Larry Cohen

by Michael Doyle

  How did you navigate the considerable problem of making an ambitious period film on such a low-budget?

  Firstly, I got the idea to look up some of the vintage car clubs and discovered that there was one in nearby Maryland, right across the way from Washington DC. This club had quite an extensive collection of vintage cars of all makes and models, so I called them up on the phone. I asked them, “How would you people like to be in a movie?” They got very excited about this and said, “Yeah, that’d be great! Hey, we have cars from the 1930s and the 1940s. Not only that, we also have all the authentic costumes of the periods. We usually dress our families up in these costumes and take them to various fairs and events. In fact, we can not only bring the cars in for you, we can bring people dressed in period costumes — all for free!” Oh, that was just what I was waiting to hear, because “free” really was the key word on this picture. True to their word, they all came into Washington on a specific day. It was a parade of about thirty or forty antique cars and it really was something to see. But the question then quickly became: “How are we going to run these vehicles up and down Pennsylvania Avenue in front of The White House and up to the capital? Not only that, but how can we prevent the period cars from being mixed in with all the contemporary cars on the street?” The only course of action available to us was to close off Pennsylvania Avenue, the main thoroughfare from the White House to the capital. Fortunately for us, they have a lot of parades in Washington. In the event of any parade or the passing-by of some dignitary, they have these big wooden barricades that are piled up on the side-street or in an alley. Of course, the idea of closing off Pennsylvania Avenue to allow all these cars to drive through there seemed incredibly risky. Several of the crew were very nervous about attempting such a crazy thing. I simply kept on smiling reassuredly at them, saying, “Well, let’s just do it and see what happens.” So, the crew went ahead and barricaded the street and we did indeed close off Pennsylvania Avenue. Then we quickly brought the vintage cars in and shot the scenes. As we were doing this, somebody came to me and said, “You do know there are parking meters in the street, right? They didn’t have any parking meters back in those days.” I said, “Yes, that’s true. We have got to get rid of them.” This person asked, “How are we going to do that?” I said, “It’s very simple: take two people and stand them in front of those parking meters. Then take three people and stand them in front of those parking meters. We’ll have clusters of people on the street and they will all be blocking the parking meters from view and nobody will see them.” And that’s exactly what we did. We shot all our scenes and got away with it. Actually, I do recall that as we were doing all this, the Washington DC police force came driving by. They saw us standing there with the entire street shut down and all these vintage cars crowding the area, and the cops just waved out the windows at us! [Laughs] We then politely waved back and they just kept on going. It was incredible. Nobody thought for a minute that anyone would have the nerve to do such an outrageous thing without a permit. To this day, I have no idea how we managed to get away with it.

  I understand that your unwavering pursuit of authenticity also led you to The Justice Department Building.

  That’s right. We later went over to The Justice Department Building to shoot another sequence that was meant to be set during the 1940s. We placed the vintage cars on the street, but then I noticed that the building didn’t look exactly right. There were all these modern air conditioners located prominently in the windows. Now, I should also mention that we were shooting in the middle of a very hot summer. Despite this, I said to one of my crew, “Go into the Justice Department Building and tell everybody that they have to take the air conditioners out of the windows.” This guy just stared at me and said, “What are you talking about? It’s ninety-eight degrees!” I said, “Look, just tell them we are making a movie and that everybody has to remove the air conditioners out of their windows.” He said, “Larry, you’re crazy! This is the Justice Department Building! Nobody is going to do that for you — especially in this heat!” I said, “Just go ahead and do it.” So, this guy reluctantly ventured inside and, I swear to god, the next thing I see all the air conditioners are being pulled out of the windows. I thought, This is ridiculous! I just tell people to do something and they do it! I suddenly felt this tremendous sense of power and authority, probably the same feeling Hoover himself had when he was in charge of the FBI. I suddenly thought, Hey, this is amazing! I can do anything I want here! Sometimes, as a director, you just can’t seem to lose and that was certainly one of those intoxicating moments.

  It’s my understanding that there are several people featured in the film who were real-life acquaintances of Hoover.

