The FBI Story

This movie is very well filmed for its age (1959), it is one of the better FBI movie's that actually portray it as the FBI should be portrayed, as the good guys, not the bad guys. Though it is one sided I think the point of the movie was to show the triumphs of the FBI. Jimmy Stewart was great in it!

When I was a very young teen, I saw this in the theater and was just awed. The different segments were very dramatic and stayed with me for decades.

So after a long, long absence, seeing this again in the late '90s turned out to be a major disappointment. As a kid, this movie was exciting, but it sure isn't now. It's two-and-a-half hours long and moves pretty well but too much time is spent on the marriage of Jimmy Stewart-Vera Miles ("Chip and Lucy Ann Hardesty").

As one who watches a lot of modern- day crime movies, it was odd to see one with absolutely no profanity in it and very little blood, but that's because it's a 1959 film. We see the FBI cracking down on the KKK, anti- Native Americans, the Communists, spies, etc. Some of those parts are exciting, but nothing like when it came out almost 50 years ago. Now, it's almost ho-hum stuff.

For me now, this movie is more of a nostalgia piece than anything else. Frankly, I doubt if I would watch it again.

This is an entertaining "history" of the FBI, but it should be viewed as fiction, because that's exactly what it is. What else could it be when J. Edgar Hoover personally approved and had a cameo role in the production. James Stewart is excellent, as usual, and the supporting cast, except for the talentless Vera Miles, is good. Murray Hamilton is especially good in a supporting role as Stewart's partner and best friend. The FBI accomplishments that the film highlights are undoubtedly all true. What is significant is what it leaves out.

One of the most shameful parts of the film is the depiction of the killing of John Dillinger. It is portrayed pretty much as it happened, but no mention at all is made of Melvin Purvis, the Chicago Bureau Chief who headed the operation. Instead, the operation is depicted as if the fictional Chip Hardesty were running it. It has been said that Hoover was jealous of the publicity that Purvis received after Dillinger was killed; Purvis was subsequently transferred to a remote outpost, and shortly afterward left the FBI. This is no doubt why Purvis was never mentioned in the film. But this viewer, at least, paused to think that if Purvis was treated this way, what about all the agents who conducted all the other operations depicted in the film. Were they also completely ignored and replaced by the fictional Hardesty.

The film is probably accurate in its portrayal of FBI activity up through the end of WWII. However, after that point, the film would have us believe that the only threat facing the US came from international communism, which is no doubt what Hoover believed. Never mind the Mafia. Never mind the lynchings that were still going on in the South. Never mind that blacks were being intimidated to keep them from voting in much of the South. I don't know if the FBI had started wiretapping Martin Luther King by the time this film was made, but if not, it wasn't very long afterward that it started.

As I said at the outset, this is pretty good entertainment, but it should be viewed as the sanitized fictionalization that it is.

"The FBI Story" tries to tell the story of the evolution of the FBI over 35 years, through the eyes of a veteran agent, Chip Hardesty (James Stewart). It spins off into several segments covering Hardesty's career. There's a segment on the Klu Klux Klan (with nary an African American in sight), one showing the cheating of native Americans out of their oil leases in Texas and several brief run-ins with the well known gangsters of the 1930s.

Inrerspersed with these episodes are home life interludes where Stewart's character turns into George Bailey ("Its a Wonderful Life" (1946)). He meets and marries Lucy (Vera Miles) and we follow their lives through the birth of three children, a miscarriage, a separation and a war time tragedy.

Told in a documentary style, this film, in my opinion is far too long at 149 minutes. The action sequences, such as they are, are brief and with no character development of the gangsters. They are simply confronted by the FBI and either arrested or gunned down. The Hardesty character is hardly involved in these segments and he does not confront any of the gangsters directly.

The at home sequences while well played, look like something out of "Father Knows Best", the popular TV series of the day. Another thing I found unusual was the fact that Stewart and Miles basically carry the whole film. Other characters appear briefly then either get killed off or disappear altogether. While Stewart and Miles do their best, they hardly seem to have aged 35 years over the course of the story. And there are no name actors to speak of in the supporting cast. Murray Hamilton, Larry Pennell and Nick Adams do appear briefly, but were not that well known in 1959.

James Cagney's "G-Men" (1935) covered the FBI's early years much better.

This is a film that on the surface would seem to be all about J.Edgar Hoover giving himself a a big pat on the back for fighting Klansmen,going after Indian killers, hunting the famous gangsters of the 1930's, fighting Nazi's in the US and South America during world war 2 and Commies in New York during the early 1950's. Of course in 1959 we did not know about Mr. Hoover's obsession for keeping secret files on honest Americans, bugging people like the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr, but worst of all,his secret love affair with his deputy director,Clyde Tolson( If you want to know more about that subject, I suggest seeing the film Citizen Cohn). Hoover aside, This story of a life in the FBI as told by Jimmy Stewart makes for a decent, but dated film. Vera Miles as his devoted wife is also good. But Jimmy is the movie. As much as Hoover controlled production and always made sure the FBI was seen without fault, Jimmy Stewart gave the film a human side,quite an achievement considering Hoover was always looking over his shoulder. The background score is also pleasant. I have read recent online articles suggesting that this is a forgotten film. Jimmy Stewart was one of the greatest film stars of all time and none of his films should be forgotten. TCM was the last network to show it a long time ago and I hope they show it again.