Persons In Hiding

Der inquisitorisch veranlagte J. EdgarHoover nutzte die Möglichkeiten populärer Medien, um ein geschöntes Bild des von ihm erschaffenen und geleiteten FBI zu prägen. PERSONS IN HIDING entstand unter seiner strengen Aufsicht bei Paramount als erster von vier B-Filmen, die tatsächliche Fälle in populäres Kino transferierten. Am Skript arbeitete der erfolgreiche Schriftsteller und Drehbuchautor Horace McCoy mit, die Hauptrolle spielte das B-Starlet Patricia Morison. Ein Farmmädchen, so die Kinowerbung, wird zur Frau hinter einem Killer. Selbst im US-Heartland, so Hoovers Warnung, kann jedes Herz dasjenige der Finsternis sein.

Mit HEAVEN WITH A BARBED WIRE FENCE

Law enforcement czar J. Edgar Hoover cannily understood the power of popular media to define the image of the federal bureau he effectively invented and ruled for almost four decades. In the 1930s Hoover turned to cinema as a publicity vehicle for his FBI, working with the studios to transform stories from the Bureau’s own files into gripping narratives of crime and its swift punishment. PERSONS IN HIDING is the first of four B-films made by Paramount under Hoover’s close supervision and based on successfully closed FBI cases chronicled in his best-selling and eponymous book. Boasting a screenplay co-written by hard-boiled novelist Horace McCoy, PERSONS IN HIDING balances its careful exposé of police procedure with a charged evocation of Depression-era struggle, embodied in the figure of an embittered hairdresser who impulsively embraces crime and a partnership with a petty hood as a means to obtain the status symbols she invidiously desires. The feature debut of little known B-starlet Patricia Morison, PERSONS IN HIDING offers the farm girl turned ruthless killer as an emblem of the criminality Hoover claimed to lurk everywhere, even within the dark shadows of the American heartland. (Haden Guest)

With HEAVEN WITH A BARBED WIRE FENCE