Executive Action (DVD)

When the very subject of conspiracy is brought up in polite conversation these days, it's usually aimed at the policies and administration of whoever happens to be in power. And since Vietnam, Watergate, 9-11 and the whole Iraq War issue, conspiracy in itself is not as far-fetched and dismissible as say an Elvis or UFO sighting would be. Almost a half-century after the event, the JFK assassination and the fact that over 70% of Americans still believe there was a conspiracy in the death of their 35th president, only goes to show you still can't "fool all of the people, all of the time." Whether you believe the official Warren Commission report or not, that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and that the single "magic" bullet did all the damage and was found pristine on the hospital stretcher; that the bullet could have only come from the Texas Schoolbook Depository to the rear, when so many witnesses and the infamous Zapruder film shows Kennedy being fatally hit from the front; that an ex-marine who just so happens to speak fluent Russian, who also monitored the U-2's over Russia and who knew all classified codes and call signs for NORAD, could not only have had the money to purchase such an expensive ticket let alone get an extremely rare and precious visa to fly to the Soviet Union, then renounce his US citizenship and then be allowed to come back to the USA with his new bride -a KGB colonel's daughter and all with the US governments blessing and full co-operation; whether or not you believe a full description of Oswald and his name being issued in an APB by the Dallas Police, less than fifteen minutes after the assassination; then when he is captured, the police kept no transcript or record of his time in custody; then with so many material witnesses to the assassination suffering fatal accidents, including the death of the two police outriders who were directly behind Kennedy; with Oswald being killed; with Robert Kennedy being killed and so on... Whether you believe conspiracy one way or another, the 1973 movie Executive Action makes a case for one, or at the very least the possibility for one -and it makes it beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty.Unlike Oliver Stone's overfed and over-budgeted JFK movie, director David Miller's and producer Edward Lewis' lean and thrifty Executive Action has over time been proven right in its assumptions and organized conspiracy suggestions. Now the movie's release came within days of the tenth anniversary of that sad day in Dallas, Texas of November 22nd, 1963 at approximately 12.30 pm central time. And you could say it was another organized conspiracy to get the movie made at all. One orchestrated by Lewis and co-producers Dan Bessie and Gary Horowitz, using an effective and a groundbreaking use of combining the Abraham Zapruder film, actual newsreel footage, added sound effects and combining it seamlessly with the suggested re-enactment written by legendary screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Now Trumbo was no stranger to government conspiracies, having been blacklisted in the 1950's for refusing to testify and name names before the House on Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Surprising, when Trumbo was first approached by his Spartacus friend and producer Edward Lewis, he was skeptical of any hint of a conspiracy or that Oswald could be innocent of the crime. But after seeing the research and reading the book written by Donald Freed and Mark Lane -Executive Action: Assassination of a Head of State, Trumbo came away believing that certain high officials in the government, intelligence community, organized crime and big business, could come together for a single purpose and change US and world history with the biggest homicide of the twentieth century.Mark Lane, who is also an attorney, public speaker and a human rights advocate, was one of the first to challenge the Warren Commission report and became a pioneer in what has now become an industry in JFK assassination theories. In 1967 he wrote Rush to Judgment and hosted a TV documentary based on his book. The term "executive action" -or covertly assassinating a head of state, originated with the CIA in the 1950's. Remember -years ago, people believed whole heartedly in their government. It was still an optimistic if not totally naive Frank "Capraesque" view that the American people would never consider for a single second that the United States could order the killing of foreign politicians or heads of state, let alone domestic ones.It was actors Donald Sutherland, Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan, all well known Hollywood liberals, that first approached producer Edward Lewis with Freed's and Lane's Executive Action book. The equally liberal Lewis, was a personal friend of Lancaster having produced The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), Seven Days in May (1964) and The Gypsy Moths (1969) in which the iconic sixty year-old actor had starred in. But by 1973, Burt Lancaster's career was in decline and he was really starting to show his age. Still he believed in this project and felt it was an alarming story that needed to be told, especially since the revelations of the on-going Vietnam War and Watergate scandal were so fresh on everyone's minds. Sutherland didn't get to be in this movie, but he later would be featured in an impressive cameo role in Oliver Stone's JFK (1991). Lancaster was the sole reason the film was getting made at all and between May and June of 1973, filming took place and at a fast pace in Los Angeles, including out at the home in Pasadena which was well known to fans of TV's Batman where it was Wayne Manor; the even more popular western location Vasquez Rocks just north of Hollywood; downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma doubling for 1963 Dallas and the real