Executive Action (1973)

Rogue intelligence agents, right-wing politicians, greedy capitalists, and free-lance assassins plot and carry out the JFK assassination in this speculative agitprop.

Director:

David Miller

Writers:

Dalton Trumbo (screenplay), Donald Freed (story),

Stars:

Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Will Geer

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Burt Lancaster	...	James Farrington
Robert Ryan	...	Robert Foster
Will Geer	...	Harold Ferguson
Gilbert Green	...	Paulitz
John Anderson	...	Halliday
Paul Carr	...	Gunman (Chris) - Team A
Colby Chester	...	Tim
Ed Lauter	...	Operations Chief - Team A
Walter Brooke	...	Smythe
John Brascia	...	Rifleman - Team B
Richard Bull	...	Gunman - Team A
Sidney Clute	...	Depository Clerk
Deanna Darrin	...	Stripper
Lee Delano	...	Gunman - Team A
Lloyd Gough	...	Charlie McCadden

Storyline

This fictionalized speculation posits that a covert group of rogue intelligence agents, ultra-conservative politicians, unscrupulously greedy business interests, and free-lance assassins become increasingly alarmed at President Kennedy's policies, including his views on race relations, winding down the Viet Nam War, and ending the oil depletion allowance. They decide to terminate him through an "executive action" utilizing two teams of well-trained snipers during JFK's visit to Dallas and place the blame on supposed CIA operative Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin.

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Plot Keywords:

assassin | president | lee harvey oswald | cia | assassination | 

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Taglines:

To this day, they remain somewhere among us... these people responsible for November 22, 1963!

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | History | Thriller

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 November 1973 (USA)

Also Known As:

Unternehmen Staatsgewalt

Filming Locations:

380 South San Rafael Avenue, Pasadena, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Wakeford / Orloff

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

Post 1963 cars can be seen in the back ground through out the film.

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Quotes

Oswald Imposter: Why don't you take a flying screw at the moon and charge it to me?

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Connections

Featured in Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America (1992)

User Reviews

This holds up very well

I forgot about this movie until I saw it on tape in a cut-out bin. I don't know why it isn't a well-known film, it's very good. The cast is excellent, and the straight-forward tone is unique. There's no judgement provided by the movie makers on the plotters, who are on one hand presented as earnest men doing what they believed to be in the best interest of the country, and on the other as lunatic facists, discussing eliminating "excess population" as if it were an everyday thing.

The purpose of the movie is to educate, it seems, presenting a lot of facts or what are presented to be facts, about Oswald as a patsy. I've read enough to know that not all of what is presented as factual is true (the phone system being cut out in D.C. is a well-known canard, repeated in "JFK"), but the movie uses this approach to lay out a very logical scenario regarding how it could have been done. The political background, and the details of the lapses of the Secret Service are used to good effect.

Finally, there is the presence of JFK himself as a counterpoint throughout the movie. Films of some of his best lines combined with the haunting musical score lend an air of melancholy appropriate to the subject matter, a feeling that is shared by the plotters. There is a quote from Shakespeare given by Robert Ryan that sums it up; ". . . and nothing can we call our own but death . . . let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings." It's one fine moment of many in a well-crafted film.