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Since it's Clint we don't expect a full-blown, left wing whacko smear of J. Edgar Hoover...and that didn't happen. As a matter of fact, J. Edgar was shown as a driven overachiever clamoring for fame and notoriety as implanted by his mother (Densch). We come to know him as a fanatical commie chaser and learn something of our own history beginning in 1919 when communists were actually a real bomb throwing threat to the USA. Hoover magically survived this era of arrest and reprisal deportations and became the acting director at a very early age of this still newborn agency.

He meets Miss Gandy (Watts) who is strangely like himself: not interested in the opposite sex but the job. He makes her his secretary and sometimes confidant who ultimately handled all the secret files he created on members of government. (Thanks to her NONE of his private files were found after his death.)

Clint dishes up a lot of dirt in an efficient manner giving just enough details to avoid getting bogged down. He touches on Eleanor and Franklin, MLK, JFK, and RFK (plus a few others). All in all it keeps you interested.

J. Edgar meet Tolson early on and was immediately attracted to him. Clint did something here that surprised me, he portrayed their relationship as a platonic homosexual one. There was never any physicality in their relationship and it was explained by a scene with his mother when she told him she could never live with a son who was "that way". When Hoover told Clyde he had seen Dorothy Lamour a few times and was thinking he needed a MRS. Hoover Clyde asked him if he had been physical with her. When J. Edgar answered affirmative Clyde freaked out and the only male kiss of the film occurred during this emotional outburst.

There is so much more to tell about J. Edgar's ego-boosting for himself at the sake of the truth but I'll leave that for the viewers. This film was the same high quality product you would expect from Eastwood and the entire cast was superb. As much as I detest Leo I got over it quickly and predict he will be leading the Oscar race for Best Actor and Clint for Best Director.

This is worth seeing if you are of the Hoover Generation like most Boomers. It gives, hopefully, true insights to the very complicated man who terrorized president's for decades. (Except for Nixon--Hoover admitted to being frightened of him.)

Films/DVD Asylum

"J. Edgar": Clint dishes up the dirt . . .

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