All the President's Men (Archive)

17:54Josh Larsen:His face, but also just I let out a— Yes. You know, and that is, let me be clear about this, Adam. I was never an investigative journalist, okay? But I did do my share of real reporting at the beginning of my career. Kind of the deal with the devil I had to make when I went to my local town newspaper, said, I want to write movie reviews. You don't have movie reviews. Don't you desperately need movie reviews? And the editor was like, yeah, sure, kid. But you know what? You're going to have to go cover the local school board for me first. Then I'll let you write a movie review. So one school board meeting, one movie review.

18:28Josh Larsen:That guy, his name was Rich Parmener. He's no longer with us, but he was like basically the Ben Bradley of weekly suburban newspapers. I mean, he was so old school, so intense. To him, a story about like water rates was Watergate. I mean, it was high stakes in his mind. So anyway, that's kind of where I spent a year or two doing that stuff, making the phone calls, getting hung up on, knocking on enough doors to, you know, get exactly what you needed. And it was never in my blood. Like I knew how to do that and I could do it. I wasn't as passionate about it as I was about movies, obviously, but just remembering those experiences and going on to work in larger newsrooms where there were real reporters, two deaths over, and I could hear them making those calls to bigger politicians and knowing what was going on, it was such a thrill to be reimmersed in that.

19:23Josh Larsen:And I think a part of it is just the fact that, and here we can move to the craft, it's so tactile. It's so carefully observed. It's so knowing and it's so analog. I mean, I think it is crucial that this movie came out and is capturing a time that was pre-digital for the most part, because it really just emphasized, not that it's necessarily, quote unquote, easier to do this kind of work now, but you've got a lot more tools and there are a lot more resources than having to go into the, you know, here's another thing that I just chuckled at when Woodward has to go down to the library and pull out the phone books, the actual phone books.

20:05Josh Larsen:I actually said to Sophie, have you ever actually even used a phone book? Exactly. And that was part of the work. That was part of the job. So, yeah, this is just such a joy to watch. And speaking of the newsroom, here's where you're right in how you describe all the president's men as being restrained in terms of filmmaking and not flashy. But this is a movie that uses multiple split diopter shots. Oh, yeah. We're going to get there. And most of them are of Woodward just working on the phone. I think there's one of him in a phone booth as well, a payphone booth outside. But most of them are at his desk.

20:41Josh Larsen:And then he's in focus in the foreground. And then in the background is that newsroom in focus. The people, the other phones, the piles of paper on the desks. And for me, that not only provided this tactile context I'm talking about, but it also captured the laser focus you got to have if you're on deadline. Just absolute laser focus. There might be a bigger story going on behind you. And I think there is a split diopter shot where I don't remember exactly what it is, but everyone else in the newsroom is gathered around a television. That story at that point was probably bigger than the one Woodward was working on.

21:15Josh Larsen:But for him, it doesn't matter. Your story, the one that's due in 20 minutes, is the biggest story of your life. And the split diopter shot captures that intensity in just an amazing way that is not flashy, but so crucial. Yeah.

21:32Adam Kempenaar:And I know there are people out there listening right now who probably work in newsrooms and are journalists, and maybe they will completely contradict me on this. But it occurs to me, Josh, that as you talk about the analog world of all the president's men, I wonder how different the Washington Post newsroom in 1972 and 1974 was compared to the Washington Post newsroom now, a world in which we're all texting all the time, in which we're communicating even in the office when we're a few feet from each other via Slack or some other platform. So that all ties back to me to another aspect of the craft here, which is how sensory it is and the use of sound.

22:14Adam Kempenaar:And let's go ahead and give credit. I didn't know this until I looked it up today. It won the Oscar for best sound mixing in 1977. Arthur Plantadosi, Dick Alexander, Les Frescholtz. what a remarkable job with this movie because all it does is just kind of hum in the background sometimes more noticeable than others but it's always there just adding tension you're leaning in to hear it those sounds evoke the anxiety the characters are feeling i'm thinking even of like the sounds in the courtroom when woodward goes and he's bugging the guy the lawyer who says he's Not really there. It's still great.

23:22Mr. Starkey, do you have any... Whatever you want, you'll have to get from him.

