Trailer Watch: A GOP Wife Stands Up to Nixon in “The Martha Mitchell Effect” Short Doc

Trailers

Trailer Watch: A GOP Wife Stands Up to Nixon in “The Martha Mitchell Effect” Short Doc

“I do say what I please,” Martha Mitchell declares via archival footage in the new trailer for “The Martha Mitchell Effect.” From directors Anne Alvergue and Debra McClutchy, the documentary short is the story of a Republican cabinet wife who “was once as famous as Jackie O. And then she tried to take down a President,” as the official logline puts it. Martha’s husband, John N. Mitchell, was Richard Nixon’s Attorney General — but that didn’t stop her from blowing the whistle on Watergate and publicly calling for the president’s resignation.

“This man knew what was going on,” Martha Mitchell says of Nixon in the spot. “He was negligent in being president.” Tricky Dick didn’t take kindly to the criticism. “It wasn’t that the president didn’t like women,” we’re told, “he didn’t like loud women.” To subdue this particular loud woman, he and his cronies framed her as crazy and sick in the press.

But Mitchell wouldn’t keep quiet — and Nixon couldn’t avoid a comeuppance. “If I have something on my mind, I’m not going out and yellin’ to anybody, unless I believe it’s what should be said,” Mitchell states.

Mitchell’s fight to tell the truth and hold Nixon accountable is also the subject of the Starz series “Gaslit,” starring Julia Roberts. New episodes premiere Sundays.

“The Martha Mitchell Effect” was edited by Alvergue. Her other work as an editor includes “The Business of Birth Control” and “Love, Gilda.” McClutchy served as co-producer on doc projects “A Body of Language” and “The Booksellers.”

“The Martha Mitchell Effect” premieres June 17 on Netflix. Beth Levison (“Storm Lake”) and Judith Mizrachy (“The Booksellers”) produced.