LBJ -- the movie trailer

[Douglas Caddy]

https://teaser-trailer.com/movie/lbj/

[Roger DeLaria]

Looks pretty good, I'm interested in seeing it. I wonder what version of LBJ we're going to get. The Phil Nelson version, or the Doris Kearns Goodwin version? I have a good idea.

[David Andrews]

I know "we're not ready" for a film of the conspiracy allegations and Johnson-warts-and-all , but we're not going to see any blemishes here beyond his toilet habits, nor any inkling from this of his corruption.  In the IMDB listing, Bobby Baker is not among the characters.  So - no different from any TV miniseries.

Edited September 15, 2017 by David Andrews

[Ron Bulman]

They will never show his pissing on a Secret Service Agent's boot's at the Texas Whitehouse Ranch on the Perdenales river.  Nor his pulling out his pecker to show others it's size to impress  them of his superiority.  Or the Secret Service covering for his inability to serve due to his hiding under the covers, literally, hungover. 

[Cory Santos]

Actually, the reviews from critics have been excellent.  I represent actor Dan Hewitt Owens who plays Abe Fortas in the film.  He directed a movie, "Project:  Puppies for Christmas" last year and my daughter and I acted in it.  Considering the cast, I think it is a must see and is getting early award considerations.  If you only want to see conspiracy films, well, you can wait for a sequel to JFK I suppose but if you are open to other films, this should be on your list of good movies to see.

[David Andrews]

The cast is somewhat diminished compared to Jackie, and few paid for that experience.  Even a film based on Robert Caro's books would be an improvement in truthfulness.  This looks more like a picture about a beleaguered, middle-aged astronaut who suddenly gets the moonwalk Go signal.

That said, I loved Woody Harrelson''s work in the True Detective ensemble cast, and many outings in Jennifer Jason-Leigh's career, and Bill Pullman's.  There will probably be an award for Woody in LBJ, based on the longtime regard for him, which I share.  But people wanting a more nuanced LBJ film should check out HBO's Path to Power with Michael Gambon, probably on DVD now.

Edited September 15, 2017 by David Andrews

[Cory Santos]

I actually worked on a Woody Harrelson movie, "Kingpin".  He is a really good actor, was very nice on the set, and yes, he will be considered for his role in LBJ. 

[Douglas Caddy]

13 hours ago, Cory Santos said:

Actually, the reviews from critics have been excellent.  I represent actor Dan Hewitt Owens who plays Abe Fortas in the film.  He directed a movie, "Project:  Puppies for Christmas" last year and my daughter and I acted in it.  Considering the cast, I think it is a must see and is getting early award considerations.  If you only want to see conspiracy films, well, you can wait for a sequel to JFK I suppose but if you are open to other films, this should be on your list of good movies to see.

Thank you, Cory, for providing this first hand knowledge about the film. Your insider insights persuades me that I must see the movie.

Doug

[Joe Bauer]

My wife and I are movie buffs.  She is a pretty educated one in my opinion. She has books on cinema history.

She's quite discriminating about what she chooses to see in theaters, what she rents from Netflix and what she pulls up from all the movie venues on our cable.

She reads a lot of reviews before deciding what to see.  

Of course, we like and trust our own well known San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Mick LaSalle's takes on the latest films to different degrees most of the time. We subscribe to Entertainment Weekly and peruse all the ratings there as well.  We lived for Ebert & Siskel's "At The Movies" back in the day as one of our top three favorite TV shows. 

We have a small independent movie theater here in town that shows foreign films, documentaries, etc.

We go see films there more than our Multiplex where the wall shaking, ear drum bursting Transformers and Comic Book Super Heroes type movies dominate and the patrons need help carrying 5 gallon sized tubs of popcorn and giant sodas to their seats and where even 1/2 dozen seats away from you, the crunching and straw slurping is so loud it drowns out the trailer dialogue. 

With that personal background story in mind, my wife was not at all interested in seeing the JFK film "Parkland" a few years ago. The reviews were awful to an embarrassing degree for the producers and distributors. My wife also is not interested in the JFK assassination subject beyond the general suspicion of the Warren Report finding although she really liked Oliver Stone's JFK.

"Parkland" lasted maybe one week before it simply disappeared. I  talked my wife into seeing this with me.  The audience consisted of myself, my wife and one other gentleman. A hugely obese and swarthy looking fellow wearing only a dirty T-shirt that didn't cover his entire stomach from his belly button on down.

Within 20 minutes this bushy bearded behemoth had fallen asleep and his snoring was so loud we missed half the dialogue the rest of the film.

I had to touch my squirming wife's arm a couple of times and plead with her not to walk out before the film concluded. She stayed for me.

I am curious regards what my wife will read, interpret and decide on her desire to see or not to see this new film on LBJ. Maybe the right critics will give it a decent rating, if for nothing more than to praise quirky Woody Harrelson's portrayal of LBJ and his outrageous Texas drawl eccentricities.

Personally, I think I will pass as I am sensing a false image seeding, waste-of-time whitewash of what LBJ "truly was" ... a totally corrupted, murder ordering,  psychopathic monster.  An "animal " as Robert Kennedy describes LBJ on a documented well known tape recording.

Now I "would" like to see what Oliver Stone could do with LBJ in a major film.