  That’s correct. The barber in the barber scene is the actual person who always cut Hoover’s hair. Also the waiter in the Mayflower Hotel, the Black gentleman who Hoover called “Castro” because he may have been Cuban, was the actual waiter who waited on him every day at the restaurant. Hoover always ate lunch at the Mayflower. He always had the same table and almost always ordered the same meal. Every day the waiter would come to him and say, “I’ve got a surprise for you today, Mr. Hoover.” Then the waiter would proceed to bring in the exact same meal that he brought Hoover every other day.

  A disturbing moment occurs when Hoover candidly reveals to a horrified waiter who is attending to him, private details of the man’s family life. Was that in any way true?

  Oh yes, that’s all true. Hoover extensively researched everybody who had anything to do with him. I’m sure he checked on the barber, the waiter, and any other person who had regular contact with him. I believe that the incident with the waiter is supposed to have occurred at The Stork Club. Of course, it’s not been verified that Hoover actually recited Rudyard Kipling’s poetry to the waiter. I made that bit up, but that was indeed his favorite poem. [12] For that reason, I put it into the scene.

  There are other moments in the film where it is tempting to wonder if they actually happened or you were merely adopting a dramatic license. For instance, there is the amusing scene where RFK drops into Hoover’s office and finds the FBI director asleep on his couch.

  That incident was documented. That supposedly really happened. Now, of course, I don’t know if the dialogue they say in that scene is the exact words that were spoken, or if indeed anything at all was actually said during that moment, but it’s true that Bobby Kennedy did drop in at Hoover’s office and caught him taking a nap.

  What about Hoover’s “Negro fly-swatter”? Was there really such a person charged with this duty?

  Yes, that’s also documented. The moment when the man takes a swipe at Hoover’s shoulder with the fly-swatter is quoted as having actually occurred. Another scene that’s also supposedly based on a real life incident is when Hoover encounters the young FBI agent carrying a copy of Playboy. Hoover gives him a copy of his book, Masters of Deceit, and transfers him to Knoxville, Tennessee, to “improve his mind.”

  A moment that is unnervingly prescient is when the armed hijacker says to Dwight Webb: “When we get this plane up in the air I’m gonna have him crash this mother into The White House.”

  Or the Pentagon, which of course, they did do many years later. Again, that scene was based on actual fact. There was a guy who once hijacked a plane in the Washington Airport and planned to crash it into one of the executive buildings. So, it wasn’t actually an unheard of thing — somebody attempting to use a plane as a destructive weapon like that. Apparently, it never dawned on too many people that such a terrible thing could become a reality; that is until the events of 9/11 occurred.

  Another contentious moment is when Hoover is seen getting his vicarious thrills from listening to the tape of some political figure having illicit sex with a woman.

  Well, the tape features a minor political figure, a member of some radical group; a student for democratic action, something like that. Interestingly, that same scene was done by Clint Eastwood in his film; he also had Hoove
r listening to a tape of somebody having sex. I thought our scene was much better.

  What was the length of your first initial cut of the film?

  It was maybe ten or twelve minutes longer than what you finally saw. We lost just a couple of additional scenes with Jose Ferrer, and also a scene at the beginning that featured Hoover’s mother. That was about it, I think. I cut them out because Miklós Rózsa made some suggestions about trimming down the length of the picture. I listened to him because, after all, this man had won a couple of Academy Awards and had scored some of the greatest movies ever made for directors like Billy Wilder, William Wyler and others. Rózsa’s opinions were always worth listening to.

  You arranged a formal screening of The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover for a largely political audience at the Kennedy Center. How was it received?

