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In the late nineteen-fifties, James Stewart was on a roll. âVertigoâ came out in 1958, as did the sly and funny âBell, Book and Candle,â followed by âAnatomy of a Murder,â in 1959. A decorated veteran and a loyal Republican, Stewart seemed at once trusty and perplexedâstill a straight arrow, but no longer sure, in the postwar world, of where, exactly, he was aimed. Yet to come was âThe Man Who Shot Liberty Valanceâ (1962), in which he and John Wayne duke it out for the values of the Old West. Was it, perhaps, Stewartâs wish to prove himself steadfast, in spite of change, that impelled him to star in âThe FBI Storyâ (1959)? It runs two and a half hours, growls at irony and doubt, and features a cameo by J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Bureau from 1924 to 1972. Stewart plays a longtime G-man, whose creed is nicely distilled in this report on a current suspect: