1. J Edgar Hoover Assembled One Of Americas Largest Collections Of Stag Films
Maintained at FBI Headquarters in Washington DC during the Hoover years, its existence not disclosed until after the Directors death, the Obscene File contained more than a thousand stag films half the number produced in America between 1920 and the early 1950s - as well as phonograph records, magazines, postcards, comics, playing cards and sexually explicit books. Shortly after becoming bureau director in 1924, Hoover told his agents to collect as much obscene material as possible from the countrys muck merchants and send it directly to the FBIs Crime Laboratory, where it was kept separate from official evidence files. Not only were local attorneys kept uninformed but, by a strange coincidence, the only persons allowed access to the file were Hoover, his personal secretary and his assistant, Clyde Tolson.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
