atlasmb "Executive Action" provides an alternate explanation for the evidence surrounding the assassination of President John Kennedy. Released only 10 years after JFK's death--too soon for the public to accept it--it was a box office flop. But its use of both dramatized scenes and archival footage provides an interesting, though controversial, story written by the talented Dalton Trumbo.Much of the conspiracy theory is similar to Oliver Stone's "JFK", and it does a good job of integrating known evidence (such as witness reports and information we know about Lee Harvey Oswald) and nearly mythologized explanations of the assassination (like the "grassy knoll").Starring Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan (in his penultimate film) and Will Geer as the three men who organize the hit, the film carries an emotional content for anyone who lived through the event in 1963. It also serves as an indictment of the Secret Service and the Dallas Police Department, criticizing their sloppy procedures and their unprofessional methods.Though many people have accepted the Warren Commission's lone gunman explanation, conspiracy theorists abound even now, especially since some of the evidence is difficult to explain.As we view the film today, it is nearly amusing to hear the conspirators say, in ignorant naivete, that JFK's reputation and personal life are smear proof. But the mystical spell of "Camelot" that surrounded the Kennedys and his presidency was still in place at the film's initial release in 1973.

jacobs-greenwood This political thriller purports to provide an alternative to the Warren Commission's report that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Directed by David Miller, it features a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo that was based on the story by Donald Freed and Mark Lane's novel Rush to Judgment.It stars Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan (among others) as wealthy conspirators that want to eliminate the POTUS before he and the rest of the Kennedy clan - they foresee the White House being occupied by JFK, then Robert followed by Teddy through 1984 - can implement their agenda, which would change the United States of America into an intolerable country for them.Actual newsreel footage is used to chronicle the President's steps: a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, the promise of equal rights for Negroes (Kennedy's words), and military withdrawal from Vietnam, which the conspirators fear would allow the Communists to take over Asia.The actions finally convince a Southerner (played by Will Geer) to fund the assassination plot which, according to the film, included three gunmen (one behind a fence on a grassy knoll), and making a patsy out of Oswald, who was merely a Texas School Book Depository employee when the shots rang out near Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas at half past noon on that fateful day.After Jack Ruby kills Oswald, the film's denouement includes Ryan receiving a phone call that Lancaster's character has died, then pictures of several other eyewitnesses (who were reportedly killed or died mysteriously in subsequent years) are shown.A conspiracy theorist's delight!

vostf As an exercise in creating a provocative perspective on the Kennedy assassination, Executive Action is successful. Basically it is as if you would take some time to listen to a conspiracy theorist able to lay out his view without too many vague allegations. Above all it is very interesting as a reflection on conspiracies (groupthink and escalating violence).It is futile because it tries too hard to fill in the blanks so it deliberately stems from a clever thought-provoking mockumentary to a crazy conspiracy movie. If you know little about the facts it holds up pretty well, which is dangerous as far as conspiracy theorists are dangerous with their loose thinking. If you want to challenge it, there is plenty of room, yet that would be futile too.The main point IMHO is that Executive Action has it all wrong as a movie. A conspiracy movie cannot be told from the perspective of the masterminds. It is usually told from the external perspective of someone who suspects it and uncovers part of it, or it can be told from someone that is only a pawn in the conspiracy. On the contrary if all the conspiracy is laid out as a clear plan with motivations also made heavily clear, where is the mystery? The tension between what we think we know and what we crave to know?No wonder Executive Action bombed in 1973, failing both as a movie and as an open for discussion account of events from 10 years back.

guerre1859 The appeal of this motion-picture for me--and, I surmise, the reason it was made--is not so much to be a profitable work of art, but rather, a courageous effort to search for the truth.The obscurity of the film shows that, despite the efforts of courageous progressives who put their money where their hearts were- -Kirk Douglas, Robert Ryan, Burt Lancaster, to name just a few--the reactionary, established powers had the last laugh.Because the established order of the financial-military mafia that rules this country can only be sustained through fiction and, consequently, any social commentary trending towards fact must be marginalized or lampooned as 'conspiracy theory.'Now, down to a couple of brass tacks. I already had studied the JFK assassination quite a bit when first I saw this film, but I was surprised that a movie made in 1973 could capture so many of the key elements of the conspiracy, and do it so seamlessly, without getting lost in a morass of details.Two of these key elements treated compellingly in this film are:1) the set-up of Oswald, the 'patron', as he is termed in the movie. Step by step Farington (the character played by Lancaster) briefs Robert Ryan (one of the principal conspirators) about Oswald's very, very curious background and CV--his activities in the USMC, his Russian language training, his abrupt departure, the inconsistencies of his emergency leave, his circuitous route to Moscow, his melodramatic defection, then his return to the US, his fair-play for Cuba activities--and, all along, the almost magical manner in which these gyrations went off without a hitch, and were even expedited and facilitated by various US agencies. As Ryan concludes: obviously was an agent of the CIA or ONI, his bizarre activities were machinations to send to the USSR as a 'mole', or 'trojan horse', but the Soviets were past masters in espionnage, and didn't take the bait.2) a point so obvious that it sometimes is forgotten, or simply defies belief: a scene in the movie where a table-ful of reporters incredulously ask a Dallas police official what records, what transcripts or tapes have been made of Oswald's hours-long interrogations, only to be told--with no hint of embarrassment--that there are none. This is just one compelling example of another basic proof of the JFK conspiracy: the incredibly incompetent manner in which the official investigation of the crime was conducted. And yes, I mean incredible in the literal sense: a bit of investigatory incompetence here and there would be understandable--but the consistency of these 'errors' shows conclusively a deliberate effort to mask what really happened.Please remember that Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster also were part of Seven Days in May, which JFK asked Frankheimer to make, a movie about a right-wing military takeover of the USA.So for all those who poo-poo the idea of a JFK conspiracy and commonly dismiss believers in such a conspiracy as lunatics, consider the fact that such outstanding individuals as Douglas, Lancaster, and Frankenheimer, intelligent, and with many contacts-- BUT with a lot of DISincentives, nevertheless repeatedly made pointed efforts suggesting the existence of an organized plot to subvert democracy in the USA, doesn't this give you pause?This is a reasonable representation of how the JFK conspiracy assassination may have been planned and executed; it's muted and almost documentary in approach, but this undramatic approach only makes it more powerful.