rosen's The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate in New York, where attendee Tony Danza expressed an interest in playing Richard Nixon aide H.R. Halderman -- maybe in a movie version of Rosen's book. Halderman, who died in 1993, worked for Nixon as White House Chief of Staff until the Watergate scandal landed him eighteen months in prison in 1973. His story, partially recounted in The Strong Man, involved a longstanding relationship with Nixon going back to the 1950s and the tense moments immediately before and after the president's resignation. In between, he was involved in a botched attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro and other tumultuous events dutifully recorded in Halderman's diary, which became available to the public years later. Many political scandals often revolve around a single corrupt individual, but it's the right hand man whose story can be most revealing. (Roy Cohen's personal drama has way more twists than that of Joseph McCarthy, for example.) There's little doubt that Halderman's experiences would work well on the big screen, but this wouldn't be the first time: IMDb lists no less than five actors who have portrayed Halderman, including James Downing in The Pentagon Papers, as recently as 2003. Would Danza make sense in this role? And will any film have a chance at getting people interested in this story after Frost/Nixon nabs the spotlight later this year?
Not-Quite-Vintage Image of the Day: Dick
Filed under: Comedy », Vintage Image of the Day »
Did you expect something else from the title of this entry? For shame. Today is TV and film actor Dan Hedaya's birthday, and when I found this out last night, it was such a coincidence that I knew I had to post an image from the 1999 film Dick, in which Hedaya plays Richard Nixon. My husband and I like this often-overlooked little gem of a comedy so much that we invited friends over this weekend to watch the DVD and served themed snacks. (I made Hello Dollies, a bar cookie that figures quite prominently in this movie, although I used plain old pecans instead of the rather special walnuts in the film.)
If you haven't seen Dick, I recommend it highly: Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst play two clueless 15-year-olds who happen to be roaming around the Watergate Hotel on the night of the famous 1972 break-in. Subsequently, they become entangled in all kinds of related political events. The cast also includes Harry Shearer as G. Gordon Liddy, Dave Foley as Bob Haldeman, and Will Ferrell and Bruce McCullogh in what may be my favorite portrayals of Woodward and Bernstein. I don't know why more people don't like Dick ... my guess is that everyone gets very silly about the title, or they assume that a movie with Dunst and Williams is for teenagers, which this absolutely is not. So bake yourself up a batch of Hello Dollies and give Dick a try.
Deep Throat (the real one) movie on the way
Filed under: Drama », Deals », Universal », Newsstand »
Way back in the 1970s, clever Washington
Post employees named Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate tipster after the hip porn flick that all the cool kids
were going to see - thus "Deep Throat" was born. And now, though it's probably a safe bet that it will not be
named after its central character, a movie about Mark Felt (recently reveal to be THE Deep Throat) is in the works. The
film will be written by the largely untested (in his day job he writes for the New York Times Magazine, but
has recently begun penning films as well) Peter
Landesman and directed by Jay
Roach, whose able direction of all three Austin Powers
movies surely qualifies him to undertake this project. Shortly after Felt told his story to Vanity Fair, Playtone - Tom Hanks' production house - acquired the life rights to both Felt and his family (wow, that's a creepy phrase) and a memoir written by Felt in 1979; Playtone will be producing the film for Universal. Obviously, then, the movie will focus more on Felt's "motivations and the weight of keeping [his] secret" than it will the facts of Watergate. Which is probably good thinking, since All the President's Men already did the latter pretty much to perfection.
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