The FBI Story

The story of FBI Agent Chip Hardesty (Jimmy Stewart) is told in flashbacks, and provides a look at the growth of the agency itself. From modest beginnings, both Hardesty and the agency made a name for themselves fighting 1930s gangland figures like Baby Face Nelson and John Dillinger, and establishing the FBI Most Wanted List. During a Midwestern shoot-out with mobsters, Chip's partner Sam Crandall (Murray Hamilton) is killed. Hardesty's other assignments are shown in the FBI's fight against the Ku Klux Klan in the deep south, the agency neutralizing Axis spies in the World War II, defending the newly-rich Oklahoma Indians against swindlers in the 1950s, and the ongoing fight against Communist agents.