The Big Picture When it comes to adapting true stories to the big screen, creative liberties from Hollywood are to be expected. Truth is often stranger than fiction, but movies are predicated upon myth making and the escapism of fantasy. Mainstream cinema, being comfortable with formulaic tendencies, prefers to shape historic people, places, and events into a template.
The keen sense of agony and dystopia is heightened in All the President's Men compared to the likes of The Conversation and Three Days of the Condor, as it is based on recent dire news. Suddenly, films are no longer providing an alternate reality but an unpleasant reflection of society. Cinema, through intention or future retrospective analysis, has a way of reflecting the current sociological landscape.
In a 1975 Post story detailing the making of the film, it was revealed that nearly 200 desks at $500 apiece were purchased from the same firm that sold desks to the newspaper four years earlier. Furthermore, the desks were painted with the exact shade of color as the real-life Post office furniture.