23:28Adam Kempenaar:I have nothing more to say. The way they shoot the moments when the judge is talking and when the burglars come before him is from their point of view. So we can't really hear what's being said. It's not like a traditional kind of courtroom movie shot. So again, we just kind of hear the process play out. We hear those courtroom sounds. The sounds of the burglars going about their work, like I mentioned earlier, the slips of paper at the Library of Congress as the camera elevates and we see them overhead and we see how kind of diminished they are by the scope of this and the work. But you hear very prominently in the soundtrack every slip of paper that they are going through, even in the parking garage.

24:13Adam Kempenaar:Not only are you so attuned, of course, to any sounds because you become as paranoid as Deep Throat and Woodward are. There's also a great moment coming out of that Library of Congress scene. And we could just spend the whole review talking about moments like this. But there is, as that camera elevates up, this kind of droning sound. It starts to feel like the pressure is mounting a little bit. It's kind of ominous. And then we see them emerge from the door.

24:43Josh Larsen:They pull the cars.

24:44Adam Kempenaar:The music stops. It cuts immediately. And it just makes you feel instantly like they've emerged from some kind of hibernation, right? Or they've been lost to the world searching down this lead and they couldn't find it. And in that moment, they erupt from the door. But it's just subtle moments like that with the sound design that make this movie so special.

25:03Josh Larsen:That first example you gave of the courtroom, which comes fairly early on, Woodward seeing the defendants line up and not being able to hear them. That's a great journalistic detail, too, because he grabs his notepad. He knows he needs this. He desperately needs this. He turns his head to hear it. He can't. And that was another thing that was like just such a flashback. Whenever you were there and someone was speaking and that was your one shot to get the information you needed. And it captures that desperation so well. The sound of the movie, though, Adam, the defining sound of all the president's men, the typewriters.

25:38Josh Larsen:Of course. And that is, you know, just that is a suspense thing, too. You almost don't need a soundtrack of music soundtrack in this film, because when people are typing, the speed with which they're typing captures all the suspense and the momentum that you need. and we get that so many times here. And that's a marker of the eras when you were talking about what does the post newsroom look like now compared to then. I mean, that's a key turning point is when the typewriters left the room. And the weekly I worked at had them. When I went to a bigger paper just a year or two later, didn't have them.

26:17Josh Larsen:And it was a bigger newsroom, but it was a quieter one. And so that goes back to the idea of sound design. And that's just so defining when I think of all the president's men is that clacking in the background.

26:28Adam Kempenaar:So you mentioned one of these already. I think there are two, at least two, just magical scenes in All the President's Men. One that I'm sure has been and will continue to be studied in film school and one that probably has been overlooked, but to me is almost as brilliant. And I'll start with that one. They actually follow each other in the movie. The one that is less obvious is the editor's meeting. There's two of them where Bradley and the other section editors are going through the rundown of what articles they've got. They're deciding how they're going to lay out the paper, what the top stories are going to be.

27:05Adam Kempenaar:And the first one is an extended one. And there is something about it, Josh, in terms of the crosstalk, you know, the overlapping dialogue there, the camaraderie that they have, the ease that the actors, that the men in that scene have with each other.

27:19Josh Larsen:I was having lunch at the San Suu Kyi. Oh, this White House guy, a good one, a pro, came up and asked, what is this Watergate compulsion with you guys? Compulsion? This is a story. This is not compulsion. I said, well, we think it's important. And he said, if it's so goddamn important, who in the hell are Woodward and Bernstein? Now, what do you expect him to say from the White House? You're doing a great job. Yeah. Why don't you ask him what he's really saying?

27:46Adam Kempenaar:I truly think it's a masterclass of performance and film directing because watching it, I feel as if they did somehow without trying to ape a documentary style. There's nothing about it that is suggesting it's a documentary. And yet it feels to me like what it almost surely could have been like if they had dropped a camera back into that newsroom. And I don't know how you you get that. I don't know how you can suggest that sense of a shared experience among those people without probably at minimum a lot of rehearsal. Right. But even with all that rehearsal, you still got to pull it off. And it blows me away every time I watch it.

