Ich bin der Boss - Skandal beim FBI

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.

The story of the late J. Edgar Hoover, who was head of the FBI from 1924-1972. The film follows Hoover from his racket-busting days through his reign under eight U.S. presidents.

Writer-director Larry Cohen considers this his best film, and if nothing else, it certainly is ambitious. There are flaws. For one, it is more a summary of history than any real biopic, and has little meat. To tell this story properly, another hour would have had to be added -- if the viewer does not already know the history, much of this might be confusing.

We also get some strange impressions of the presidents. Franklin Roosevelt, in particular, seems pretty bizarre. But shortcomings aside, this is something of a definitive film about Hoover. If nothing else, all other films since had to either borrow or refute the topics covered.

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.

The life and career of America's "top cop", J. Edgar Hoover, whose tenure as Director of the FBI lasted more than fifty years, is here presented in this docudrama style film by maverick director and writer Larry Cohen, with a solid A and B list cast of actors. Focusing on Hoover the man and the Director, the film seeks to portray his psychology and ruthless tactics, as well as his confrontations with presidents and other national figures. There's Hoover the small minded closeted homosexual prude and Hoover the ruthless power hungry force, a weird and dangerous combination that wielded unchecked power for decades from his office. With James Wainwright playing the younger Hoover, who takes over a struggling and demoralized FBI and remakes its public image with publicized staged arrests and the use of gossip monger Walter Winchell who proved to be his eager accomplice. The later, older Hoover morphs into Broderick Crawford, and has now become embedded in the job, impossible for any President to force out. The uniqueness of the film lies in the Cohen style which is as evident here as it is in Q or any other of his films. It definitely isn't Hollywood, though the faces are.

In the period of 1924 to 1972, J. Edgar Hoover was not only the powerful director of FBI, but also a very arrogant, corrupt and manipulative man, full of obsessions and paranoia. 'The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover' shows along 112 minutes running time, parts of the personal and political life of this American personality. There is lots of insinuation that J. Edgar Hoover was homosexual, but anyway the movie shows a very complex and destructive man, who destroyed many lives and having many politics in his pocket. The movie summarizes too much the period of forty-eight years that J. Edgar Hoover was ahead of FBI and is afraid of taking position about his homosexuality, but anyway is a good movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): 'FBI – Arquivo Secreto' ('FBI – Secret File")