Washington: Behind Closed Doors

I watched this series when it first came out nearly half a century ago and decided to watch it again after seeing it was on Youtube. "Washington: Behind Closed Doors" is based on a novel written by former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman about a fictional version of that Administration. Although all the names are changed and there are some differences with the events as they unfolded during the real Nixon Administration, anyone familiar with that era wouldn't have too much trouble associating the characters with their real-world counterparts. The authoritarian instincts of the President Richard Monckton (played by Jason Robards) are especially pertinent given current events.

Interestingly, either because it was considered a work of fiction or it had a limited budget, the series makes no attempt to replicate the background of the real early Nixon years. The scenery, the fashions, the cars, and the music in the series are very much those of 1977, the year of the series release.

Another commenter asked why there was a second series, as this one omits events from the last couple years of Nixon's tenure. Apparently, a second season was planned, but according to an interview with lead actor Robert Vaughn some years later, the audience was sufficiently large to justify a second series.

I watched this mini series when it was first aired on UK TV and I'm amazed it's never been released either on video or latterly on DVD. Robert Vaughn is superb in his role as a sinister 'background' character to the downward spiralling president.

Jason Robards, in one of his better acted roles, is also very believable as the president who is initially tarnished, then eventually dethroned by corruption.

I think the time has come for another generation to enjoy this excellent production - I can't imagine why it's never even been aired again by any of the major TV companies.

So therefore - please somebody - get it out on DVD!!!

I just had to put a post up about this show, which I have recently watched for about the sixth time. With all the wonderful TV that is made these days, I don't think that there has ever been a show that is more purely enjoyable (and I have been watching TV for over 50 years!).

I had actually read Erlichman's novel ("The Company") and found it a good tight little thriller, obviously using the JFK/LBJ/Nixon Presidencies as his template to tell a fictional tale.

I then saw this TV miniseries in 1977 when I was working in New York, and again back in England a year later when it was shown over here. BBC then showed it again in 1994 when I had the good sense to videotape it (good old VHS), a tape I have kept and pull out every five years or so to watch again. And I love it every time.

The brilliant stroke the writers of the show pulled was to take the book and expand it, to make a full-on comedy drama of the Nixon White House.

And the casting and the story lines are astonishingly entertaining.

Cliff Robertson (the notional hero) is OK, but he has the boring part and has to introduce "The Macguffin", which in this story is the fate of "The Primula Report".

The real fun is the political shenanigans of Senator/President Monckton (Nixon) and his appalling crew.

There are so many good performances (especially Jason Robards as Monckton, but also Andy Griffiths, John Houseman, Harold Gould etc)), but the two "tours des force" are Robert Vaughn as Flaherty and, above all, Nicholas Pryor as Hank Ferris. And the scenes between the two of them are priceless; ("Loyalty Hank, loyalty").

Pryor is amazing. Playing this frightened, ambitious, corrupt little man; the hoops he puts himself through are both hilarious and unutterably painful. The sequence where he inadvertently reveals the levels of corruption going on at The Whitehouse and is dragged over to Flaherty's office thinking he is going to be exposed is, quite simply a comic masterpiece.

And I think this is the point where I diverge from the other, very laudatory, posts on this page.

Those that remember it and have seen it, love it, but their comments are all too serious. In large part this show is a comedy. Not a comedy of jokes and "bits", but a comedy of manner, of wit. The sheer appalling behaviour of the main characters is breathtaking, but you can't help rooting for them. They are all going to get their comeuppance, but it's so much fun watching them do it.

This is a pizza and coke show, par excellence. In fact it's a soap opera, but none the worse for that. The filming technique is very dated; there are so many zoom shots and "dah dah dah" moments, it sometimes feels like an episode of Dallas, but that all adds to the fun.

In short I defy anyone who starts watching it not to be totally hooked.

I only wish they had made a sequel where we could have seen them all crash and burn (with perhaps, against all the odds, Hank actually surviving!!).

This is the Nixon Whitehouse with the expletives deleted, but somehow manages to be just as menacing and obscene, thanks to the acting of Jason Robarts and Robert Vaughn and other excellent actors. But Nicholas Pyor (Hank Ferris) as the weak, ambitious, amoral, eternally scared director of communications is a masterful piece of acting. He is alternately scared, full of hubris and fragile self-confidence, willing to do anything to please his bosses,then self-doubting. He deserved an Oscar. It is indeed a comic performance and a comedy of manners as another reviewer rightly pointed out. One blemish is that the women all seem hopelessly weak and fickle. Sally Whalen breaks her own rule about not getting involved with a married man and then lives to regret it. The girl with the strangely intense blue eyes (whose name I forget) falls hopelessly for the philandering Roger Castle and seems unable for far too long to see him for what he is. Again, Hank Ferris's inept attempts emulate Castle are wonderfully realized. The real Nixon was somewhat more complex than the TV drama manages to portray. For example, the scene where President Monkton goes out the talk to the Vietnam War protesters is portrayed as a scheme got up by the Pryor character as a cynical ploy, whereas in reality it was Nixon's own idea, it took place at night when he was unable to sleep and obviously, within his own rather severe limitations, sincere. Perhaps it was thought that to portray that would obscure the main theme of the drama. Truth often does. Not much to put against the tens of thousands of deaths in Vietnam and Cambodia, but he was not quite as one-sided as the fictional version. And at last the series is available on DVD, via Amazon.com.

I saw this mini series in 1994, when the BBC was running a series of programmes to mark the twentieth anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation.

This may be fiction,but it's all thinly disguised in the same way that "Primary Colors" is.

It is amazing. Jason Robards is great as Monckton, the Nixon-type President.A mass of contradictions:arrogant,ruthless, devious and yet eager to make history.Cliff Robertson plays a CIA director who realises that this type of President in the Oval Office is a danger to democracy.There is a great role for Robert Vaughn as the Haldeman figure.This is a far cry from The West Wing and Commander in Chief.This is a White House staffed by men who are utterly ruthless in the pursuit of power.Idealism does not exist in this world,only cynicism.Spying on so-called enemies is standard procedure.

If you've read "All the President's Men" or "The Final Days", then you will recognise the characters being portrayed.

Would love to get a copy on DVD.