Executive Action (1973)
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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.
About the Film
Assassination conspiracy? The possibility is frightening.
- Directed By
- David Miller
- Runtime
- 91 minutes
- Released
- November 7, 1973
- Certification
- PG
- Country
- United States of America
- Starring
- Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Will Geer, Gilbert Green, John Anderson
More Credits
- Genres
- Thriller
- Language
- English
- Origin
- US
- Studios
- Wakeford / Orloff
- Written By
- Dalton Trumbo, Donald Freed, Mark Lane
- Produced By
- Edward Lewis
- Cinematography
- Robert Steadman
- Music
- Randy Edelman
- Also Starring
- Paul Carr, Colby Chester, Ed Lauter, Walter Brooke, John Brascia
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For a number of years, a Japanese subtitled version was circulating among conspiracy proponents.
Will Geer was also blacklisted. He appeared in “Salt of the Earth”, America’s only blacklisted film.
It was restricted by means of coercion, intimidation and corruption yet still couldn’t prevent the film from being one of the frst example of an independent film outside of the Hollywood studio system.
Colin Baxter The film’s reels had to be delivered at night, in unmarked canisters, to a sympathetic film lab owner.
Steven F. Scharff Is that the film where Will Geer was some kind of white supremacist who wanted to poison the water supply of a big city?
Paul Wunder It’s been years since I saw the film.
Steven F. Scharff Will Geer really was a Communist back in the day.
Joel Brigham Not only was he Blacklisted, he appeared in the only Blacklisted film: “Salt of the Earth”.
Right from the beginning, so many people needed the assassin to be anything other than a left wing Castro supporter.
D Nathan Hilliard I guess you refer to Oswald. He was a CIA asset, if not outright operative, from before the time he defected to USSR. Plenty of information on his association is public.
First I heard of this movie was when I was a young teen in the early 80s. A family friend in the movie business told me about it and said he “knew” it had been deliberately suppressed. This was before it resurfaced later that decade. When it finally did come out on video, I was surprised it wasn’t a bigger deal.
D Nathan Hilliard 🤡
I saw Executive Action. Can’t recall why the conspirators wanted JFK dead.
Great film.
I saw it on the big screen in Melbourne circa 1974/5. I think it may also have had a couple of runs on local tv in the 1980s & ’90s.
It’s basically JFK from the conspirators point of view…also the Clay Shaw character is referred to by a different name because he was still alive when this was released.
I read a review that called this an innocent conspiracy film. When asked if they could use something from JFK’s private life to discredit him, the response is, “If we could find some way to discredit him, believe me, we would have done it by now.”
Did you mean to say Lancaster worked on Spartacus?
Sorry, my mistake and thanks for the correction! I actually just watched this movie (on VHS of all things) AND Spartacus last year so no excuse. Text corrected.
If Burt Lancaster worked on Spartacus, this is the first I’m hearing of it.
Michael Audreson No record of anything of the kind.
I have this on DVD.
Very competent dramatization of what are today known to be facts.
Haven’t been able to see it myself but people I trust loved it.
I saw that at the movies when it came out. There was a scene with a parked VW bug in the background, the bumper was off a later year and wasn’t used in 1963. I knew that, I was 12 and that was the first movie goof I’d noticed.
Gabriel Cervantes A goof??? Hardly a goof who would notice something so trivial and even know what year a bumper was made besides yourself? Thats just silly thats like saying Spartacus has a goof in it because I saw an amalgam filling in Kirk Douglas’s teeth which didn’t exist 2,000 years ago, its just a movie
Gabriel Cervantes Good eye.
Gabriel Cervantes
Good eye, but they made this important movie on a shoestring budget.
They did the best with what they had.
The first film OFFICIALLY about the JFK assassination… but there’s a Spaghetti Western, THE PRICE OF POWER, that has a plot that depicts the assassination of President Garfield in a way that was clearly intended to be a comment on the conspiracy theories around JFK.
Craig Stephen Tower Yes I worded it that way because I figured there had to be *something* else out there! Thanks for the information!
Pretty dark, crazy how business like those old guys were about assaination
Saw it in a theater and enjoyed it.
I liked it.
I saw it in a packed theater when it came out. Didn’t know that it had been “suppressed “.
Robin Bougie
Unfortunatly its likely closer to the truth than the Warren report.
