Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat
in "All the President's Men" (1976)
Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) goes into a parking garage late at night. The place is empty and dark and quiet. He's there to meet somebody. He stops, waits, looks around, sees nothing. Then a sound, a voice, a word you can't quite make out. Woodward looks, but, still, nothing. Then the sound of a cigarette lighter. A small, orange flame. In the shadows, next to a concrete pillar. Somebody's there. The lighter flicks off. And a closeup. A face, shrouded in darkness. Wary, watchful eyes. Like an owl. Or a ghost. The darkness suits this guy. It's where he operates. It's where he belongs. The man is Deep Throat, Woodward's deep-cover government source in the Watergate investigation. The actor playing him is Hal Holbrook.
Holbrook famously played Mark Twain on stage for over 50 years, but the centerpiece of his legacy onscreen is this man in the shadows, this nocturnal entity, a mystery within a mystery, a face you barely see.
Redford produced the movie. He and Dustin Hoffman are the stars, and the cast, from top to bottom, is solid. But for the handful of minutes he's on the screen, there in the parking garage, the actor you can't look away from is the one who's almost invisible, eyes peering out of the dark. Hal Holbrook. Deep Throat.