  Actually, I did not attend that screening. It was scheduled for the day before Christmas Day, and I decided not to leave my family and go to Washington DC. It was snowing and you could get into the city, but there was the distinct possibility that you wouldn’t be able to get back out again. I wasn’t going to miss celebrating Christmas with my loved ones back in California, even if it was for my movie. So, I didn’t go and, as it turned out, that was just as well. It was a real mistake to screen the picture at the Kennedy Center. First of all, if you are going to do anything in Washington DC, you have to adopt a particular stance or point of view. Basically, you either have to be a Republican or a Democrat. You can’t make a politically neutral film like The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover in which both the Republicans and the Democrats come off badly. I mean, Nixon doesn’t come off well in the movie, and neither do the Kennedys or Lyndon Johnson. Even President Roosevelt doesn’t come out smelling of roses. What I found fascinating was those people who could tolerate criticism of other politicians, couldn’t stand any kind of criticism whatsoever of Roosevelt. In fact, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., the celebrated historian and intellectual, praised Broderick Crawford’s performance but deplored our unflattering treatment of Roosevelt. However, the fact remains that everything we put in there was factual. Unfortunately, it was not the kind of stuff that certain people liked or wanted to see. The Republicans didn’t appreciate what they saw and neither did the Democrats, which meant that we had no advocates on our side. Everybody was unanimously pissed off at the movie. So, previewing the picture in a political city like Washington DC was not a smart idea because there are too many factions. Also, as I told you, The Washington Post was really out to get us, too, because we were too close to the facts about Watergate.

  I noticed that you’ve listed some of the film’s positive reviews on your website.

  Well, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover was well-received by critics — particularly those in England. Sadly, in America, it was an entirely different story, but if you had read the English reviews you would have thought this picture was Lawrence of Arabia! I mean, the notices were just incredible. All the big critics loved it. Some of them said that the movie should be seen more than once and that it was an astonishing piece of work. It played at The Screen on the Hill for seven or eight weeks and had a very nice engagement. Then, the BBC played the picture twice, and so we did remarkably well in England. A lot of people saw it, and I attended a screening at the London Film Festival. Actually, I was dismayed to discover that they were not going to run The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover at the National Film Theatre. I was informed that they were going to run the picture at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning at the Odeon in Leicester Square. I didn’t realize at the time that the Odeon was the biggest theater in London, but the idea of showing the movie on a Sunday morning was very disappointing. I mean, British people are church-goers and I doubted very much that anybody would be in attendance at that particular time on that particular day. But when I arrived at the Odeon, I saw that there were lines of people stretching right around the block. It was like Radio City Music Hall: the theater was completely full. In fact, there was no place for me to sit! [Laughs] I had to go sit up on the balcony in the last row. I can remember looking down at the audience and marvelling at the number of people that had turned out. The picture then began and the reaction to it was fabulous. After it finished, I went up on stage and the applause was deafening. That led to the movie playing at The Screen on the Hill and I was amazed at the response it got there, too.

  Did any notable British filmmakers attend any of these screenings?

  Well, here’s an interesting thing that happened: when I arrived at the film festival, they had organized a luncheon at the London Film Theater. I was invited to attend, and when I arrived there, somebody led me to my table. I was then introduced to my dinner companion, the person with whom I’d be sitting, and I was astonished to discover it was none other than Elia Kazan! [Gasps] Oh, you could have floored me! As soon as I saw him, my legs were shaking. I mean, this was the greatest director of them all! I got to sit beside him and we spent the whole afternoon talking about movies. But what movie does Kazan want to talk about? He doesn’t want to talk about On the Waterfront or A Streetcar Named Desire or Gentleman’s Agreement or East of Eden; he wants to talk about The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover! I wanted to ask him questions about his career — questions I’d always wanted answers to — about the great movies he made, about working with Brando, all that stuff. But all Kazan wanted to discuss was my film. He wanted to know how I made the picture, how I did this, how I got away with that, how I even had the nerve to make it. Of course, Kazan had been blacklisted himself and ended up testifying before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Although he had suffered a terrible period with the blacklist, eventually he did testify against people and did name names. This was very controversial, as a number of people suffered terribly during this time, but Kazan was able to have a tremendous career afterwards. As Kazan said in his book, he had the biggest period in his career after he testified. In later years, Kazan was still regarded as a villain by some people. In fact, when the Academy wanted to give him an honorary Oscar, there was a lot of talk in Hollywood that he wasn’t deserving of such an award as he had testified several decades earlier at a time when careers and reputations had been destroyed. He did eventually get the honorary Oscar and it did prove to be divisive in Hollywood. [13] Anyway, Kazan had a lot to talk to me about regarding the blacklist and we had a wonderful lunch together. It’s an afternoon that I’ll certainly never forget. I just remember Kazan repeatedly expressing his amazement to me that I’d had the balls to make a movie about J. Edgar Hoover.

