cont: the private files of j. edgar hoover

badass trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNcE3tBO-KE

this is larry cohen going hog wild with the most money he’d ever been given to make a movie up to that point.  there are a few larry cohen movies that are clearly better than this one. nevertheless, this movie is a master at work. i’d bet that it’s probably the kind of movie cohen would claim he had the most fun making.

there’s no way to talk about this movie without broderick crawford. this is a movie full of hilariously lousy impressions of famous people (nixon, for example, is played by richard m. dixon, on minute 14 of 15) which lends an extraordinary amount of credibility to crawford’s portrayal. the welles-alike playing the young hoover is sensitive and edgy, but it’s just a good performance. crawford is brilliant. part bud costello, part huey long (who crawford played in the brilliant roman a clef, all the kings men), part trucker fag in denial, all weasel. his facial contortions are so pained and frustrated, his psychosexual angst so bare that you could have taglined this film: ‘you will believe a man can die a virgin!’ wisely, though, cohen mostly hints at the obvious, resisting the urge to make something seamier.

aside from the absolutely uncanny physical resemblance, what crawford brings to the role is a sense of comedic timing that makes clark’s script sing and does justice to his sardonic wit. once the script gets the “hey look! it’s famous person” stuff, it’s pretty damn funny and to be honest, effectively engenders as much sympathy as one can have for a vindictive megalomaniac blackmailer. it’s to the credit of the excellent acting on the part of the lead that allows you a modicum of empathy with someone so priggish, just the idea that crawford effectively pulls off lecturing various presidents on ethics to appear at least nominally principled is sort of a feat in itself.

the editing deserves special praise as well, serving not only to tie together all the stolen shots, stock footage and hurriedly dressed period sets, but also to set a lively tempo. it’s very reminiscent of romero’s dawn of the dead, where the constant cutting and crosscutting alleviates the lack of budget to help convincingly portray a world overrun by mindless cannibals. in the same way that film wisely uses its time with the pennsylannia countryside and (then new) monroeville mall, this film utilizes location shooting whenever and wherever it can, from the same theatre where john dillinger was gunned down to hoover’s favorite restaurant. cohen throws out every single shot he can think of, rarely settling on match cuts and two shots whenever he can. interspersed with these expected setups are peephole shots with unsteady cameras, increasing in quantity as the film goes on, as we get nearer the nixon administration. by the third act, the multiplicity of the pov’s creates quite a jittery and paranoid effect that culminates in scenes set at night in the oval office with nixon and his inner circle sinisterly bathed in shadow. it’s really effective.

unquestionably, what holds the film together is cohen’s sense of humor, ably realized by the impressive cast of veteran actors. there’s a great scene in the stork club that takes place after hoover’s aged mother dies. he calls his favorite waiter over to the table to chat with him to make small talk. after giving the waiter a helpful tip about his daughter’s involvement with a subversive organization on her college campus. the knowledge that hoover knows more about his family life than he does scares the guy so witless that after an absent-minded query, the waiter replies “i don’t know no rudyard kipling and i dont wanna know him!”. hoover, drunk and contemplative, recites kipling’s “if” at length, nostalgically, while the waiter appears to be trembling. the moment hoover lets the waiter leave the table, the waiter runs outside in a panic and bursts into tears.

it’s brilliant. it’s the perfect moment in a film that reached way beyond its means. it shows hoover as a fully three dimensional character, in a film where fdr is portrayed in a particularly humorous way as a clownish, aloof aristocrat with a sneer and an algonquin round table high society affected accent. hoover is characterized simultaneously as pathetically sexless, willing to sacrifice any sense of ethics for his principles, witty and self effacing yet unable to laugh at himself, a loyal friend and a dedicated public servant, while being a terrifying, conniving, petty fascist jackal. if the film has any faults, it’s that the strengths directly abut the weaknesses. you’ll have brilliantly snide banter in one scene and tedious exposition in the next. you’ll have a poignant and substantial bit of acting by crawford immediately followed by an amateurish impression of jfk as a braying jackass. it’s a little maddening in a movie that’s so genuinely funny and interesting. it was still pretty damn great but it was either too slapdash or not slapdash enough.

two and a half stars, if ever half a star meant anything. i feel like it needed a dream sequence.