The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover

The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover
Directed by	Larry Cohen
Written by	Larry Cohen
Produced by	Larry Cohen
Starring	Broderick Crawford James Wainwright Jose Ferrer Celeste Holm Ronee Blakely John Marley Michael Sacks
Cinematography	Paul Glickman
Edited by	Michael Corey
Music by	Miklós Rózsa
Production company	Larco Productions
Distributed by	American International Pictures
Release date	December 1977 (1977-12)
Running time	112 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover is a 1977 American biographical drama film written, produced, and directed by Larry Cohen. It stars Broderick Crawford as Hoover, alongside an ensemble cast including Jose Ferrer, Michael Parks, Rip Torn, James Wainwright, Celeste Holm, Ronee Blakely, John Marley, Michael Sacks, Brad Dexter, Tanya Roberts and in final screen appearances, Jack Cassidy and Dan Dailey.^[1] Both Cassidy and Dailey met with then First Lady Betty Ford and helped director Cohen get permission to film in Washington, D.C., in locales where the real Hoover visited or worked.

The film was shown at the Kennedy Center in Washington to a mixed response from Republicans and Democrats who did not like the dark visions Cohen evoked on American politics and the portrayals of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard M. Nixon: actor Howard da Silva played Roosevelt, and impersonator James LaRoe (credited as Richard M. Dixon) plays Nixon. In an interview in 2019, Cohen said "it enraged all the senators and congressmen that showed up, which I guess was the thing I wanted to do in the first place: make trouble".^[2] After it was shown in Washington, the film took a limited nationwide release to theaters, and got a full release to video and television into the 1980s and 1990s.