May 12 - J. Edgar

Today’s movie is a biography with a scene that happens on May 12. Watch it tonight and enjoy. 

J. EDGAR                

There are two different storylines in this film. The first one starts in the 1960’s when J. Edgar Hoover brings in agent Smith to write his autobiography. The second track is Hoover telling Smith in flashback the story of his career. It starts in 1919 when radicals start planting bombs, including trying to kill Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, Hoover lives with his mother. He meets Helen Gandy, and while she rejects his marriage proposal agreed to become his secretary. Hoover organizes an anti-radical task force and gets Emma Goldman deported. Hoover led raids against suspected radical groups and a new Attorney General, Harlan Stone names him head of the FBI.   Hoover meets Clyde Tolson and hires him. Hoover starts his secret files that contain damaging material about prominent people. In the early sixties Hoover uses the secret files to blackmail the Kennedy brothers to avoid having to deal with the Mafia and to approve his methods of dealing with the Civil Rights movement.  Hoover tells how at the start of the depression a wave of bank robberies created work for the FBI. When the Lindbergh kidnapping occurred, Hoover tries to take over the case. Lindbergh and John Condon deliver the ransom money to the supposed kidnappers, but the child is not returned. Hoover uses the lack of oversight by the Kennedys to use wiretaps and bugs to try and get damaging info on Martin Luther King, Jr. At Hoover’s insistence the serial numbers of the bills used to pay the Lindbergh ransom are noted. On May 12, 1932, the body of the Lindbergh baby is found. [1:02:53 to 1:03:58]  Hoover personally arrests several people on the most wanted list. Tracking the serial numbers of the Lindbergh ransom money eventually leads to Bruno Richard Hauptman, who is arrested charged, convicted and executed for the crime. Hoover uses this case to get kidnapping made a federal offense and establishes the FBI crime lab.Tolson and Hoover, who have been having a homosexual affair have a huge fight when Hoover says he’s going to marry a woman, but nixes the idea when Tolson says he will leave if Hoover marries her. Hoover’s mother dies shortly after this. In the 1960’s Tolson has a stroke, which upsets Hoover.  Hoover used the secret files to blackmail FDR, to keep him from interfering with the FBI. Hoover runs a vendetta against Martin Luther King, Jr., convinced he’s a communist revolutionary and tries to use damaging information about King to force him to decline the Nobel Peace Prize. When Hoover dies suddenly, Helen Gandy destroys the secret files.

Di Caprio gives a fantastic performance. However, this film has a muddled plot that is hard to follow at times. Overall it is a good biographical movie about a very controversial figure.

The Ghosts of Hopewell: Setting the Record Straight About the Lindbergh Kidnapping Case by Jim Fisher (Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, Ill., 1999) at page 21 gives the date the body was discovered

Director - Clint Eastwood    

Producer - Clint Eastwood, Brian Grazer and Robert Lorenz

Screenplay - Dustin Lance Black

Released – November 9, 2011

Runtime – 2 hours 17 minutes

Starring –

Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover

Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson

Naomi Watts as Helen Gandy

Josh Lucas as Charles Lindbergh

Judi Dench as Anna Marie Hoover

Damon Herriman as Bruno Richard Hauptmann

Jeffrey Donovan as Robert F. Kennedy

Ed Westwick as Agent Smith

Zach Grenier as John Condon

Ken Howard as Harlan F. Stone

Stephen Root as Arthur Koehler

Denis O'Hare as Albert S. Osborn

Geoff Pierson as Alexander Mitchell Palmer

Lea Thompson as Lela Rogers

Gunner Wright as Dwight D. Eisenhower

Christopher Shyer as Richard Nixon

Miles Fisher as Agent Garrison

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015