assassination site -Dealey Plaza itself. With a TV budget of just under $1 million, Executive Action under the capable direction of David Miller (Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Captain Newman M.D. (1963)) presented a scenario, a theory that has a Texas arch anti-communist oil millionaire played by real-life liberal and ex-blacklisted actor Will Geer, financing and giving the go-ahead to kill JFK. Years later, documentary producer Nigel Turner in his highly praised and controversial series The Men Who Killed Kennedy, offers evidence that it could have been Texas oil mogul and wheeler-dealer Clint Murchison, who was the banker. As is still common today, ex-CIA and FBI agents end up working for industrialists and major corporations as security operatives. It is widely believed, that it would be so, easy for someone as rich, resourceful and powerful as Murchison, to get the presidential motorcade to make a pointless turn into Dealey Plaza for the sole purpose of trapping the President in a killing field of triangulated fire. Robert Ryan in the last film role of his great career, plays an ex-military/corporate security head who along with his operations chief Burt Lancaster, convinces Geer that if Kennedy is not stopped by "executive action", the communists will advance, minorities will rise up and taxes will go up, as is what Kennedy was really going to do to big oil by taking away their beloved Oil Depletion Allowance, thereby costing them millions.Despite the movie's low budget, which saw major stars like Lancaster and Ryan working for scale, Hollywood's casting dean the legendary Lynn Stalmaster and his wife Lea, rounded up a great supporting cast of veteran character actors. Now if you buy the DVD, you'll be treated to a featurette on the making of the picture shot during its actual production. Producer Edward Lewis comes right out and said he received death threats over the course of the project. There was resistance from both Washington and Hollywood. No major studio was interested in either financing or releasing it.Finally, a small distributor called National General Pictures which came about in 1967 and had released such films as Monte Walsh (1970), The Getaway (1972), The Life & Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) and Prime Cut (1972), braved the political and economic climate and took a chance in presenting the first motion picture depiction of an event that many influential and powerful people would sooner see forgotten.Lee Harvey Oswald was to be the "patsy" from the very beginning. The movie heavily suggests Oswald was totally innocent, an ex-marine believed to be working for the CIA, but also known to Naval Intelligence and the FBI as an informant. Thinking that he was on assignment infiltrating a plot to kill Kennedy, the problem was that the very people he was reporting to were the very ones running it. He was set-up in the Texas Schoolbook Depository and he was set-up with the use of a double, to be the killer of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit. Lancaster contracts for multiple assassin teams to train and do the mission. Men he has worked with and trusted before in mercenary and "black-ops" that furthered the interests of in this case, Geer in foreign lands. We see them training in the desert, timing their shots and perfecting their accuracy and even using the very inadequate Italian military Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action rifle that would implicate Oswald. The planned scenario called for Oswald to be killed as the "lone nut" assassin, failing that he was not to live to be tried in court. Through the co-operation of the Mafia, strip club owner Jack Ruby, was obliged to kill him. The framing of Oswald is well shown, having his head pasted on and airbrushed to the incriminating rifle photo, being filmed on the streets of New Orleans as a Cuban-communist sympathizer and so on. As you would imagine, the most vivid and attention grabbing aspects of Executive Action is the assassination itself and the inter-cutting between the sniper teams and the Zapruder film footage. The Warren Commission declared there were only three shots fired, the first injuring Kennedy in his upper back, the second or possibly third shot -the "magic bullet" fatally hitting Kennedy exiting his neck and proceeding on into Governor John Connally seated in front. And there was one shot that missed altogether, hitting the curb and all fired by Oswald in literally just a few seconds. Both documentaries Reasonable Doubt: The Single- Bullet Theory (1988) and the nine-part The Men Who Killed Kennedy series prove the absurdity of the commission's claims. But of course there are other documentaries that support the single-bullet theory -you'll have to make up your own mind either way. Needless to say, if you believe the "single-bullet theory" you'll totally dismiss Executive Action -just like the public and critics did in November 1973, when it was first released. However, it was better received in Europe and the rest of the world, who were naturally more responsive to conspiracies in light of just how many there have been proven in world history. Speaking of which, distributor Nation General Pictures either merely coincidentally or maybe more mysteriously, never released any more movies after Executive Action and years later would be bought by Warner Brothers, around the time that they were coincidentally about to release their version of the assassination -a movie called JFK!The subject of the JFK assassination and conspiracy, even now in 2009, still raises fierce debate and feelings that less than 30% of the American people still refuse to accept or even want to entertain. Probably the same group that believe Robert Kennedy's assassination was un-related and just the work of another "lone nut" and that there really were weapons of mass destruction all along in Iraq!

