Movies

Productions

Four Days in November

MGM/UA Studios, 1964. Directed by Mel Stuart.

Producer David Wolper and then-unknown director Mel Stuart created the first independent documentary about the assassination, premiering in theatres during the first anniversary. Unfolding chronological, the film includes original kinescopes from the live TV coverage of the motorcade and Oswald shooting, plus rare footage of witness interviews and events like Oswald’s funeral.

Conspiracy theories not explored, but for many researchers it was the first time they had seen the actual assassination in live-action—included was the Orville Nix home movie taken from across the Grassy Knoll. Recreated scenes done with precision and on-location. So skillful did Stuart incorporate crowd sounds into the silent newsfilm footage of the motorcade that critic Sylvia Meagher—in her 1967 book Accessories After the Fact—erroneously accused Stuart of muting the sounds of the shots for dramatic effect.Stuart innovates with a tasteful approach to a sensitive subject and the use of a somber musical score. Departure segment from the BBC satire show That Was the Week That Was is unexpected but riveting. Narrated by Richard Basehart. Stuart also directed The Making of a President 1960, A Thousand Days, and the moving The Unfinished Journey of Robert F. Kennedy. Wolper produced the 1993 NBC movie Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald.

MGM/UA video.

Executive Action

1973. Directed by David Miller.

Mockumentary showing right-wing masterplot and trained assassin team in Dealey Plaza. Oswald a patsy. Great cast, starring Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Will Geer and John Anderson. Suffered from comparisons to the similar-but-superior political assassination thriller The Day of the Jackal, released the same year. Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted in the 1950s. Based on the same-year novel by Mark Lane and Donald Freed. Lane wrote the 1966 book Rush to Judgment, and produced a 1967 documentary of the same name and the 1977 documentary Two Men in Dallas. 8-page handout with supposedly factual background given out at theatres.Warner Studio video / DVD.

Ruby & Oswald

1978. Directed by ?

Starring Eric Forrest and Michael Lerner.

FreeMantle Media DVD (Feb. 2007), 100 mins.

JFK

Warner, 1991. Directed by Oliver Stone.

In this stylish docudrama, Hollywood bad-boy Stone plays out his paranoid fantasies. Haunted by his own Vietnam experience, Stone contends Kennedy was removed so the Pentagon could goad puppet Lyndon Johnson into escalating war in Vietnam. Oswald shown as simple-minded patsy, Jean Hill and Beverly Oliver are star-witnesses (geeeze!!), and Jim Garrison—played “Mr. Smith”-style by a bespectacled Kevin Costner—as a crusading hero subverted by CIA/FBI interference.

Based on Garrison’s 1988 book On the Trail of the Assassins and Jim Marrs’ 1989 bestseller Crossfire. Robert Groden served as Technical Advisor and Re-enactment Consultant, accounting for a major share of the film’s errors. Groden hams it up in a brief cameo as the clammy courtroom projectionist, while the Buster Keytonesque Garrison played Earl Warren.Movie sparked lots of comment—pro and con—and was generally well-received by the public and movie critics. Credited with inciting public opinion leading to creation by Congress of JFK Records Review Act. “Director’s Cut” version includes additional scenes, notably Cosner/Garrison’s appearance on the Tonight Show with the Tramp photos.A 90-minute documentary interviewing actual witnesses and reviewing real evidence was also released. Called Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy, it was included with the JFK movie in some packages and was sold on its own (Warner Studios video).

Warner Studios video / “Director’s Cut” widescreen video / “Director’s Cut” DVD.

Ruby

1991. Directed by John Mackenzie.

Star turn by Danny Aiello (b. Brooklyn, NY, 1936) as Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Script fictionalizes many events and actions, including Ruby at a Vegas meeting of mobsters with Kennedy nearby. Ruby is involved in gunrunning to Cuba and becomes a conduit for the release of an important mobster held by Castro. Ruby is finally blackmailed into murdering Oswald. Also starring Sheilyn Fenn, Arliss Howard, Tobin Bell, David Duchovny, Richard Sarafian, Joe Cortese and Marc Lawrence.

