Executive Action (1973)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

David Miller

Writers:

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

Release Date:

7 November 1973 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | History | Thriller

Tagline:

Their Goal...Assassination. November 22, 1963...Accomplished!

Plot:

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

Plot Keywords:

Assassin | CIA | Lee Harvey Oswald | Assassination | Sniper

Cast

Burt Lancaster	...	James Farrington
Robert Ryan	...	Foster
Will Geer	...	Harold Ferguson
Gilbert Green	...	Paulitz
John Anderson	...	Halliday
Paul Carr	...	Chris
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	...	McCadden

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

380 South San Rafael Avenue, Pasadena, California, USA

Company:

Executive Action Enterprises

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In the first scene of the morning of 22 November 1963 a paperboy is throwing a newspaper from his bike. He is wearing a Texas Rangers baseball cap. The Washington Senators did not move to Arlington, Texas and become the Rangers until 1972.

Quotes:

James Farrington: Tell me, sir, to what do you acribe your great good health?
Ferguson: Hard liquor and soft women.
[they laugh]

Movie Connections:

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

A moment in history

Interesting and effective film about the JFK assassination released ten years after the tragic event and seventeen years before the far more popular movie "JFK". With hardly any of the controversy of the Kevin Costner version.

A number of big oil-men get together in June 1963 to plan to assassinate JFK because his policies, domestic as well as foreign, are a threat to their money and power, The oil men start the plan that eventually led to the tragic events of November 22, 1963. Good acting and directing makes this movie grab your attention and see it through it's tragic ending. Even though everyone watching the movie knows what the ending is which is anticlimactic.

What really makes the movie is the build-up and plans that lead to the events that happened in Dallas on that fateful day. One of the most chilling scenes in the movie is when Farrington, Burt Lancaster, meets up in a diner with Operations chief, Ed Lauter. Farrington explains to him what he'll get for the "hit" in money and expenses without telling him who is to be "hit". Lauter realizes who it is without Farrington even telling him just by the money and effort involved and tells him surprisingly as well as shockingly "You've just told me who's going to get to hit!".

Also very effective, besides the scene when the actual assassination takes place, is how the killers planned the "Hit" and how they came to the conclusion, after hours and hours of practice shooting on a moving and difficult target, that one shooter doing it would be impossible. The killers opted to use at least three riflemen in different places Unlike what we got from the official report of a one man one gun assassin. "Executive Action" was also Robert Ryans last major role.