Executive Action (1973)

Burt Lancaster: Farrington

Photos 

Quotes 

• James Farrington : Tell me, sir, to what do you acribe your great good health?

  Ferguson : Hard liquor and soft women.

  [they laugh] 

• Foster : The real problem is this, James. In two decades, there will be 7 billion human beings on this planet. Most of them brown, yellow or black, all of them hungry, all of them determined to love, and swarm out of their breeding grounds into Europe and North America. Hence, Vietnam. An all-out effort there will give us control of South Asia for decades to come. And with proper planning, we can reduce the population to 550 million by the end of the century. I know. I've seen the data.

  James Farrington : We sound rather like gods reading the Doomsday Book, don't we?

  Foster : Well, someone has to do it. Not only will the nations affected be better off, but the techniques developed there can be used to reduce our own excess population. Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans, poverty-prone whites, and so forth.

• James Farrington : In Europe, heads of state always die at the hands of conspirators. Our presidents are killed by madmen. The pattern is remarkably consistent.

  [shows first slide of slideshow] 

  James Farrington : Abraham Lincoln, April 14th, 1865. Target: sitting and stationary. Range: six inches. Successful.

  [shows next slide] 

  James Farrington : James Garfield, July 2nd, 1881. Target: walking at two and a half miles per hour. Range: three feet. Successful.

  [shows next slide] 

  James Farrington : William McKinley, September 6th, 1901. Target: standing and stationary. Range: one foot. Successful.

  [shows next slide] 

  James Farrington : Theodore Roosevelt, October 14th, 1912. Target: standing and stationary. Range: six feet. wounded, survived.

  [shows next slide] 

  James Farrington : Franklin D. Roosevelt, February 15th, 1933. Target: sitting and stationary. Range: 23 feet. Five shots, five misses.

  [slideshow ends] 

  James Farrington : In every case, the Secret Service was unprepared. In every case, the assassin was a political fanatic... willing to die to get the president.