Executive Action (1973)

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.

If it's a given that infamous international events - like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy - which have never been fully satisfactorily explained are fair game for conspiracy theorists then Executive Action has as much right as any other to its moment in the sun. The first obligation of any film expounding a conspiracy is plausibility and the movie asserts nothing that is beyond the capabilities of a well- to-highly organised group of like-minded people with virtually unlimited funds and access to a network of highly-skilled professional assassins. in saying this I may have underlined just a fraction of the difficulties faced by any group of fanatics who have no use for a democratic form of government. If we put this to one side we are left with some excellent performances. If Robert Ryan is the best actor overall by a country mile - and here I'm basing judgment on a lifetime career - then Burt Lancaster and Will Geer are certainly fit to be mentioned in the same breath. All in all a provocative and entertaining film.

Although this film has been eclipsed by Oliver Stone's JFK, Executive Action points to an alternative view of the Kennedy Assassination. Names are definitely changed to protect the innocent or the falsely accused depending on your point of view.The conspiracy is hatched in the study of Robert Ryan who is an unnamed right-wing millionaire concerned about the direction of policy the Kennedy administration is taking. Three issues are of concern, the negotiations for a nuclear test ban treaty with the Russians, the growing civil rights movement which Kennedy was now embracing, and the Vietnam War. Another of the concerned citizens is Will Geer playing your stereotypical right-wing oil millionaire. He's concerned about the oil depletion allowance that has made him the super rich guy that he is. Geer's character is clearly based on H.L. Hunt.Burt Lancaster is the operations guy, he's got a history of black ops for the government and for private citizens like Geer. He puts together the shooters and he's got a plan to set up a patsy in Lee Harvey Oswald.Most people in the USA have a casual familiarity with the bare-bones facts of the Kennedy Assassination so the film will come in for its share of criticism. The film is based on a book by Mark Lane who is a Kennedy Assassination specialist and left-wing gadfly. That in and of itself is guaranteed to give the film its detractors.At least in two areas the assassination failed to do what it set out to accomplish. Kennedy become a martyr and the Texas and Southern Vice President who succeeded him, Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the civil rights and voting rights legislation that changed America forever. The nuclear test ban treaty was never abrogated, no one ever raised the possibility.JFK's demise never accomplished what they wanted, preservation of their little right-wing world. As for the film, Executive Action gives a plausible theory of the assassination, but nothing more.

Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan lending their talents to this film are statements of integrity for each. The movie takes a pragmatic approach to the event and unlike the later film, JFK, does not set up the counter-conspiracy protagonists nor the after-assassination cover-up as a dramatic foil. It simply tells us how it could have been done and leaves it to the viewer to determine what is reasonable. In 1973 this was a wise move in that the Shaw case had been resolved a mere four years earlier. It is similar to the revelatory Ned Beatty scenes in the film, Network, in the scene where the Kennedy killers assure each other that the public will, "want to believe what they are told." That is the full extent of the American public's "role" in the movie, showing just the conception, practicing for and execution of President Kennedy. My only criticism is that the fleshing out of Jack Ruby's motives for eliminating Oswald seemed incomplete. We never get to see who Lancaster's character is connected to within the government, so we have to assume that he is capable of pulling off the elimination of Oswald without worrying that the plot will be uncovered. By today's standards this seems just a little bit loose but it also enhances the spookiness and horror of it all.