The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977)

(On Cable TV, June 2020) There are several good reasons to dislike J. Edgar Hoover, but you can’t deny that he is fascinating as a historical figure: he was, after all, the BOI/FBI’s director for 48 years—longer than most people’s entire careers! As such, he became a bigger-than-life figure, with character traits exaggerated in crossdressing (unproven!), homosexuality (unproven!) and secret files used to blackmail politicians (proven!) While we twenty-first century viewers now know more about Hoover’s documented life than before, we don’t have access to those who knew him best any more. Iconoclast writer-director-producer Larry Cohen had the inverse—not much official documentation, but plenty of contacts with those who knew him. The result of his investigation is the nervous exposé The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, which uses a delicious framing device (a mad rush to secure Hoover’s secret files after his death) as the starting signal for a quasi-documentary rush of chopped-up editing, fast pacing and a whirlwind tour of Hoover’s life (as known in the mid-1970s) that does not bother with niceties. Given that it’s from Cohen, it’s interesting throughout—and even more so when you measure Cohen’s own opinion of the man against other sources, such as the much more recent J. Edgar. For instance, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover almost brushes off the rumours of Hoover’s sexuality, but presents what feels like a more complete portrait of the man. Despite the rebellious rock-throwing, the film does serve to further cement Hoover’s mythological status by associating him with decades of American history—showing the turnaround of the FBI in the institution it became, and later suggesting that Hoover’s secret files would precipitate the Agnew resignation and pave the way for Watergate. (An assertion ahead of its time, knowing what we now know about Mark Felt.) In the end, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover is fanciful, choppy yet enjoyable—and the mid-1970s period atmosphere is quite nice.