Secret Honor (1984) Robert Altman, Philip Baker Hall

Secret Honor (1984) Robert Altman, Philip Baker Hall-poster
In this speculative one-man drama, we see former President Richard Milhous Nixon alone in his study, dictating his thoughts into a tape recorder. His only company are a four-screen closed-circuit TV setup, the portraits on the walls, a bottle of Chivas Regal – and a loaded pistol. At times addressing an imaginary judge in a court of public opinion, at other times speaking to an aide named Roberto, and sometimes just talking to himself, the former chief executive reflects, in a series of meandering monologues, on his humble Quaker upbringing, his school days, his family and a political career that reached all the way to the White House. Nixon rails at his treatment by the likes of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the “goddam Kennedys,” J. Edgar Hoover, Henry Kissinger, Jews, liberals, the media, “East Coast shits,” among others, as he leads up to the “true” reasons for the Watergate scandal that resulted in his resignation – an act he regards as one of “secret honor.”