Great flick-but they missed the greater part of the history. Which was the FBI's part in counter espionage and their efforts in Latin and South America. J. Edgar Hoover's Secret Nazi Spy Maps I am profoundly dissappointed. JeffinMNUSA
Well, kinda hard to tell a man's entire history with any sort of depth in a 2-hour movie. Anything longer than that, and you lose the folks who came just to watch Leo DiCrappio (and thus, their box-office sales).
RA has pretty much nailed it. With any movie, the story has to be somewhat focused. That's why it is so rare for a movie to be better than the book on which it is based. IMHO, we should just be thankful whenever Hollywood gets any facts right in a story. It seems that's rare enough.
Amen, brudda. I was REALLY nervous when "Count of Monte Cristo" was remade back in 2002, that has always been one of my all-time favorite books. I knew no movie could ever come close to describing the depths that Dantes went to in order to get into these guys' lives, moving like a fog to really get inside their families, their businesses, their thoughts....and then not just discredited them, ruined them, bankrupted them...he frikkin DESTROYED them. The movie never even came close to the depth of the book. But, I have to admit, it was a good movie, I have to admit. I'll probably catch "Hoover" when it hits DVD.
It is a good flick-but it is focused on the early efforts against the Communists and later the depression era criminals then jumping back on forth between these and the final days-AND it focuses on J. Edgar's personal life (call me a bigot but I find gay activities on screen revolting). It does not address the agency's successes during WWII-and this would be rather like doing a film on Eisenhower but only covering the pre and post WWII eras. I think this a glaring omission.
I haven't seen the flick itself, but I ran across an interesting and probably very true Hoover quote; "Justice is only incidental to law and order." This seems to mean (to me at least) that he felt the enforcement branch was the most important portion of criminal law.
You have the advantage as I haven't seen the movie. It seems pretty obvious they were not interested in telling a straightforward (no pun intended) linear history. The Agency's WWII period must not have advanced the filmmakers' agenda, whatever it was.
JeffinMNUSA, The FBI didn't have much success in World War II, at least not the kind that puts them in a favorable light. They spent the vast majority of their time arresting "enemy aliens", few were real, but the great majority were not. The FBI's greatest success, the arrest of the German saboteurs, was all due to one man, not Hoover, not Ladd, but George John Dasch. Dasch was one of the German saboteurs, and he went right to Washington DC, and told them all about their mission. Had Dasch not done so, it is unlikely that any of the Germans would have been caught. Not something the FBI wants broadcast on the "Big Screen".
Hehehehe....to quote Wednesday Adams..."Be afraid. Be very afraid." Seriously, for a book written back in 1844, it has depths that most "modern" writers can't achieve.
Au contraire! The FBI had what looks to be fabulous successes in Central and South America; The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence The full story has been quietly leaking out (and yes J. Edgar COULD keep quiet on some things!)... My Grandfather's brother is said to have been involved; http://travel.webshots.com/album/65602408CbIGFR How great a success were these covert efforts? Well it is a fact that only Argentina stayed Axis friendly. The majority of the Central and SA countries declared for the Allies while Mexico and Brazil actually sent soldiers to fight on the Allied side. Most historians ignore Latin American history in WWII as it pretty much stayed a quiet backwater of value primarily as a source of raw materials for the Allies-there are reasons it stayed that way. Here is one of the few books written on the subject; http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Secret-South-America-1939-1945/dp/0807124362 JeffinMNUSA
