The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover: A Review

THE PRIVATE FILES OF J. EDGAR HOOVER

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Jose Ferrer.

J. Edgar Hoover was in life feared by the most powerful men in government. J. Edgar Hoover is in death mocked as a closeted cross-dresser. The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, made five years after the FBI Director's death, has a very titillating title. While a bit haphazard, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover manages a balance between the idea of a dedicated lawman and a paranoid tyrant.

J. Edgar Hoover (Broderick Crawford) is dead. With that, there is almost a mad rush to get to the FBI headquarters where Hoover kept files detailing the various misdeeds, public and private, of the Washington elite. There is a similar rush to shred these files and keep them out of anyone's hands. 

From here, we get narration by Dwight Webb (Rip Torn), an FBI agent whose father also worked for the Bureau of Investigation as the agency began. Young John Edgar Hoover (James Wainwright) is a mere clerk who wants to clean up the most corrupt government body in Washington, D.C. He also is particular about keeping to the law and having everything in writing. He is displeased at how radical immigrants are having their legal rights ignored. It is not that he cares about these Commies. He rather detests them. It is the violation of the law that irks him.

Nevertheless, he is dead-set on reforming the now-Federal Bureau of Investigation into a model agency. No drinking, non-payment of debts or easy sexual practices will be tolerated. Anyone going outside Hoover's strict personal and moral code will be shunted off until he quits or retires unenthusiastically. Surprisingly, Hoover is opposed to President Franklin Roosevelt's (Howard da Silva) plan to arrest and imprison Japanese Americans. Again, it is the legality of arresting people who have committed no crime that upsets him, not any specific favor for Japanese Americans or their civil rights.

Hoover has his courtiers as he amasses greater power. Despite his initial opposition to wiretaps, Hoover now uses FDR's tacit approval of tapping Americans to listen in on all sorts of subversives and perverts. He is enraged when Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (Michael Parks) puts him in his place. However, with his loyalists Clyde Tolson (Dan Dailey) and Frank McCoy (Jose Ferrer), Hoover knows his way around the swamp. He does not know his way around women, even the ones who throw themselves at him.

Will Hoover keep control and continue being the power behind the throne of seven Presidents? Will Webb single-handedly beat Hoover to stay at the FBI on his own terms?

It is almost impossible to look at J. Edgar Hoover through a clear perspective. You either love the man or despise him. The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover I found almost surprisingly sympathetic to Hoover. The image, at least in the early section, was of a by-the-book administrator who had a high moral, ethical and aesthetic standard he expected everyone to follow. He, for example, is appalled that Rule 22 is not being observed for foreigners with Communist links. They may be Commies, but proper procedure should be followed at all times.

It is once his power grows that Hoover becomes more arrogant and tyrannical. "I'm not gettable", Hoover growls to his frenemy Joseph McCarthy (George D. Wallace). He refuses to help Walter Winchell (Lloyd Gough) in getting his press credentials back even after Winchell's decades-long help in promoting him and the FBI. His assistant, McCoy, is pretty much thrown out when McCoy suggests that the aging Hoover should retire. Nevertheless, it is reflective of Hoover's power that those like McCoy continue to stay loyal, if not to him to the FBI. To Hoover's mind, they are sinonimous.

Broderick Crawford is an interesting choice to play the FBI director. I think physically, he is wrong. Crawford is a massive, beefy figure, whereas Hoover was a small, stout one. Crawford however has some wonderful moments in writer/director Larry Cohen's screenplay. A scene where he recites Rudyard Kipling's poem The Dirty Road shows someone determined to "hold on", making when he repeats the poem in the privacy of his office quite moving, even terrifying in Hoover's growing paranoia.  

Rip Torn is a surprising choice for Dwight Webb, the man whose determination to keep his job and position will not be thwarted by Hoover's dictatorial manner. I barely recognized him and found him effective in the role, even if I could have done without the voiceover. It is unfortunate that roles like Ferrer's McCoy and Dailey's Tolson were made smaller, almost disjointed. We do get the whispers of whether Hoover was gay, but they seemed to come more from a sense that such rumors would irritate and anger Hoover more than whether they were accurate. 

One element that elevates The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover is Miklos Rosza's score. You wouldn't think Rosza would go for something so low-rent as this. His music actually seems too good for the project, but it is well-crafted.

The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover does suffer a bit by trying to cover the length of Hoover's tenure of 48 years. A good amount of time was spent in the Kennedy Administration, where both Parks and William Jordan as President John F. Kennedy struggled with their Massachusetts accents. If perhaps the film had focused more on the RFK/JEH battle, it would have worked better. A nice moment is when Attorney General Kennedy suggests the FBI could use more "negro" agents. Hoover cooly points out that there are five "negroes" on the FBI payroll, to which Kennedy equally cooly replies that they are Hoover's chauffers. 

The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, I think, suggests something lurid will be discovered within them. The film we saw was one where Hoover was not at least initially a bad man. He did bring about needed reform and professionalism to the agency. He also was not above breaking the law to get the results he needed. Mildly entertaining, it is a passable portrait of a highly controversial figure, a bureaucrat turned autocrat.  

1895-1972

DECISION: C+