Watched it again just recently. Great movie. I had forgotten Dick Miller was in it!
Saw it at the drive-in.
Terrific movie !
I remember seeing this movie in the theatre when it was first run. They gave you an 8 page brochure documenting all the material that this movie was based on. I loved the musical score. It had a profound effect on me, provoking an interest in the subject that still continues 53 years later. I did spot at least one goof–the Pepsi logo they used on the cafe was not used in ’63.
Saw it when it first came out. It changed my whole view on what’s possible for politics.
saw this in NYC upon first release
Interesting article, but I will rely on Leonard Maltin, who gives it one of his rare “bomb” ratings (0 out of 4) and calls it “excruciatingly dull”.
I was 14 when I first saw this, just old enough to comprehend Watergate, and what it meant. Great movie.
Trumbo was a communist. He should have just owned it
Scott Gresham 😴😴😴
Julian D Morton McCarthy will hear of this
I saw it in an Atlanta theater. Struck me as cerebral, a filmed theory rather than a drama or a thriller.
Bob Rohrer
Stone’s JFK is more effective
as a thriller but E.A. covered the
same ground succinctly and I’m sure
it was an inspiration for Stone.
And they made E.A. for like,
15 cents.
Alan Ruck Haven’t seen JFK, so I’m considering EA in isolation.
Smoking Man did it in a flashback sequence on the Xfiles
I saw it a few months ago. It is very well done.
Outstanding film, the producers were threatened about making this film, thankfully they stood their ground ✌️✊✊
So much wrong with the idea that Oswald managed to hit Kennedy from that range with a 6’5 Carcano. Entry/ exit wounds for a start.
Michael Thornton
When Kennedy got shot in the head, he was about 265 ft away from Oswald, and you think that’s a difficult shot with a rifle?
Charles Cameron With an ex-service Italian Military Carcano? You bet-particularly that closely grouped. And ask yourself, when was the last time you saw a jacketed solid entry wound do so much damage?
Michael Thornton
We know it entered the back of Kennedy’s head because of the beveling entry wound which then caused the bullet to fragment.
In 1974 Mark Lane (Rush to Judgement) spoke at my College. He showed the Zapruder film and Executive Action. It was the first time we had seen the Zapruder film on a large screen.
Bill EuDaly I also saw Mark Lane . We watched the Zapruder film . I don’t think Executive Action had been released yet. Saw it in the theater when it came out.
Bill EuDaly Mark Lane was showing the Zapruder film before Groden and Geraldo in 1975?
Stephen Bleil I was a freshman in fall 1974. That’s when I saw it as far as I can remember.
Stephen Bleil You got me thinking; and I am 70! It’s possible it was 1975. I was a Freshman 1974-1975. It could have been Winter or Spring 75 or even early 76. We were all on quarter system and not semesters then. Also can’t remember my girlfriend being with me and we had broken up before 75. In any case I don’t know much about the film’s history so you might be right and Lane was showing it after Geraldo.
Lane was able to make copies of the Zapruder film because Garrison subpoenaed it during the Shaw trial. As Lane told the story, Garrison called him one day, told him he’d gotten ahold of the film, and (with a nod and wink) Garrison informed him that he’d be out of the office for a bit. Lane immediately took it and had copies made, which he used for lectures, and spread to the researcher community. It’s one of those comparatively low quality copies that was shown on Geraldo in 1975.
Weak film , all the noble ideas can’t change that.
You can find the movie on YouTube. Only in 480 but decent.
YIP – IT SEEMS one has to work inside of the distribution system – controlling what audience gets to see .
Another great movie about the conspiracy is “The Parallax View”, it uses a fictional scenario to show what happened to Lee Harvey Oswald.
Mario Moreno Berrelleza The events were more like the RFK assassination with JFK elements thrown in.
Chris Bristol The gist of the story is that, like Oswald, a person infiltrates a conspiracy and ends up becoming the patsy.
Excellent film, well acted by a brilliant cast.
It shows how Oswald was groomed since his youth to take part in top secret intelligence operations. Black Ops. The poor schmuck actually thought he was in a mission to PREVENT the assassination. And somehow, he ended up being the patsy.
Wow! I actually saw this in a cinema, in a strip mall in Connecticut when it came out. It left a huge impression on me, especially the roll call of witnesses who had died since the assassination
I love my Carcano.
Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK.
Amazing film that predates
Oliver Stone’s JFK by nearly
20 years.
Sigh. I invite anyone who wants to know how impossible the commonly accepted series of events to go visit the Book Depository in Dallas and look out the windows at the street that runs RIGHT past the building. The only conspiracy that day was the conspiracy of incompetence that allowed him to drive in a convertible past a building that hadn’t been secured.
Oliver Stone’s movie grossly misrepresented how difficult a shot that was, and it’s interesting to see what the motives were of the first person to do it…
Saw it at 12 years old. Been fascinated ever since. Dragged my Mom there!
The only thing I can say for sure is that the guy in this picture doesn’t know how to hold a rifle.
I liked it. I saw it in the theaters in 1977.
Great film.
A lot more believable than Oliver Stone’s “JFK”! Still, implausible.
Excellent film.
It’s shown occasionally on Turner Classic Movies
I saw that when it first came out..Trumbo was an old friend of my family.
it was available on YouTube last week
It’s a fine film. But it’s a film.
Interesting, I didn’t know about this and want to check it out. Did the film faithfully depict the number of shooters required in different locations to accurately capture all the bullet forensics that was officially recorded in multi-volume report?
Excellent film. Extremely well done.
Oswald’s own brother knew he did it. Conspiracies take work. Incompetence happens all the time with no effort at all.
A dull talky film as I recall, coming out near the peak of the JFK conspiracy articles in magazines and books.
Only HALF as long and Not Nearly as Patronizing or Blatantly SHOW-OFFY in its *Technical Presentation* that Oliver Stone’s OVER SELF-INDULGENT JFK was. Nor does it have a “Heroic Seeker-of-THE TRUTH” figure for the Audience to “worship” and “awe”. Therefore, it’s automatically BETTER. And I was GLAD to have found out THIS Movie actually existed as the More PALATABLE Alternative to *that* … Populist Pandering PHONINESS.
Winter Kills 1979.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=578GLhvBcWg
Robert Ryan was also in another little known CLASSIC assassination film called Winter Kills along with a Who’s Who of Hollywood Elites. CHECK IT OUT sometime for free on Pluto TV!
A lot of Stone’s ‘JFK’ is fiction and debunk theory made to look like fact!
I remember being disappointed with the movie, I saw it at the State when it came out. I had already read the book, which I liked better. Sorta cheap movie to have such a good cast. One glaring detail was a character driving a 63 Chevy that would have been a brand new car that year…but this one looked wore out, ratty interior and even older than 10 years.
I remember talking to Karen about what she was doing that day in 63. She said she was over at her friend Debbie’s and they were probably skipping school and bleaching their hair when the news came on TV about it. I remember not being surprised at all.
If you read John-Hughes Wilson’s book “JFK:An American Coup détat,” which is his conclusion an an intelligence analyst looking at the first batch release of the JFK files, “Executive Action” is closer than Stone’s “JFK.” Wilson’s analysis includes however the enmity of the Cubans, the Mafia, and the Mossad.
This film is a JOKE.
Not only that, it’s a BAD joke.
Robert Vaughn did an interview tour in Europe to promote the film in the 1970’s.
Leonard Maltin ridiculed this film. He wrote that it was suppose to clear the air about JFK’s assassination, but was more successful at clearing theaters of patrons.
Dalton Trumbo actually had been a Communist, as had Will Geer.
Represents a different point of view. The end credits montage was thought provoking.
Saw it in a theater when it was released.Interesting film.
The average citizen just can’t accept the fact that a lone disgruntled assassin could take down the the number one politician on the planet. Well folks, that’s that way it went down. There was no conspiracy but whatever gets your through the night I guess.
I was ten when it was released & a budding student of presidential history. I managed to see it at the local mall before it was pulled & recall the faux newspaper circular they gave out at the cinema. I’d grown up in the shadow of that murder & did a report on it in my Catholic school in the 6th grade.
Trivia: Ivan Dryer worked on this movie as the editor. Ivan was later renowned as the creator of the LASERIUM laser light shows which ran more than 30 years at the Griffith Observatory planetarium.
Joe Leman
Without knowing of the controversy surrounding this film, a 16mm print was screened for my History 101 class sometime in the late ’70s. If not for that history teacher I’d never have heard of this film!
A fledgling HBO had it in heavy rotation back in the day.