28:26Josh Larsen:Honestly, it's got to be one of the two opposite directions. Right. It's got to be just extreme rehearsal to the point of them being able to do it in their sleep and then just going out and doing it. Or it's got to be like, here's what we want you guys to talk about and where we need to get to in this scene. Have at it. And it's completely improvised. Now, I think it's probably closer to the former than the latter, given what we know about the film. But still, yeah, it's just an astonishing example of realism. And every performance is like that. It is. You know, I mean, you could say that maybe the one performance that stands out a little bit to this regard is Hoffman's as Bernstein.

29:02Josh Larsen:But it's hard to say that because Bernstein is supposed to be kind of a jumpy guy, right? Yes. It's part of his character that makes him seem a little less quote-unquote realistic. But Redford is so naturalistic here, just so at ease in this every-guy-reporter skin that you forget how good-looking he is because he manages to play that down without playing a part where he needs makeup or to look slovenly or anything. He just comes across as this guy who wants to do his job. Part of it is maybe the impatience he shows as Woodward, too, that I think is like he's not trying to be a dreamboat. He has no time for chit-chat when he's on the phone, whereas Bernstein's more of a cajoler.

29:51Josh Larsen:That's kind of his style, is let's be friends. I'm going to get this information out of you. And Woodward is like, I'm going to be persistent. I'm just going to keep at it, go at it until I get that tidbit that I need. But it is just such a naturalistic performance by Redford that I think is a hallmark really of almost every other performance in the film. Yeah.

30:10Adam Kempenaar:And the other magic scene I was going to talk about here is probably Redford's best showcase in the entire film. You already mentioned the key moment in terms of him just praying to himself that the guy on the other end of the line will actually finish the sentence after saying, I probably shouldn't say this. But it's also that split diopter scene, the most noticeable one that you were referencing. And you said, Josh, that there's stuff happening in the background that is probably more important. But there's a reason why Pakula and Gordon Willis give this scene and that moment the attention it deserves, because this is where it does all converge.

30:52Adam Kempenaar:And the story that justifies the whole movie finally takes shape. So for people who don't know, and this is another case where you can kind of connect Jaws to all the president's men, right, in terms of a famous use of a split diopter, not that there aren't other many examples in cinema history, but a diopter shot simply kind of gives you the best of both worlds in terms of shallow focus and deep focus. Instead of lighting it in a way and shooting it so that you see everything that's happening in the newsroom, it forces you as a viewer to still stay focused on what's in the foreground. So in this case, on the right side of the frame, even though it's kind of at a slant, you're just looking at Redford pretty much in medium close up.

31:37Adam Kempenaar:Everything behind him is out of focus. But everything that's to the left of the frame behind Redford is in sharp focus just like he is. That's because of the diopter. And people do all kind of surround this TV at one point. It's the press conference announcing that Eagleton is bowing out of the VP race. So this is the big news. And all of the real commotion occurs at the very moment Kenneth Dahlberg answers the phone. Hello?

32:07Josh Larsen:Could I please, Mr.

32:09Adam Kempenaar:Dahlberg? Yes. Kenneth Dahlberg? Yes. This is Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. and in terms of filmmaking it's such a great trick because it's simultaneously as a viewer distracts you which then forces you to pay further attention to what woodward is doing well to experience focus you're experiencing his distraction that that's it so you have to keep your focus on him you have to keep your focus on dahlberg just like woodward does and in some ways i think it's kind of a little bit of a joke on the audience because politics of course in america the real issue is that we're always distracted.

32:44Adam Kempenaar:The media is always distracted by the horse race, the gaffe, the personal failings, and not the corruption that might be actually occurring right in front of your face. This whole scene actually vividly portrays that, right? Because everybody in the newsroom is going crazy about Eagleton having to bow out this kind of scandal surrounding him. But the undoing of the presidency is happening in the moment. Kenneth Dahlberg says those words and then the master stroke of just so subtly reducing that depth of the shot focusing inch by inch even more on woodward until we are finally on him and close up it's a six minute scene it plays out over the course of six minutes one long take as you suggested redford is so brilliant and if the writing is brilliant it catches you so off guard even the dalberg line where he says, I've just been through a terrible ordeal.

33:37Josh Larsen:My neighbor's wife has been kidnapped. Well, how do you think your check got into Barker's account, though?

33:43Adam Kempenaar:He just keeps his eye on the prize, and he's not going to be distracted there. And then when Dahlberg hangs up and he calls Clark McGregor for a quote, you've got that other great Goldman bit, which maybe came from the book, where McGregor says, if you print that, our relationship will be over. And Woodward says, sir, we have no relationship. There's just these lines like that that really keep you on your toes and keep you laughing. And you mentioned Redford's kind of impatience. There's an urgency to it. He just keeps saying, well, what do you think it could be? He's trying to keep Dahlberg on the line.

34:15Adam Kempenaar:Keeps him talking. Keeps him talking. Yep. And it eventually does pay off. And that moment when he says it, I know I shouldn't be telling you this, Redford's muttering to himself and closing his eyes. Just the ultimate please God moment really is remarkable. And there are other subtle acting moments, too. When Dahlberg says stands, that's the moment that it now connects to the president. And at that very moment, Redford just kind of subtly looks up. You know, maybe just for a second, he looked down at his notes. And now when he says stands, he looks up and it's almost as if the camera had done a slow tilt in that moment.

34:51Adam Kempenaar:Only Redford does it for us where we go, OK, we now recognize fully the magnitude of this situation. And again, that's why I think this moment gets this treatment in the movie, because up to this point, they've come from the Library of Congress. They made all these phone calls. They're hitting every dead end. They don't seem to have a story. And it's only when Dahlberg says that, that then everything comes together. So of course, from a filmmaking point of view, Pakula heightens the intensity of it and the focus of it for us as viewers as well. Like I said, it's six minutes long, but it's got to be one of the most effective, but at the same time, modest long takes in cinema because it barely even registers as a long take because of all that activity in the foreground and the background, the bouncing between calls, the way it draws you to what is being said.

35:40Adam Kempenaar:and the consequences of those revelations is what keeps it from being about the Bravura cinema that it actually is.

35:49Josh Larsen:There's another moment that works similarly without that level of Bravura even. Different techniques, but it works similarly. It involves Hoffman. Interestingly, it's a red herring as opposed to this, you know, gold moment. And that is when Bernstein is on the phone trying to get one of those confirmations, you know, that Bradley keeps telling them they need multiple confirmations. Bernstein bristles at this, but he's doing the work. He's calling this guy on deadline, needs a confirmation. The guy won't name the name. So Bernstein lets out this game. Look, I'm going to count to 10, all right? If there's any reason we should hold on the story, hang up the phone before I get to 10.

36:26Josh Larsen:If the story's all right, you'll just be on the phone after I get to 10, all right? Hang up, right? That's right. You got it? Yeah. We're straight. All right, I'm going to start counting. Okay? We all right? Yeah. Okay, I'm counting. One. You know, you're confused. That's the point. What are you trying to do here? But we think, okay, the other guy understands. We're going to find out now if this gets confirmed. And Bernstein starts counting to 10. And what do we do here? No fancy camera work, no editing, stay right on Hoffman's face as he counts from one to 10. Now, you could, you know, cut away to create suspense.

37:03Josh Larsen:You could cut away to something else going on in the newsroom. And knowing that we as an audience, we just want to get back to that countdown. Come on. And elongate it, you know, between the counts of two and three, give us a couple of seconds of some other business so that we're impatient. And when we get back, we're still on three and we're like, come on. No, that's not the choice. nothing fancier than setting on this medium shot again of Bernstein's face as he's counting, waiting till we get to 10. And that's just an example of the restraint that all the president's men also knows how to employ when necessary, kind of gear shifting here, give us different, you know, ways of feeling that tension, feeling that suspense so it doesn't become overbearing or wear us out, keep us on our toes.

37:47Josh Larsen:And in this moment, it's by just being very simple and straightforward.

37:52Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, and maybe it's because I'd seen the movie enough times. I did grasp as confusing as it is the way Bernstein explains it. I was aware that if he got to 10 and the guy was still on the line, then that's good news for Bernstein. Sure. What happens then? What happens then is as he's counting slowly, but with some pace, you know, you're realizing the stakes.

38:16Josh Larsen:We all right? Yeah. Okay, I'm counting. One, two, three, four.