I saw this movie in 1973 in Palo Alto, California and never heard of it again. It never came to the city in which I lived, and I have never met anyone who saw it in a theater.The fictional account if much more realistic that the debunked Warren Report. Hmmmmm

I have finally bought and seen EXECUTIVE ACTION, A film I have been aware of and been wanting to see for decades. First off, I give it an 8.5 out of 10 for simply being the first motion picture to deal with the subject matter (aside from documentaries) long before Oliver Stone wrote his magnum opus. Is it a perfect film...no. The long hair and bushier sideburns on most of the actors betrays the early 70’s filming dates and I spotted many post 1963 vehicles in at least half the shots where a street scene was filmed, but I can forgive it because of it’s bold subject matter. The main cast give nice, restrained performances, unlike some of the supporting cast. Some scenes, example when Ruby is talking to one of his strippers in his night club borders on high school drama level acting.What surpassed my expectations was the amount of detail/facts when it came to the post-Warren Commission evidence that has since been put forth and in some cases been proven by ordinary citizens who were not as gullible to believe the Commission’s 1964 findings. What is amazing are the scenes filmed in Dealy Plaza only 10 years after the real event. Unlike the rapid fire editing in JFK, these scenes give a real sense of the location and how all the areas relate to each other within the plaza.If you love JFK then this film is a must. Yes, it is not on as an epic scale as the 1991 watershed film, but it contains a majority of the now well known contradictions that make the Warren Report, as Cyril H. Wecht has once stated, well written fiction like HUCKLEBERRY FIN as opposed to non-fiction, which it is suppose to be.Shame it is not out on Blu-ray....

The movie is upfront. They don't say this is what happened- they say, this is how it could have happened. They also have a couple interesting facts pre script & post script.

Muy buen film aunque para ser DVD un poco caro.

With a screenplay by Walton Trumbo this 1973 film posits a theory of triangulated snipers hired to kill the President. This predates Oliver Stones JFK by a decade and uses the sniper theory shown in the book Crossfire (which itself is a good read) with "a patsy" to take the blame. We may never know if there was a real conspiracy but this is a compelling movie and a single sniper with a bolt action rifle in my view could never have got off the number of shots witnesses cited. A good cast including Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan lend weight to the plotters and portray a believable conspiracy which is well worth the watch, possibly measured against JFK for contrast.

Pour la qualité du DVD, rien à redire, c'est très bon, le son est en VOSTF , l'image est de bonne facture;pour la qualité du film et l'intérêt qu'il procure, c'est très intéressant, on ne s'ennuie pas, et la thèse évoquée est plus que crédible: un film à voir absolument.

La mejor y más convincente película sobre el asesinato de jfk y con excelentes actores.