Mike Wallace Is Here

MIKE WALLACE IS HERE are words you don’t want to hear if you are a crook or are trying to get away with something for much of the past half-century. But his reputation as a feared, provocative interviewer was not easily gained. This film navigates Wallace’s path through the early, experimental days of television with work on game shows, a string of advertising gigs, and finally programs that featured a groundbreaking interview style with Eleanor Roosevelt, Salvador Dali, and Gloria Swanson. He struggled to be taken seriously in CBS’s Walter Cronkite newsroom as he faced personal struggles and insecurities that he worked diligently to conceal. The 1968 offer to serve as a correspondent on a new but untested type of investigative project, 60 Minutes, was a turning point. While the show wasn't an immediate success, stories about Watergate and the Vietnam War helped it gain traction and ultimately become the most-watched news magazine on television. Wallace aggressively interrogated figures such as U.S. Army General William Westmoreland, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, and Russia’s Vladmir Putin throughout the decades. And he fought his CBS bosses when they shelved his explosive interview with tobacco industry insider, Jeffrey Wigand. All the while, he suffered from depression and finally relented to a question from Morley Safer, sharing a dark secret later in his career. This film is a must-see for anyone interested in the media and its evolution since the early years of Edward R. Murrow, Helen Thomas, and Max Robinson. – Patrick Shepherd