38:23Adam Kempenaar:Every time he counts, he's getting closer. Closer to what he wants, right. To what he wants, right? So then that urgency builds in you as well as a viewer. I was hyper aware of that this time. And we've talked a little bit about how good Redford is here. I think Hoffman is equally good, you're right, in a very different kind of performance. there are so many good ones here but we got to say something about jason robards as ben bradley

38:46Josh Larsen:all right hey what do you guys want the gao reports do out the morning of nixon's renomination hey sit down sit down well that's two weeks from now it's just early responsible to congress there is no way the white house can control the investigation there's a source over general accounting that tells us that there's a whole rat's nest of illegal going on over a creep Like what? Like a slush fund. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of unaccounted for cash. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Any comment from Creep? Yeah, it's unavailable for comment. They're not talking. But what else beside the money?

39:18Josh Larsen:Where's the goddamn story? Probably my favorite performance. I mean, really. I mean. The most enjoyable. The most enjoyable. The most enjoyable. Yeah. And how about the way he's introduced? How about the ratio to line to gold? Line to gold.

39:32Adam Kempenaar:Robards has it by a mile. Well, it's one to one. Exactly. That's why. Like, there's there is no ratio. That's how good this performance is and how good the writing is. How about the way he's even introduced? Just kind of classical Hollywood filmmaking where we only hear about Ben Bradley. We only see him in his office talking to other reporters. This is where the sound comes into play, where we can't hear what they're saying, which builds a little bit of suspense around him, a little bit of mystery. And then when he finally does come out and converse with our heroes as he takes the red pen to their story, I think that's the moment where we see him walk over and it's one of those great tracking shots through the newsroom.

40:15Adam Kempenaar:The camera is kind of just at a slight low angle, which gives him a little bit more even gravitas than he already has. And then that moment where he says to bury it inside and Hoffman gets so mad and Robards just turns his head and gives him a stern look. Oh, it's you see you see Hoffman like a seven year old boy just realize what he's done and get instantly quiet.

40:39Josh Larsen:Well, it's beyond one to one ratio because each look he gives in this movie is gold as well. He doesn't even need dialogue. No, he gives a couple of those stairs, those hard stairs, which is basically like this conversation has been over before you even started talking. Right. He's telling them.

40:56Adam Kempenaar:Well, and the way the movie takes note and the way we then take note as viewers of his mood and his reaction in response to things. When he says something like, where's the goddamn story? You see that that's the first time we've actually seen Bradley get mad. It's been building to that. Because he's been in a lot of conversations that we've been part of, like those editors meetings, where we know that he's starting to finally feel some heat. Woodward and Bernstein don't fully understand that, but he's starting to feel it. And it comes out just in an expression of anger like that. The tone of his voice, you know he's not messing around.

41:32Adam Kempenaar:And in those moments, they cut to Woodward and Bernstein's faces, and it's where they recognize that he's not messing around. Something has changed. The tenor of this has completely changed. The scene at the end, the whole thing about get in the bath 15 minutes, you screw up again, I'm going to get angry. I mean, what's better writing than that and better delivery of lines in all of movies? And I'll give you another one, even though there's probably 10 more. The Ken Clawson phone call. When Ken Clawson realizes what he's done and realizes the hole he's in and calls Ben Bradley to try to straighten it out.

42:08Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. And Robards plays it like he knows exactly what Ken Clawson is up to. He knows he's got him. He knows he can use this against him to get the the information that he wants. And the smile when he says Ken picks up the phone is just like he can't wait to give Clawson a little dig and manipulate him. It is truly one of my favorite performances ever. And thankfully, it didn't win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. God damn it, when is somebody going to go on the record in this story?

42:41Josh Larsen:You guys are about to write a story that says the former attorney general, the highest ranking law enforcement officer in this country, is a crook.

42:51Adam Kempenaar:Just be sure you're right.

42:53Josh Larsen:Yeah, he's a thrill. We should also probably say a few words about Holbrook with his passing. And, you know, one of the things that jumped out at me, I mentioned this to you already, but why was he younger than I remember? You know, I think of Holbrook as this, you know, older actor with the white hair and his, even his face here is just so young that jumped out at me. But also the key to this performance as Deep Throat is all for me in that final conversation, because what he's doing in the, in the previous ones, very effective, you know, in terms of leading us on and tantalizing, not giving us too much, just as he's not giving Woodward too much and playing that cool, but also mysterious.

