The Private Files Of J. Edgar Hoover (1977)

A chronicle on the life and career of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (James Wainwright as the young Hoover, Broderick Crawford as the mature Hoover) from 1924 to his death in 1972. Written, produced and directed by Larry Cohen (IT'S ALIVE). The movie suffers from cramming almost 50 years of a polarizing public figure into two hours. There's no time to explore with any depth so what we get is a shallow movie of highlights of his career. It's a highly fictionalized and speculative version of Hoover's life, both negative and positive. The only other character with major screen time is Robert Kennedy (Michael Parks) but Parks is truly awful here. In addition to not being convincing, he annoyingly interjects "uh" between every five words spoken! In addition to Kennedy, other famous people portrayed include Martin Luther King (Raymond St. Jacques), Franklin D. Roosevelt (Howard Da Silva), Lyndon B. Johnson (Andrew Duggan) and Roy Cohn (George D. Wallace). The score by Miklos Rozsa is disappointing, it sounds recycled from his past film scores. The huge cast, most with little screen time, includes Rip Torn, Celeste Holm, Dan Dailey, Jose Ferrer, Lloyd Nolan, Ronee Blakley, Jack Cassidy, June Havoc Michael Sacks, Tanya Roberts and Brad Dexter.