I’ve been doing a lot of newspaper research recently dealing with the 1960s and 1970s, and as I was skimming through a publication I came across a 1974 Burt Lancaster movie advertisement for Executive Action. The movie is a fictional look at the assassination of John F. Kennedy — a subject that I have always found intriguing.
Although the acting in the movie reminds me of the acting from that era — which is to say it’s a little overdone for me — the movie is actually a decent flick. It intersperses historical footage with the movie– and in some ways reminds me of Oliver Stone’s film, JFK. However, the beauty of Executive Action is, unlike JFK, the conspiracy it attempts to explain is much simpler and thereby easier to follow.
The movie follows the same, and oft heard, theory, though, that three gunmen were involved in Kennedy’s death. The film ends with a list of 18-20 firsthand witnesses that died under mysterious circumstances.
Parkland
After watching that film, I stumbled unto the 2013 film Parkland. This film has a 6/10 rating on IMDb which is a bit low in my opinion. I’ll admit it’s not the best film I’ve watched, but what I did like about the film is it told the JFK assassination story from the angle of the hospital staff. The small hospital was pulled into history that fateful day, and ordinary people came face-to-face with the severity of the murder. The film does a decent job capturing the confusion that existed (based on other accounts) between local and federal authorities.
It was also the hospital used when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot just a few days later.
The way Oswald’s family was treated after his death is displayed fairly accurately in the film. And, for me, I did learn something new I never realized — until watching the film — that Oswald had a brother.
The film ends with bio sketches of the key characters, including Oswald’s brother.
Rating: 3/5 for each.
Charlie R. Claywell 