Complot à Dallas

Released in November 1973, near the tenth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, EXECUTIVE ACTION is often overlooked as a film because of Oliver Stone's extraordinarily controversial 1991 film JFK. It obviously doesn't have the high-budget gloss or the montage that Stone's film does, but what it does have is a hard-hitting inside look into the individuals who might have had a direct hand in plotting this hideous crime.

Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan (in one of his final movies), and Will Geer are the conspirators, right-wing businessmen with an axe to grind. As in Stone's film, the motivations for the assassination are disgust with the way Kennedy handled Fidel Castro and the possibility that he would have stopped our involvement in Vietnam before it ever got to the ground troop stage. Based on Mark Lane's book "Rush To Judgement", scripted by former blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, and directed by David Miller (LONELY ARE THE BRAVE), EXECUTIVE ACTION is very somber and cold-blooded, but superbly constructed. It is amazing to think that three actors with ultra-liberal political credentials like Lancaster, Ryan, and Geer should be so icily convincing in their portrayals of fascists. The film makes very plausible the banality of evil. And like JFK, it also blows holes in the Warren Commission report big enough to drive a truck through and make apologists like Gerald Posner apoplectic.

Whether seen on its own terms or as a companion piece to the much better known JFK, EXECUTIVE ACTION is worth viewing--and, like Stone's film, asks us to consider the nightmarish chain of events that seem to have resulted directly or indirectly from what happened on that dark day in Dallas in 1963.

It was hard back then to cut out Lee Harvey Oswald's face, paste it on a body holding a gun, and then copy it so it looked like a real photo. Made conspiracy challenging.

"Executive Action" from 1973 is another film that theorizes how the assassination of JFK went down - this time, it's a bunch of rogue intelligence agents, conservative politicians, greedy businessmen who were worried about President Kennedy's policies on race relations, ending the Vietnam War, and ending the oil depletion allowance.

This film's conspiracy is a lot more straightforward than what was posited in JFK, and it really could have gone down this way - with fake Oswalds, three gunmen, and a lot of people getting out of Dodge as soon as it was over.

Unfortunately we don't know what happened. This could be close though. Much of the film has actual footage mixed in with film footage. Although the assassination was a re- enactment, it was mixed with actual footage and is still devastating to watch.

One thing I've never doubted for one minute is that Ruby was allowed to kill Oswald. Take a look at that scenario. This man supposedly just killed the President and Ruby saunters into the garage, Oswald comes up with a man at either side, walking somewhat slowly - where? Why wasn't the transport right at the door? Never could get over that.

"Executive Action" is handled in a very naturalistic style; the actors speak conversationally, and it makes what they're planning scarier.

The most impressive part of the film is showing that 18 material witnesses to the assassination were dead by 1967. Sobering.

Good film, makes you think. Depressing too.

David Miller's conspiracy-theory 're-enactment' shows the plotting by several oil-barons and intelligence officers to murder the then- President of the United States John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's pushing of the Civil Rights movement and plans to withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam proves a threat to these emotionless rich folk, and the removal of Kennedy will benefit their business and, to them, their country. Farrington (Burt Lancaster), a black ops specialist, plans out the assassination in minute detail, with the backing of Foster (Robert Ryan), an oil baron. The action cuts between meetings between these men, the preparations of the gunmen and their target practice, and the recruitment and actions of a Lee Harvey Oswald lookalike.

While not being a fact-based and detailed account like the portrayal of Jim Garrison's investigation in Oliver Stone's excellent JFK (1991), Executive Action makes no claims to be historical fact, but instead a theory of how Kennedy's assassination could have been planned. How much is based on fact I don't know, as I had trouble finding much information about it. While it is certainly very interesting from a conspiracy- theorists point-of-view, the film works far better as a straightforward thriller, and certainly manages to build up plenty of tension regardless of the fact that we know what is going to happen, and that what is being played out in front of us is unlikely to be true.

It's a cold and emotionless film, which made me like it more. Lancaster's Farrington prepares the assassination as if he is preparing a holiday - matter-of-factly, routinely. The terrifying thing is that these men believe that what they are doing is patriotic and for the good of the country. Because of this, the film can be seen as a damning commentary of American values - the pursuit of money and desire for security is held in higher regard than doing the right thing, or equality. The film's low budget is certainly noticeable, and some of the supporting acting is often questionable, but this is a riveting thriller that contains many qualities that made the 70's the greatest era for American cinema.