Books

Mark Lane and Donald Freed

Executive Action

New York: Dell, May 1973

The enterprising Mark Lane—author of the 1966 bestseller and 1967 documentary Rush to Judgment—joins forces with Donald Freed in campaign to bring allegations of a massive JFK conspiracy to as broad an audience as possible. This “anti-mystery" novel—the end result being well-known—was made into an unsuccessful movie. With special material by Steve Jaffe and an eight-page intro by Richard H. Popkin, author of the 1966 paperback The Second Oswald. (Dedication included a reference to Canadians Donald Sutherland and his wife Shirley Douglas, who—at the time—were involved, along with Lane and Jane Fonda, in anti-war and radical politics. In the 1991 JFK movie, Sutherland had the pivotal role of “Mr. X.”)

Paperback, 250 pages.

Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar

JFK: The Book of the Movie

The Documented Screenplay

New York: Applause Theater, August 1992.

This companion book arrived late, supposedly to back up the movie’s claims with cold hard facts. Included is the screenplay, research notes and a JFK Debate section. At least the BS is now on a paper product.

Large-format softcover.

Articles

The Kennedys

American Film / November 1988

The 25TH anniversary sparked an unusual number of documentaries, but also one docudrama The Kennedys of Massachusetts (based on a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin). For the occasion, Tom Carson offers a four-page comprehensive review of TV productions celebrating “the only family that Americans unselfconsciously call a dynasty.” He notes The Missiles of October (1974, starring William Devane) was among the early attempts at docudrama involving modern history.

More elaborate productions followed with the landmark Kennedy (1983, starring Martin Sheen) and heroic Robert Kennedy and His Times (1995, starring Brad Davis). Approving of Blood Feud (1983, starring Robert Blake as Hoffa) but Hoover vs. The Kennedys: The Second Civil War (1987, starring Jack Warden) by same producers “a misfire.” Mention of 1977 The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald as being more satisfying than sentimentalized JFK treatments because of fantasy of “tidying up the unresolvable.” Carson discovered one of “the best TV treatments of John Kennedy” in LBJ: The Early Years (1997, starring Randy Quaid). (lead-off spread shown)

The Shooting of JFK

Esquire / November 1991

Remarkable 11-page cover story by Robert Sam Anson (author of the 1975 conspiracy paperback “They’ve Killed the President!”) on the pre-release controversy of the JFK movie. Traces how Oliver Stone was drawn to the Garrison story, despite warnings from some critics. Tells of John Newman’s reservations towards Prouty’s research. Suggests Stone scuttled Libra movie project.

Who Killed J.F.K.?

Time / December 23, 1991

Five-page critical review by Richard Corliss of soon-to-be-released JFK movie from Oliver Stone, whose past work suggests the director “screams bloody murder for a living.” Finds irony in “liberal icon” of Dances with Wolves (Costner) making heroic the disreputable Jim Garrison. As “part history book, part comic book,” the craft that went into JFK resulted in a cinematic “knock-out,” punctuated with “great visual aids.”

Can accept movie as plausible since docudrama may invoke “gossip that becomes gospel.” Illustrated boxes compare movie scenes with contradictory evidence, including shots fired, Single-Bullet Theory, head snap, rigged autopsy and Kennedy’s Vietnam intentions.

Companion three-page interview with Oliver Stone, who maintains artists have right to interpret, describes “an unelected parallel government,” places stock in Oswald’s denial, and predicts younger generation more receptive to film’s hypothesis. Stone’s personal distrust of authority began through his experience in Vietnam War. Dissolution of the Soviet Union previous week put Gorbachev on the cover. (lead-off page shown)

Twisted History

Newsweek / December 23, 1991

Four-page cover story (by Kenneth Auchincloss, et al) examines merits of soon-to-be-released JFK movie noting problems with docudrama style (compression of events, clarity out of messiness) is compounded by basing film on highly-speculative Garrison theories. Stone’s documentary-style rendering of reconstructions dubious, and the younger generation—who are Stone’s principal target (ie: film’s dedication and study guide)—are vulnerable having no firsthand experience with the event.

Lists facts omitted from film, including: Oswald owner of rifle ballistically-tied to bullets that struck the men; autopsy and medical reviews found all shots struck Kennedy from the rear; eyewitnesses who identified Oswald as Tippit murderer; Garrison staff became alarmed at his behavior. Quotes McGeorge Bundy dismissing 1,000-man withdrawal as shift in Kennedy’s Vietnam. Box “What Does Oliver Stone Owe History” interviews director (“parallel covert government has existed through the past 28 years;” “people like me, sons of Garrison, promulgate the theory”).