43:34Josh Larsen:but it's that last conversation where he goes from this mesmerizing mystery man to a guy who's scared. You need to be specific. How high up?

43:48Josh Larsen:You're allowed to find that out for yourself. I don't like newspapers. I don't care for inexactitude and shallowness. that creep slush fund that financed the rat we've just about got that nailed down i don't know how that's when you know we start to realize as woodward does the level of what is at stake here not just for this story but for the nation for for the for a democracy really um and it's that little shift that Holbrook gives in the performance for the final scene that is building on everything he did in the previous scenes, but also doing something just slightly but crucially different.

44:39Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Another great supporting performance in this movie that offers similarly wonderful moments, Jane Alexander, the former secretary to Hugh Sloan, who they finally do cajole into talking to them and giving them a lot of good information. The look she gives when her sister offers Bernstein coffee. It's great. Like, what are you doing? I'm so trying to avoid every part of this. And you just asked him to stay and basically guaranteed he's going to be here five to ten minutes. And she's just so vulnerable and so scared. But she's also clearly indignant. I thought it was all legal. I mean, I guess I did until after the break-in when I remembered Gordon got so much of it.

45:25Josh Larsen:This is Mr. Liddy.

45:26Adam Kempenaar:It's also rotten. It's getting worse. And the only one I care about is Hugh Sloan. His wife was going to leave him if he didn't stand up and do what was right. So he quit.

45:42Josh Larsen:I was wondering if Hugh Sloan was being set up now as a fall guy for John Mitchell. What do you think?

45:56Josh Larsen:If you guys could get John Mitchell, that would be beautiful. You see the backbone. You see the backbone immediately.

46:03Adam Kempenaar:And so, again, to balance that complexity as an actress is really pretty amazing. But I think this whole discussion has been straight out of Wichita, Kansas. So we're going to wrap it up. The first film in our 7 from 76 series. I don't know if we've decided what the next film is, but as we are talking about movies from 1976, you can guarantee it will be a good one. All the President's Men is available to rent on demand on most platforms. If you agree or disagree with our takes, you can email us feedback at filmspotting.net. Josh, a Pantheon movie has now been discussed. Not many of them, but has been discussed in full here on FilmSpot.

46:42Adam Kempenaar:I don't know. Maybe we should do more Pantheon discussions.

46:51Adam Kempenaar:That's seven from 76 series plus eight from 84, Josh. Nine from 99. We talked about six from 67. Didn't get to it. We may have to revive this series. Maybe we could go the other way. We don't have to keep going back in time. But all of those are available in the FilmSpotting archive. you get access to that as a film spotting family member. We thank all of our members. And if you would like to join, you can learn more about doing that at film spotting family.com. Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

47:35Adam Kempenaar:Film spotting is listener supported. Join the Film Spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com and get access to ad-free episodes, monthly bonus shows, our weekly newsletter, and for the first time, all in one place, the entire Film Spotting archive going back to 2005. That's filmspottingfamily.com.

47:54Josh Larsen:Panoply. When segregation was a law, one mysterious black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald, had his own rules. Segregation in the day, integration at night. It was like stepping on another world. Was he a businessman? A criminal? A hero? Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. Charlie's Place, from Atlas Obscura and Visit Myrtle Beach. Listen to Charlie's Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On June 11th, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing. Hey, if they'll kill a cop and bury them, what are they going to do to me?

48:36Josh Larsen:What really happened to the missing deputy? Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert. Listen to Valley of Shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When segregation was a law, one mysterious black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald, had his own rules. Segregation in the day, integration at night. It was like stepping on another world. Was he a businessman? A criminal? A hero? Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. Charlie's Place, from Atlas Obscura and Visit Myrtle Beach.

49:21Josh Larsen:Listen to Charlie's Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Dahl. He thought up Willy Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, I'll tell you that story and much, much more.

49:38Adam Kempenaar:What?

49:39Josh Larsen:You probably won't believe it either.

49:41Adam Kempenaar:Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. I was a spy.

49:49Josh Larsen:Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.