It was the first major film to dramatize a conspiracy behind the Kennedy assassination. It was pulled from theaters within a month and not seen again for a decade.

Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo went to prison in 1950 for refusing to tell Congress whether he had ever been a communist. He was blacklisted, forced for years to write under other names, winning an Oscar he could not collect.

The American establishment spent a decade trying to erase him. His final produced screenplay accuses that establishment of murdering a president.

A shadowy circle of elites decides Kennedy has grown too dangerous, and arranges his death. Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, and Will Geer play the plotters. Director David Miller cut real newsreel footage into the film, giving it a disturbing immediacy.

EXECUTIVE ACTION (1973) opened on the 10th anniversary of the assassination, 18 years before Oliver Stone's JFK. It opened to harsh reviews and weak box office before disappearing until the 1980s. Whether this was due to suppression or bad box office is still up for debate.

Lancaster and Ryan worked for minimum salary. Producer Edward Lewis took no fee at all.

Lewis and Trumbo had both worked on Spartacus, the 1960 epic Kirk Douglas used to break the blacklist by openly crediting Trumbo. They reunited here for one last film, this time to level the ultimate accusation.

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Executive Action was independently financed by Edward Lewis and Wakeford/Orloff outside the major studio system. It was released by independent distributor National General Pictures. Mainstream theaters were reluctant to show the film, resulting in a highly restricted and short-lived theatrical run.