The FBI Story
The FBI Story | |
---|---|
Joseph F. Biroc | |
Edited by | Philip W. Anderson |
Music by | Max Steiner |
Production company | Mervyn LeRoy Productions |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date | September 24, 1959 |
Running time | 149 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $3.5 million (est. US/ Canada rentals)[1] |
The FBI Story is a 1959 American crime drama film starring James Stewart, and produced and directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The screenplay by Richard L. Breen and John Twist is based on a book by Don Whitehead.
Plot
John Michael ("Chip") Hardesty describes a murder, seen in a flashback. He narrates the incident in which
In May 1924, Hardesty was working as a government clerk for the nascent FBI in Knoxville, Tennessee. He proposes to his sweetheart, a librarian named Lucy Ann Ballard. Ballard thinks Hardesty's potential is being wasted by the FBI and wants him to start practicing law. They marry with this idea in mind. Hardesty is inspired to stay with the bureau after hearing a speech from its new director, J. Edgar Hoover. Lucy Ann reveals that she is pregnant; she persuades Hardesty to stay in the bureau for just a preliminary year.
Hardesty is sent to the South to investigate the Ku Klux Klan. He is moved around until he is sent to Ute City, Wade County, Oklahoma,[a] to investigate a series of murders of Native Americans who had oil-rich mineral land and rights. The FBI was compelled to investigate after one of the murders was committed on federal government land. The FBI forensics laboratory ties the doctored wills and life insurance policies of the murder victims to a local banker, Dwight McCutcheon,[b] with the typewriter that he used. Lucy Ann, already the mother of three, suffers a miscarriage around this time.
On June 17, 1933, three FBI agents were escorting
After receiving a tip, Hardesty and Crandall head to Spider Lake, Wisconsin, on April 22, 1934, but barking dogs alert the gangsters and they scatter. The agents head to a nearby country store to call the Chicago office. When they get there, they find Baby Face Nelson holding two men hostage. Nelson opens fire, fatally wounding Crandall.
Hardesty recounts his involvement in the capture and deaths of numerous infamous mobsters of the day, including John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and Machine Gun Kelly. Kelly coined the popular term, "G-Men", during his arrest, when he shouted, "Don't shoot G-Men, don't shoot!". Because she fears for his life and is unable to persuade Chip to leave the bureau, Lucy decides to spend some time apart, and takes the children for an extended stay with her parents. While preparing an Easter egg hunt, Lucy calls her mother "a nag, a real nag". Lucy's mother sarcastically tells Lucy that Lucy's father is also "a nag". Realizing that she has been nagging her husband to leave his job, and that she and the children are miserable without him, Lucy and the children return home.
With the U.S. entry into
Hardesty is sent to South America to relieve three agents whose identities have been compromised.[c] The third is revealed to be George; he has been deep in the jungle intercepting secret radio messages. Local authorities move in, forcing the FBI agents to destroy the equipment and flee. Back in the U.S., Hardesty and Lucy receive a telegram informing them that their son has been killed in the line of duty during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Although devastated, they comfort each other, praying that their son did not suffer.
The final depicted case stems from a New York City clothes cleaner finding a hollow
Hardesty concludes his speech to the FBI. He is greeted by his family outside the building. He now has a grandson. The family drives away, passing by historic D.C. landmarks.
Cast
- James Stewart as John Michael "Chip" Hardesty
- Vera Miles as Lucy Ann Hardesty
- Murray Hamilton as Sam Crandall
- Larry Pennell as George Crandall
- Nick Adams as John Gilbert "Jack" Graham
- Diane Jergens as Jennie Hardesty
- Anna Sage
- Joyce Taylor as Anne Hardesty
- Victor Millan as Mario
- Buzz Martin as Mike Hardesty (USMC)
- Kimberly Beck as Jennie Hardesty (at 2)
- J. Edgar Hoover as himself
- Special Agent Lewis Gene Libby as unnamed FBI agent
- Eleanor Audley as Graham's mother (uncredited)
Production
The Federal Bureau of Investigation had great influence over the production, with J. Edgar Hoover acting as a co-producer of sorts. Hoover had LeRoy re-shoot several scenes he didn't think portrayed the FBI in an appropriate light, and played a pivotal role in the casting for the film. Hoover and LeRoy were personal friends.[8][9] Hoover had to approve every frame of the film and also had two special agents with LeRoy for the duration of filming.[10] Hoover himself appears briefly in the film.
Historical accuracy
The film changes some details regarding the airplane bombing by Jack Gilbert Graham, including the flight and the number of people killed. It also makes it appear that his sole motivation was money, the $37,500 life insurance policy; Graham's true motive was revenge for the way his mother had treated him as a small child.[citation needed]
Regarding Baby Face Nelson, he was hiding out with John Dillinger, but it was at the Little Bohemia Lodge, just outside Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, that the two agents were Special Agents J. C. Newman and W. Carter Baum (Baum is the agent killed in the shootout). Accompanying them was a local constable not shown in the film. Nelson was holding two hostages in a house and, when the car came up, Nelson, wanting to take the vehicle, rushed forward shouting for the occupants to get out, but then opened fire on the car shooting all three lawmen.[11]
In the case of the New York City clothes cleaner, it was, in actuality, a
Comic book adaptation
- Dell Four Color #1069 (November 1959)[13][14]
See also
Notes
- ^ The real case was in Osage County, the Osage Indian murders, between 1921 and 1923.[3]
- ^ In real life a rancher, William King Hale
- ^ The CIA did not yet exist at the time, and U.S. wartime covert activities in Latin America were directed by the FBI's Special Intelligence Service.
References
- ^ "1959: Probable Domestic Take". Variety: 34. January 6, 1960.
- ^ "Famous Cases: Jack Gilbert Graham". FBI.
- ^ "A Byte Out of History: Murder and Mayhem in the Osage Hills". FBI.
- ^ "Famous Cases: Kansas City Massacre – Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd". FBI.
- ^ "Timeline of FBI History". FBI.
- ^ "FBI 100: The Kansas City Massacre". FBI. June 17, 2008.
- PBS. – Retrieved: 2008-07-04
- ISBN 978-0-393-32128-9.
- ISBN 978-0-231-12953-4.
- ISBN 978-1-55783-329-7.
- ^ "Famous Cases: "Baby Face" Nelson". FBI.
- ^ "Famous Cases: Rudolph Ivanovich Abel (Hollow Nickel Case)". FBI.
- ^ "Dell Four Color #1069". Grand Comics Database.
- ^ Dell Four Color #1069 at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
External links
- The FBI Story at IMDb
- The FBI Story at AllMovie
- The FBI Story at the TCM Movie Database
- The FBI Story at the American Film Institute Catalog