Ich bin der Boss - Skandal beim FBI

Biopics that try to cover decades always fall into the trap of being a highlight reel of a long life. This picture suffers from that as well as choppy editing and a cheap look. The picture really comes together when Bobby Kennedy comes into the story. The first scene of Hoover and Kennedy together is the high point of the whole film. The dialogue and cat and mouse interplay between Broderick Crawford and Michael Parks just about redeem the film. Both turn in great performances in a film filled with reliable actors wasted in small roles. The Rip Torn subplot really doesn't go anywhere but just seems to provide an excuse for him to narrate the film. That said, a surprising amount of research went into this film, released just 5 years after Hoover's death.

I saw this film theatrically (in a revival) and was astonished. It was an attempt to turn Hoover into Citizen Kane, with the supposed "burning" of Hoover's secret files the equivalent of the burning of "Rosebud." Crawford does make an interesting Hoover - considering he was most famous for playing America's first TV cop in "Highway Patrol," seeing him play a deliberately abusive cop is fun. But he's the only actor who pulls off his part convincingly; the other actors look distracted, like they're worried that their paychecks might not clear. The script plods from event to event - blackmail on Roosevelt, Martin Luther King and others - and gets numbing. (The film came out before revelations that Hoover may have been a transvestite and homosexual - seeing Crawford in drag might have provided an extra kick.) Supposedly, this was filmed without official approval around the original FBI headquarters in Washington, which caused some official heat. But aside from that courage, you don't get the feeling of getting inside Hoover's life, which other movies have done. You get the feeling you're being told this story by a gossipy wife under the hair dryer in a salon.

Casting Broderick Crawford as Hoover was a stroke of genius on the part of the casting director of this film. He's perfect for the part. He brings out the gruffness and arrogance of the character, while simultaneously showing the insecure, low self-esteem inner man that Hoover is portrayed as being.

We see him first as a young idealist, working in the Justice Department, wanting to protect the legal rights of immigrants and fighting the internal corruption of the FBI in the 1920's. Then he becomes the "Top Cop" of the nation and a publicity seeker with the help of Walter Winchell. And finally as an old man jeolously guarding his power and firmly entrenched in the political system. But more importantly, we see the dual nature of his morality: on the one hand, his fastidious approach to sexuality and his ego crushing sensitivity to his own unattractiveness; and on the other hand, his sessions-------bottle in hand--------listening to the sexual encounters on FBI surveillance tapes.

The film is not without humor, however. Look for a scene about disposing of a fly in Hoover's office.

In some ways, a waxworks of a film with actors looking and sounding like famous political leaders, but more importantly a record------part fact, part fiction------of a very complex man, who's personality and inner demons helped to form the concept of justice in the American public's mind from the 1930's until his death.

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.

Larry Cohen's biopic of the man who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a staccato, star-studded affair. It covers his professional life from the Palmer Raids - played by James Wainwright - to the older man - played by Broderick Crawford - as the evolution of a man from a rights-obsessed young lawyer, into an older man, jealous of his public image and power, willing to blackmail politicians and fire men who wear too-flashy ties.

Given the length of Hoover's career (52 years in total), it turns into a highlights in history affair, with long gaps. Not only are the six years between the Palmer Raids and his appointment as Bureau Director ignored, but almost twenty years between the beginning of US involvement with the Second World War and the Kennedy administration.

It has a large number of older actors, which should please fans of old movies. Its cast includes Jose Ferrer, Celeste Holm, Dan Dailey (in his last movie), Howard Da Silva, June Havoc, and Lloyd Nolan. They certainly add a luster to the production, as do the old automobiles on the streets in the early scenes, and scenes shot on actual location around Washington D.C. However, the vast array of incidents allows little depth in the story. Perhaps a mini-series is called for, if anyone still cares.