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Entertaining and interesting film which puts forward a seemingly plausible theory as to why JFK was assassinated.

The main thought seems to be that President Kennedy's ideas in regard to nuclear disarmament, racial equality and ensuring a square deal for America's most lowly paid workers were just too radical as far as the country's hard line conservatives were concerned.

Appears to have been generally well researched and non sensationalist.

However, it's a fair criticism to note that some of the finer points of period detail are slightly shaky. For example, some of the hairstyles and fashions definitely belong to the '70s rather than the early '60s. We have a '61 Chevy coupe with a tattered rear back seat which has obviously been parched by a decade of sun exposure. But these are minor points.

Don't worry too much about nit picking as this movie is most certainly well worth a look.

What makes the Kennedy assassination so fascinating to me is the conflicting evidence both for and against a lone assassin. This film develops one version of conspiracy theory, and a fairly plausible one if you believe the evidence weighs in a conspiratorial direction.

The version here, i.e. ruthless right-wing oligarchs, has had historically to compete with the also popular organized-crime-did-it theory. However, the two don't have to be mutually exclusive, though combining them may be too unwieldy to be plausible. Nevertheless, this version does appeal to the ruthlessness with which power is known to be wielded in our upper echelons. As some historians point out, the assassination itself marks the end of America's post-war age of innocence.

Judged strictly as a movie, the sinister intrigues come across as darkly entertaining. I can understand that lone-assassin defenders would despise the contents and the assurance with which they're served up. Nonetheless, the movie presents a fascinating narrative of deadly machinations at the highest levels. If the acting seems restrained, that's likely so as not to compete with the storyline, which of course remains uppermost. Taken strictly as entertainment, Leonard Maltin's "Bomb" and "dull" thus come across as judgments based on political opinion instead of movie-making art, and should be an embarrassment to his professional reputation.

Perhaps some background to the movie would be helpful to younger viewers. By 1973, the year of the film's release, critics, such as Mark Lane's 1966 Rush to Judgment, had shredded much of the Warren Commission Report (1964), putting the government's lone assassin theory on the strictly defensive. District Attorney Jim Garrison's independent New Orleans investigation in 1967 also lent legitimacy to critics of the Report. Just as importantly, government's credibility on matters of state had been undermined by events in Vietnam, especially as exposed in the Pentagon Papers of 1971. In short, many Americans were ready to believe in 1973 what they weren't ready to believe in 1963, namely that the official Report was an expedient cover-up, and that the true facts surrounding Kennedy's murder had yet to be revealed.

Executive Action stepped into the breach, hoping to reach the non-book reading public and alert them to what critics on the left felt was a likely version of the true facts. Note that except for the positioning of the shooters, other details—especially the network connections beyond Ryan and Lancaster—remain unspecified. Thus, this film version provides a framework in which elements of the CIA or other rogue elements of government, or even organized crime, can be slotted. Wisely, the movie doesn't provide more than this generalized, non-specific framework.

My recollection is that the movie never got beyond a limited release, and mainly to urban centers. So the goal of reaching a broader American public was likely not realized. I also recall information sheets being passed out to ticket-buyers, detailing some points made in the movie. But, whatever the reasons, this independent production failed to reach the numbers of Oliver Stone's 1991 recounting of the Garrison investigation. However by that time, a new generation and three decades had intervened and memories had faded.

But, if films like Executive Action continue to tantalize, it's because the government has never had an interest in really pursuing the case. That's understandable in the instance of the Warren Report. Keep in mind that because of Oswald's supposed communist connections, there was a real possibility in 1964 of nuclear war breaking out if a Soviet plot were exposed. Better a cover- up investigation that might otherwise go who knows where than millions of atomized dead. Yes, indeed, that's understandable. But what about the finding of 1979's House Select Committee on Assassinations, convened because of renewed public interest in the case. The Committee concluded rather shockingly that "… on the basis of evidence available to it (meaning the Committee) that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy." !! "Probably a conspiracy"-- Quite an official declaration after years of asserting otherwise.

On the other hand, it's revealing that there was never any follow-up by an agency of government following the House's nominal overturning of the Warren Report. In fact, I think few people are even aware of the government's now paradoxical position on the 20th century's leading unsolved murder. The House finding was simply shoved under the rug and forgotten. Thus the crime continues to haunt the nation's background like a wandering ghost too toxic for the government to finally track down. As a result, movies like Executive Action, for all its speculative dimension, will continue to entertain and provoke and, within limits, inform.