Loose Thread #2 - The call from J. Edgar Hoover
A bizarre aspect of the movie that is ignored by everyone in the movie.
What we are told: Prior to the surge killing of the Cop, Singing Telegram Girl and Yvette a call from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover is answered by the off-duty cop right before he makes his own call for help.
What we find out: It was a fact a call from J. Edgar Hoover and it was intended for his undercover Agent, Mr. Green.
This entire element of the movie makes no sense, regardless of the ending. In the two false endings, Wadsworth is the undercover Agent trying to catch the blackmailer and killer. The call from Hoover comes and the Cop answers it and Wadsworth answers it as a representative of the house. All we see is after the call a slightly exasperated Wadsworth take a deep breath, then move on. If the call was for Wadsworth I suppose there could be a reason for Hoover to call with the expectation that Wadsworth would answer the phone, being the butler and all. But once the Cop answered why on Earth would Hoover just continue on and tell the Cop who he really was? No reason.
In the true ending it makes even less sense. Mr. Green is undercover and not in control of the household. Why on Earth would Hoover need to tell him something so badly that he would do it right in the middle of a sting operation where there is very little chance that Green would be able to answer the phone? There is no reason and the movie provides none. Green doesn't get the call and doesn't mention it again until he tells everyone at the end it was for him, in case his badge and gun wasn't enough to convince them he was an undercover Agent.
The call only really serves one function and that is to let the people watching the movie that something is not as it seems. Which we already knew due to the spy, blackmail, Boddy reveals. But I suppose this lets us in to the fact that there is a law enforcement element involved that we may not be hip to yet. The problem though is that while we get that info and do whatever with it, the people in the movie react to it in no way whatsoever. In the true ending, a call from Hoover should have immediately clued Wadsworth/Boddy into the fact that one of the guests was an undercover agent of some kind, or at least working with the Feds. Given that moments later Yvette is killed by White, the Cop by Scarlett and the Singing Telegram Girl by Wadsworth himself, the fact that Green is the only person in the house who hasn't killed anyone yet should have been proof positive that he was the mole. Frankly, Wadsworth should have known that already since all the guests had their informant in the house, besides Green. Wadsworth had the gun and the element of surprise and already had a house full of people being blackmailed who all just killed someone. He could have done anything with Green and pinned it on them. Or hid him in the basement. Or just fled. Anything. We don't know what the conversation was like between Wadsworth and Hoover but its impossible to imagine anything that could have been said that would have eased Wadsworth's mind. Wadsworth reacts by just doing . . . . . . . nothing. Nothing at all.
Even if you were inclined to believe that the Hoover call was a missed edit from one of the fake endings, the same logic applies. If Wadsworth was the undercover Agent and Peacock or Scarlett was the killer, the fact that the Cop announces to everyone that Hoover was calling the house would have clued the killer into the scam immediately. What actions that would have caused we can't say but it wouldn't have just been ignored. I think it likely that it would have made Wadsworth an immediate target since all the blackmail victims had proven that they would not have worked with the Feds and the whole operation was being orchestrated by Wadsworth. This whole business with the call was for the audience only.
Up next: The final part, the Beatnik Preacher loose thread
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