The Private Files of J Edgar Hoover

Yikes! Several regular contributors to this blog pointed out this gap in my Larry Cohen appreciation tip, so tracking down this political thriller/biopic from 1977 has been on the cards for a while; Cohen’s horror and sci-fi films often have a political nous to them, and it’s certainly an unusual film in that it lays bare Cohen’s own unique take on various public figures. The Private Files of J Edgar Hoover wasn’t a hit in the day, and to this date has accumulated a measly three critical reviews on RT, but it’s a pertinent work by a significant, individual film-maker, and there’s certainly enough going on to merit a reappraisal.

Hoover was head of the FBI for almost five decades, and so Cohen gets to pick and choose what incidents to cover from a large chuck of history. That means we see Hoover’s involvement with everyone from Dillinger, who we see gunned down outside a movie theatre, to Martin Luther King, who is the victim of Hoover’s careless use of wire-taps. Other notables portrayed include Damon Runyon, Franklin D Roosevelt, Walter Winchell and Lyndon B Johnson, although Hoover’s mother isn’t even given a name; as played by June Havoc, she’s just Hoover’s Mother. Such vagueness is characteristic of the evasive portrayal of Hoover’s private life; an opening scene indicates Hoover’s lack of interest in women, but his close association with FBI director Clyde Tolson (Dan Dailey) isn’t seen in a sexual way. Hoover’s story comes all the way up to Watergate and beyond, although Cohen’s suggestion that Hoover’s influence was key to Nixon’s fall seems rather fanciful.

With such a huge canvas, and many legal traps within, Cohen is stretched out of his comfort zone with the material of Hoover’s life, but sections of this film spark, notably the conflict between Hoover and Robert Kennedy. Played by Michael Parks in a dishevelled yet charismatic way that’s far from his public image, Robert Kennedy is a key figure in US history, who never gets a film of his own; this is one of the more striking evocations. Otherwise, the main character who we get to understand intimately is Hoover himself; we get that the lack of self-esteem he harbours entails those around him having their lives investigated.

The Private Files of J Edgar Hoover turns out to be rather less salacious than we might hope; we see Hoover pleasuring himself while he listens to the minutiae of sexual behaviour via wire-tap information, but it hardly seems shocking to reveal that the Kennedy brothers had various flings. Cohen’s film is never dull, largely due to a roll-call of crazy cameos from old-timers, Celeste Holm, Jose Ferrer, Rip Torn, Lloyd Nolan and more all contribute bits, and Broderick Crawford makes an appropriately stuffy grown-up Hoover. Filmed in FBI headquarters without the permission of the FBI, this is the kind of unofficial, speculative film that simply wouldn’t be made now, or indeed at any time over the last fifty years. This isn’t history, but it does offer some insights into the reign of Hoover and raises a few questions about how the FBI can and still might be bent to service political motives that don’t benefit the public. Moral rot starts at the top, even for a cold fish like J Edgar; Cohen’s film at least asks the right questions, even if the answers remain REDACTED.