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 Keywords:

Chicago Illinois | Lawyer | 1930s | Arrest | Suicide

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

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:

The film had a formal screening at the Kennedy Center, but members of both parties in the largely political audience were irritated by the film's unflattering depiction of not only Republicans such as Richard Nixon, but also Democrats such as the Kennedys and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Quotes:

Lionel McCoy: [sarcastically] Give my regards to the Wizard of Oz!

Movie Connections:

References Manhattan Melodrama (1934)

An Impressive Biopic Of The FBI's Notorious Director

In a well-crafted semi-documentary style, this film traces the career of John Edgar Hoover across the 48 years of his directorship of the FBI. The drama is interlarded with genuine news footage of key events, and as a whole the movie works well as a hybrid of fact and fiction. Broderick Crawford gives the performance of a lifetime as the pugnacious, jowly control freak with a vulnerable core. The essential contradictions of the man are cleverly exposed: the 'top cop' who never really was a policeman does not scruple to violate the constitution when it suits him, and the priggish crusader against moral laxity gets his quirky thrills listening to wiretaps of sexual liaisons. The casting is inspired. Quite apart from the marvellous Crawford, several Hollywood veterans turn in first-class performances - Dan Dailey is Hoover's sidekick Tolson, Jose Ferrer is the cynical McCoy, and Lloyd Nolan is impressive as the Attorney-General. Among the younger actors, William Jordan is convincing as John Kennedy, and Michael Parks' Robert Kennedy captures the vocal inflexions of the real man admirably: it is just a shame that the 'look' isn't quite right. Bobby was nothing if not clean-cut and athletic, and Parks plays him as a slightly dishevelled, shambling figure. Larry Cohen wrote, directed and produced the film, and his enthusiasm for the project occasionally leads him into error. Hoover is given too much credit (or blame) for the unravelling of Watergate. Where the film scores highly is in its depiction of the power struggle between the young intellectual Robert Kennedy and the declining but still formidable Hoover. The movie is also spot-on in showing how Hoover clung to office long after he had anything left to contribute. The politicians left him undisturbed because they feared him. Of the presidents and attorneys-general portrayed in the film, Nixon alone fails to emerge from the shadows. This can no doubt be explained by the fact that he was still alive in 1977: all the others were in their graves: dead men don't sue. There must have been a real temptation, when putting this film together, simply to trash Hoover as an unbalanced megalomaniac. Wisely, Cohen resists that pull, and shows his subject as a psychologically-deformed man who nevertheless believed that he was holding his country together and devoted his life to the cause. Hoover comes across as a cruel self-publicist, but also as a lonely man racked with hang-ups and inhibitions. He had no private life worth speaking of. He never married and was unwilling (or unable) to retire to a life of leisure. At one point in the film, his G-men describe him as a priest. And so he was - if you consider the guardianship of a nation's dirty linen to be a holy office.