The Nation: Casting a Melodrama

You've read the transcripts; now see the movie. So goes the current parlor game, "Watergate, Soon to Be Made into a Major Motion Picture." Most casting choices tend to be inspired but impractical — President Nixon played by the shade of a Captain Queeg-ish Humphrey Bogart (they were all "dishloyal officersh"), or Jeb Magruder impersonated by the late Montgomery Clift. Properly, the ground rules should exclude all but those actors available for two months of work, plus a renewable option for the TV-series spinoff. Let those who are without guilt stone the first cast:

John...

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