Dick (film)

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Dick
Movie poster
Directed by	Andrew Fleming
Produced by	Gale Anne Hurd
Written by	Andrew Fleming Sheryl Longin
Starring	Michelle Williams Kirsten Dunst Dan Hedaya
Music by	John Debney
Cinematography	Alexander Gruszynski
Editing by	Mia Goldman
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	23 July 1999 (premiere)
Running time	94 min.
Language	English
Budget	$13,000,000
IMDb profile

Dick is a 1999 US comedy movie directed by Andrew Fleming from the script he co-wrote with Sheryl Longin. It is a parody retelling the events of the Watergate scandal which ended the presidency of Richard ("Tricky Dick") Nixon and features several cast members from Saturday Night Live and The Kids in the Hall.

Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams star as Betsy and Arlene, two warm-hearted but not very bright 15-year-old girls and inseparable best friends who, through various twists and turns, become the legendary 'Deep Throat' figure partly responsible for bringing down the presidency of Richard Nixon. Dan Hedaya plays Nixon. His associates H. R. Haldeman, G. Gordon Liddy, John Dean, Henry Kissinger and secretary Rose Mary Woods are respectively played by Dave Foley, Harry Shearer, Jim Breuer, Saul Rubinek and Ana Gasteyer. Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are played by Will Ferrell and Bruce McCulloch. Teri Garr appears as Arlene's mother.

1 Plot summary
2 Cast
3 Trivia
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Betsy Jobs and Arlene Lorenzo are two sweet but somewhat ditzy teenage girls living in Washington D.C. in the early 1970s. Betsy comes from a middle class family in the Georgetown area, while Arlene lives with her widowed mother in an apartment in the Watergate building. One night, the two girls, on a quest to mail a letter to enter a contest to win a date with Bobby Sherman, sneak out of Arlene's home, at the same time as the Watergate break-in. They manage to enter and leave through the parking garage and taping the handle of a firewall door. They accidentally cause the break-in to be discovered, when they are seen by G. Gordon Liddy, who they believe to be committing a jewel robbery; they panic and run away. The security guard, startled by the taped door, then calls the police who immediately arrest the burglars. The next day while at the White House on a school tour, they accidentally happen across Liddy again, who recognizes them (although they don't recognise him) and instantly becomes suspicious. He points them out to H. R. Haldeman, who proceeds to interrogate them; their conversation (in which it is revealed that the girls don't actually think about the President that much) is interrupted firstly by a phone call from Haldeman's wife, and secondly by the President himself, Richard Nixon, who takes Haldeman aside to complain about the bugging operation being so up.

The girls are naturally awestruck at being in the same room as Nixon - but not as awestruck as they are at the idea of being able to play with his dog, which gives Nixon an idea; in order to keep their silence, he appoints them his official dog-walkers... which means they must be admitted repeatedly to the White House. On these visits they accidentally influence major events in various ways, such as the Vietnam Peace Process and the Nixon - Brezhnev accord, by bringing along cookies that they have inadvertently baked marijuana into. They also become familiar with the key figures of Nixon's administration, including the long-suffering, frequently ignored Henry Kissinger, and inadvertently learn the major secrets of the Watergate scandal without realizing what they know.

Arlene, previously infatuated with teen idol singer Bobby Sherman, now falls equally hard for "Dick", the president. Just after reading an 18½-minute message of love into his tape recorder, she plays back another part of the tape and, after hearing his coarse, brutal rantings, quickly realizes his true nature. When they confront Nixon with this ("You kicked Checkers, you're prejudiced and you have a potty mouth!"), he fires and threatens them ("You don't mess with the big boys!").

The girls now reevaluate what they have learned and decide to reveal everything to the 'radical muckraking bastards' (Nixon's words) at the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein so they become informants; two 15-year old girls are the true identity of the famous Deep Throat. Woodward and Bernstein, who are depicted as two petty, bickering, childish near-incompetents who are small-mindedly competitive with each other, are naturally skeptical of the two fifteen-year-old girls - and to make matters worse, their only piece of physical evidence - a list of names of those involved from CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President) is eaten by Betsy's dog. Nixon's men realize that the girls are a real threat and attempt tactics such as bugging and undercover agents to find out what they know, eventually going so far as to break into Betsy's house and plant an undercover agent as Arlene's mother's boyfriend. Eventually pushed to limit after being chased by the Watergate 'plumbers' the girls decide to take action - sneaking into Haldeman's house, they manage to find and steal a crucial tape recording. They give this to Woodward and Bernstein, thus ending Nixon's political career.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Trivia

Most of the clothes used on the film are original polyester clothes from the 70s. They were bought brand new from a warehouse.
The film title in Brazil is Todas as Garotas do Presidente (All the President's Girls), spoofing the All the President's Men film title.
Although the dog is repeatedly referred to as Checkers, Nixon's dog while in the White House was named King Timahoe. During a scene early in the movie, John Dean suggests Nixon call the dog King Timahoe in order for it to be more affectionate. The gag is a riff on Nixon's detachment, as is a gag where he has difficulty recalling the name of one of his daughters.
Deep Throat's true identity, FBI Assistant Director W. Mark Felt, was not revealed until May 2005. At the time of the film, the informant's identity was still a mystery.
In the ending scene, Michelle Williams' character is wearing a crop- top which shows off a poorly- camouflaged tattoo on her lower back.
This was the final film for G. D. Spradlin, the American character actor. He retired from the movie business upon completion of filming.
The song played as Nixon walked into the helicopter and made his famous "peace" signs is Carly Simon's "You're So Vain".
During a scene early in the film when the girls and Nixon's staff clash over the Vietnam War, a reference is made to former President Lyndon Johnson being dead. However, the scene in question would have taken place in June of 1972, shortly after the Watergate break-in. Johnson did not die until January 22, 1973.