EXECUTIVE ACTION

US, 1973, 91 minutes, Colour.
Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Will Geer.
Directed by David Miller.

Executive Action is an unusual film. It looks plausible. It may not be. The film is a documentary type reconstruction of the events leading up to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Authentic newsreel footage has been inserted into a fictional narrative that the film insists could have been true. The material comes from Mark Lane, critic of the Warren Report and the author of Rush to Judgement. Screenplay is by Dalton Trumbo, one of the famous Hollywood Ten and later screenwriter for Spartacus, Exodus and the maker of Johnny Got His Gun, based on his own novel.

The film holds the attention whether one agrees with the hypothetical reconstruction or not. The picture of businessmen with their own private armies, deciding the fate of a nation and executing it for their own business and ideological ends is rather frightening. With the events of 1974 and the resignation of President Nixon, it does not seem too implausible.

Executive Action is good discussion material on politics, society and morals. Richard Condon's tantalising hypothesis was brought to the screen in 1979 in Winter Kills. Almost 20 years later Oliver Stone made JFK.

1. The implications of the title of the film?

2. Though the film said it was only a hypothesis, was it a plausible hypothesis? Is it made more possible and plausible by our insight of the seventies? The strong interest in the seventies in such a hypothesis? Is the making of this film more a comment on the political climate in America in the seventies than in the sixties?

3. How well did the film integrate its documentary evidence with its fiction? Comment on the dramatic use of newsreel material. Its integration into the story line, e.g. the main characters watching the documentary material on television. Did the fact that the documentary evidence was real have undertones implying that the rest of the story was real?

4. What values did John Kennedy stand for? How were these made clear in the documentary evidence and in the discussion of the main characters? Why did the southern men in their conspiracy stand against Kennedy? What were the principal features pointed out in the film for their opposition to him, for example - civil rights, nuclear treaties, softness on communism and peace, etc? Why did these men stand in opposition to Kennedy? Was it merely ideology or were there business interests and historical reasons from the south? What did they fear of the future? Of the Kennedys ruling in America for twenty years etc?

5. Could such a conspiracy be possible? The amount of secrecy required? The amount of money to support it? The intricate planning of the various groups involved? The authority behind such a conspiracy? How was this borne out in the comparative roles of Farrington, Ferguson and Foster? Why was it important that Ferguson give his support to the whole group? What made him finally consent to be a patron of the conspiracy? What was the role of Foster in organising people? What was the role of Farrington in getting the hit men to do the execution and the training? How was this part and parcel of his life, for example his role in oil deals in the Middle East?

6. What were the actual motives of the people for killing Kennedy? Did they consider any alternative methods in getting rid of him? Political reasons and motives? The motives of the men who did the actual shooting?

7. Impressions of the soldiers involved? The fact that they
knew what the target was? Their greed for money? The fact that they could plan cold-bloodedly to kill the President?

8. What comment did the film make regarding sympathies of the CIA and FBI? The acute situation of the early sixties had people out of sympathy with the administration? How interesting was the detailed information about the comparative roles of government and government agencies?

9. How important were the training sequences? What impressions did they give? How ironic were they when the audience knew that they would be successful?

10. Comment on the film's presentation of the atmosphere in Dallas. Public antipathy towards Kennedy? The anti-leftist atmosphere of Dallas? Right wing values and feelings? The showing of the documentary evidence of Adlai Stephenson's meeting in Dallas and his warning to Kennedy?

11. How interesting and intricate was the setting up of Oswald? The detailed information about Oswald and the fact that he may have been an American agent: the arranging of documents and his entry into Russia and his exit, the Russian's buying his story, Oswald's involvement back in America? The conspirators choosing a man who looked like Oswald and setting him up?

12. The preparations for the assassination in detail? What emotional effect did this have on the viewers of the film in view of what had really happened? The actual assassination? What emotional feelings did the film create at this particular juncture? Their reconstruction of what really happened in Dallas? With the cross-cutting of the escape of the assassins and their getting out of the country?

13. What was the ironic comment in the sequence of the playing of pool after the assassination with the news of the death of Farrington? What comment was being made here?

14. How did the film leave the story and its hypothesis open? What had been achieved? What of the information given about the deaths of the material witnesses?

15. What political attitude and stance did this film take? Would you say that it gave a balanced picture of its hypothesis?