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The FBI Story [1959] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Starring: James Stewart, Vera Miles, Murray Hamilton, Larry Pennell, Nick Adams
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Format: Closed-captioned Colour DVD-Video Subtitled Widescreen NTSC
Released: 15 Aug 2006
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

And thank you, Mr Hoover! - By: Trevor Willsmer, 29 Nov 2006
The FBI Story is a glossy greatest hits puff piece that works well as feelgood hokum until a sledgehammer last half hour that has aged incredibly badly & which probably seemed horribly out of date even in 1959 after films like Pickup on South Street. The first third focuses on the more admirably libertarian parts of the Bureau's history - fighting the KKK, protecting newly oil-rich Native Americans - before moving onto the likes of Dillinger, Ma Barker & Pretty Boy Floyd, with added family dramas along the way. Unfortunately, the last half hour is outrageous McCarthyesque propaganda, where democracy doesn't apply if you choose to vote for those impolite communists ("It was Sunday & he was a communist so we knew he wasn't going to church." is a typical line). But by then it's become clear that this is as much about J. Edgar Hoover's priorities & self-mythologizing as it is the organisation he ran, his claims about the Bureau being non-political & a joint organisation where no one individual is more important than the team at odds not just with history but with what we see onscreen. The end caption even credits him with `making this world of ours a much safer place.' Partiallly because he disapproved of Warner's choice of actor's politics, Hoover remains an offscreen divine presence, filmed in the same manner that Jesus Christ was pre-King of Kings, albeit with much more reverence. A voice on the phone, a shadow on the walll, an inspirational back of the head, his words are enough to hold Jimmy Stewart spellbound & persuade him to rip up his resignation while his praise leaves him so satisfied you almost expect him to light up a cigarette. And the final inspiring shots of Washington landmarks while a propeller hat plays a cracked version of Yankee Doodle Dandy... well, let's just say that the past is another country & leave it at that.

Warner's Region 1 NTSC widescreen transfer is good, but the only extra is the original trailer.