The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977)

Director:

Larry Cohen

Writer:

Larry Cohen (written by)

Release Date:

December 1977 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama

Tagline:

The files that escaped the shredder have become an incredible motion picture. From the Kennedys to Martin Luther King. From cab drivers to Congressmen. From housewives to hostesses. He had something on 58 million people. It was all in his files. Now you can see how he used it.

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Restaurant | Gay Slur | 1920s | Chicago Illinois | Suicide

Cast

Broderick Crawford	...	J. Edgar Hoover
James Wainwright	...	Young Hoover
Michael Parks	...	Robert F. Kennedy
José Ferrer	...	Lionel McCoy
Celeste Holm	...	Florence Hollister
Rip Torn	...	Dwight Webb
Dan Dailey	...	Clyde Tolson
Ronee Blakley	...	Carrie DeWitt (as Roneé Blakley)
Howard Da Silva	...	Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt
John Marley	...	Dave Hindley
Michael Sacks	...	Melvin Purvis
Raymond St. Jacques	...	Martin Luther King
June Havoc	...	Hoover's Mother
Lloyd Nolan	...	Attorney General Harlan Stone
Andrew Duggan	...	Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson

Runtime:

USA:112 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:PG | Spain:13

Filming Locations:

Renaissance Mayflower Hotel - 1127 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Company:

Larco Productions

Trivia:

This was Jack Cassidy's final film, issued one year after his death at age 49.

Movie Connections:

References Manhattan Melodrama (1934)

Absolute Power Corrupts

That particular phrase from Lord Acton about absolute power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely is always the one that brings to mind J. Edgar Hoover and his Federal Bureau of Investigation. And it's altogether fitting and proper we should describe the FBI as his, seeing as how he ran it for 48 years and under 8 presidents.

I am glad that they showed that Hoover came into the Bureau as a reformer. It was a patronage cesspool under previous directors, in fact it had existed for 17 years before J. Edgar Hoover took over and had four previous directors. Hoover did do those kinds of reforms, made it a merit based agency given his ideas of what was meritorious. He set up a national fingerprint data base, something one can't conceive of in law enforcement now. And certainly the FBI did do yeoman service in apprehending and eliminating some of the well known gangsters of the twenties and thirties.

If Hoover had retired in 1945 with the close of World War II his historic reputation would be just about where it was in 1945. Sad to say he didn't, he got heady with power because he had dirt on everybody who was anybody in any field you want to name. That's intoxicating stuff.

I've never thought of Hoover as gay, a crossdresser or anything else in a sexual way. I think the man just had a low sex drive. A lot of that was rumors put about by enemies. He certainly made a legion of them. If power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, than Hoover never tasted those kind of rewards.

Broderick Crawford does a good job as the implacable and austere Hoover, however the film is essentially a one dimensional look at a most complex man. If Hoover was gay, his relationship with Clyde Tolson is handled most discreetly even five years after Hoover died.

This turned out to be the farewell film performance of Dan Dailey who played Tolson. Tolson apparently could smooth a lot of Hoover's rough edges out and on at least one occasion the film shows Tolson saving the publicity minded Hoover from a real public relations disaster.

A lot of familiar players dot the cast of The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover so if you're a stargazer you'll like the film. Still Hoover's long and varied career over some tumultuous American history requires a better study than this.