Companion article “A Troublemaker for Our Times” on Stone is forgiving of his “Mr. Smith Goes to the Assassination” Garrison, urging it “is perhaps best viewed as a movie convention rather than as a real man.” Stone is credited with doing justice to the multilayered complexities of the assassination controversy. Three-page end piece “Bottom Line: How Crazy is it?” reported some of the conspiracy theories and researchers encountered at the 1991 ASK (Assassination Symposium on the Kennedy Assassination) conference in Dallas, detecting reservations about Garrison.

JFK

Entertainment Weekly / January 17, 1992

Impressive and comprehensive 13-page cover story section on public furor over Oliver Stone’s JFK movie, primarily written by Allen Barra and Ty Burr. Ridicules Stone’s contention “the Establishment” is out to quash the film. Movie exploits America’s “deep cultural craving” to suspect conspiracy behind every crisis.

“Camera Obscura” by Steve Daly details the manipulative techniques and styling used in the Stone movie, such as mixing film stocks, “concrete conjectures,” “contradictory cutaways,” and body language where the thugs are “often shown in shifty-eyed close-up.” “Out, Damned Plot” by Terry Catchpole uses four pages to quantify major JFK conspiracy theories, with a sidebox (“Hollywood Conspiracies, Take One”) on Hollywood’s previous attempts to put political intrigue on the big screen.

Section wraps with article “Shots Seen Round the World” by Richard Stolley, Life magazine’s representative in negotiations with Abraham Zapruder for his 8mm amateur movie of the assassination. Three-page article justifies magazine’s refusal to sell broadcast rights on reasons of “both taste and competition.” (In later years, certain critics would more blatantly hoard assassination-related material for years, though not for concerns of taste.)

Who Shot ‘JFK’?

Entertainment Weekly / May 22, 1992

Two-page article by Ty Burr contends 1973 movie Executive Action "sketched out almost exactly the same conspiracy theory as Stone’s film" and "dramatizes the same scenes." If you’re not disposed to Stone, "it looks a little, um, conspiratorial." For that matter, a lone assassin striking down a President is hardly original.

The Second Coming of Jim Garrison

The Atlantic Monthly / March 1993

Five-page article by Edward Jay Epstein (author of 1966 Inquest and 1969 Counterplot) attacks the “phoenixlike” rehabilitation of Jim Garrison by filmmaker Oliver Stone. In defending his distorted depiction of a non-blemished, crusading New Orleans DA, Stone “became, for all practical purposes, the new Garrison.” In provoking interest and facilitating the release of classified files, Stone proved more successful than Garrison; but only because Stone exploited more outrageously their shared methodology.

Whereas Garrison tried to “coax, intimidate, and hypnotize witnesses,” Stone “fabricated” through cinematic license what Garrison had merely alleged. Stone’s wholesale “substitution technique” (fiction for fact) is creatively applied throughout the JFK movie, such as the slick-but-fictional O’Keefe character subbing for the flawed Perry Raymond Russo, Garrison’s primary conspiracy witness who could only relate his story through hypnosis fueled by hypothetical scenarios from Garrison.

O’Keefe is stripped of Russo’s “deficiencies” and, unlike hetero Russo, is portrayed as a male prostitute, a device to gain access to Shaw’s secret life. O’Keefe’s fictional story is given “cross-corroboration” by other fictionalizations, such as Ferrie’s “confession” and subsequent “murder.” To cast the plot as a “coup d’ètat,” Stone employs the anonymous X, a military insider, to give authoritative substance to the “why,” which is to prevent a Vietnam withdrawal and end to the Cold War.

Epstein finds the real Mr. X—Col. L. Fletcher Prouty—had no such insider access, and that his allegations of departure from the Secret Service “manual” had no basis. Epstein describes Prouty’s endorsement of the Report from Iron Mountain, a secret study by “power brokers” that deemed US power was best maintained through a permanent war footing. But, Epstein relates, the report that inspired Prouty was in fact a spoof of think tanks written by political satirist Leonard Lewin in 1967. The essence of Iron Mountain—conveyed through X—became the “connective tissue” of Stone’s film. (lead-off page shown)