  Why do you think The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover failed to generate as much of an enthusiastic response in the United States as it did in England?

  The studio did not want to spend a lot of money advertising the picture because they didn’t know if it was going to do any business. They thought The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover was too political and too historical, so they didn’t play it much. Even after we’d finished the film, I remember Sam Arkoff saying to me, “You know, this really isn’t our kind of picture over at American International. If you want to try and sell it to somebody else, you can. We’ll give you the picture back and you can sell it at another studio.” So, I showed the film to Warner Bros. and they almost bought it, but in the end they didn’t. I next showed it to MGM, and they were very enthusiastic. The chairman of the board at MGM came in, looked at it, and when the screening was over, said, “Kid, we’re not in the movie business; we’re in the gambling business. We have all these casinos in Las Vegas and we rely heavily upon the FBI. If you think we are going to piss the Bureau off with this movie, you’ve got another thing coming. God bless you, son. You made a good movie, but we’re not going to distribute this picture.” Universal also felt the same way. At the time, they were in the process of negotiating to buy some national parks from the United States Government and they did not want to get mixed up with anything that could possibly irritate them or the FBI. It seemed to me that a lot of people liked my movie, but nobod
y wanted to stick their neck out for it. AIP had put up the money, so they got the picture back. They then sold it to a tax shelter and that put the film into profits right away. So, I came out of it with a profit before the movie had even played. Unfortunately, when the picture opened, they didn’t play it that widely. Of course, they didn’t have to because they’d already made their money back. That’s the problem with these things — once the company make their money back and are in profits, they don’t feel the need to make an effort to sell your picture. They don’t want to take a chance because the advertising costs are so high. Believe it or not, I eventually made about $300,000 profit on The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, even though it hardly played in America.

  What can you tell me about Broderick Crawford’s appearance as guest host of Saturday Night Live on March 19th, 1977?

  I actually helped to organize that. After we went to New York and did a public relations announcement for the movie at the Waldorf Astoria, we took a room there and had cocktails and invited the press. Broderick arrived in an old vintage car, and there was a photo op, and then he made a little speech. We got a number of articles, including a big half-page in the Sunday New York Times, and the people at Saturday Night Live saw it. They called up and asked if Crawford would appear as the guest host on the show. Crawford agreed, and went to do it, and I went back to California. Shortly afterwards, I received this desperate phone call from the Saturday Night Live people, saying, “Hey, you got us into this, now you’ve got to help us! We can’t control Crawford! He keeps disappearing all the time and ending up in the local bar. He’s been drinking a lot and we have to constantly keep an eye on him. We’ve got John Belushi staying with him for an hour, then Dan Aykroyd staying with him for an hour, then Bill Murray, then Gilda Radner. We assign different people to be with him all the time. We dare not leave him alone, but somehow he always manages to slip away! Can you come here and get him under control?” [Laughs] So, I arrived in New York and went to Rockefeller Plaza. I hung out with Crawford and kept an eye on him, but, as always, he did his usual thing and disappeared frequently. I said to the people at Saturday Night Live: “Look, Broderick will drink and carouse around all week long, but when the show goes out live on Saturday night, he’ll be absolutely perfect. Believe me when I say he’s always totally focused and professional. He’ll know every line of dialogue and will remember every piece of blocking, but you people will all be so nervous you’ll be falling apart. You’ll blow all of your lines worrying about him, but he’ll be just fine.” And you know what? That’s exactly what happened! When the show went out live on the air, Crawford was fine but everybody else was tense and nervous. In fact, at one point, they were doing a take-off on Crawford’s famous TV series from the 1950s, Highway Patrol, and John Belushi inadvertently dropped his gun on the floor. [14] Crawford suddenly yelled, “Pick it up!” Belushi then ran over, picked up the gun and Crawford covered for him.