And I will be seeing Tom Cruise's new film on Barry Seal.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Joe Bauer

[James DiEugenio]

Actually, Path to Power was not bad. It had a good cast and tried to be fair to Johnson.  

By being fair, what I mean is by not caricaturing him either way;  that is as a Philip Nelson/Roger Stone demon or as a good natured country bumpkin.

You cannot be fair to a subject if you already think the main character is "a totally corrupted, murder ordering, psychopathic monster."  And as much as I like RFK, he was not the most objective person on Johnson.  Singlehandedly, he tried to get him removed from the VP slot at the 1960 convention, when it was clear that he was JFK's choice.  The book Mutual Contempt by Jeff Shesol is the best one on the RFK/LBJ rivalry , and that is the conclusion he came to on that particular topic.

A lot of what Johnson did inTexas e.g. the vote rigging etc, was not unprecedented. That is others had done it, and LBJ thought it had been done to him previously.   Caro's attempt to turn Coke Stevenson into some kind of populist hero who was forward looking on civil rights is simply pap.  Sid Blumenthal destroyed Caro on that topic in The New Republic.  So much so that Caro wrote an addendum to that volume admitting he had aggrandized Stevenson at the expense of LBJ.  Whatever his personal attitudes, Johnson did do some good on civil rights.  And Stone and Nelson's attempts to belittle what he did when the movie Selma came out were properly scored and corrected with primary sources.  I mean to turn Hoover into some kind of careful civil servant on King and civil rights?  And also, Joan Mellen did a nice job in correcting the record on those so called Billy Sol Estes "murder plots".  Which I always thought were dubious.  I mean, his own sister?

Johnson's serious flaw was that he was simply a Foster Dulles Republican on foreign policy who did not have the foggiest idea of what JFK was really about in world affairs.  And, in fact, actually disagreed with him on Vietnam from as early as 1961. He himself said that he quietly sat and suffered as Kennedy's withdrawal plan was being enunciated in front of him.  Then once he took charge, he quickly decided to reverse policy.  Which ended up being a huge epic tragedy for two countries, Vietnam and the USA.  That is something that cannot be papered over.  And this is what I am looking for in Caro's next volume in his never ending series. Which was supposed to be four parts, and now will be six I think.  And its what I will look for in Reiner's film. 

Johnson was simply not meant to be president in such turbulent times.  He simply did not have the cosmopolitan background, the intellectual breadth, or the coolness of temperament to see what was really happening at home or abroad.  And this helped wreck his relationship with King and much of the left.  As time went on he kind of resembled King Lear, not realizing that his own character faults had ruined his presidency.  Contrary to popular belief, RFK did not enter the race after McCarthy did so well in New Hampshire.  He had decided to enter the 1968 primary a week before that.  But he kept it closely held because he did not want to influence the result.  But after he did announce, Johnson's campaign completely collapsed, especially in Wisconsin.  That a man could be so unaware of what was happening to him is really kind of out of Shakespeare.  And the thing is, he always carried that vendetta against RFK, even when he was out of office.

Edited September 15, 2017 by James DiEugenio

[Joe Bauer]

Jim, I can't adequately debate the true depth of LBJ's corruption on the same research level you and others here are on.

I base my much darker view of LBJ on more of a general lifelong learned sense that the abuse of power, especially in our higher echelons of government and business,  most always turns out to be much deeper and involved and sinister ( with ordered killings )  than we initially are aware of.

Much more Machiavellian than we tend to want to believe.

I could easily cite HUNDREDS of examples of these highest level abuses that are so obvious in this way  ( including murders )  in our own country over decades.

The triad of the murders of our highest level political figures JFK, RFK and MLK in just a brief 5 year period alone highlights in spades my darker view premise and should wake up even the most naive and uneducated citizens that these were not random events. These three men all had one strong common trait. They were all attempting to challenge and change the true deep power structure and status quo of this country.

LBJ was the highest elective political office figure head during this time and who represented the opposite agenda.

With crooked Nixon following LBJ.

LBJ was no somewhat sympathetic and at times well meaning Shakespearean victim of tragic flaws or fate.

He was a Machiavellian monster strictly motivated by a consuming obsession with power, wealth and control. IMO.

 

 

Edited October 18, 2017 by Joe Bauer

[James DiEugenio]

Joe, we are all entitled to our viewpoints.

Because RFK and King were killed in 1968, that does not mean that LBJ ordered their murders.  For one thing, they were both killed after he had dropped out of the race. 

I have never seen any evidence that LBJ intervened in the inquiries in Los Angeles or Memphis. And I have studied both of those in depth.

 

[Dan Doyle]

Bit of a late comer to this thread,  but having just watched a Morning Joe interview with Rob Reiner and Woody Harrelson about their new movie LBJ, I was struck by the irony that Woody Harrelson is in a movie that in part replays the JFK assassination.  Woody is one the sons of convicted killer  Charles Harrelson.  Jim Marrs fingered Charles Harrelson as one of tramps caught near Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63 .  Charles Harrleson claimed, in 1980, when he was being arrested for assassinating a federal judge( the first time a federal judge had been killed in the 20th century), to have been one of the 3 shooters in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63 .  And to add to the irony here, Charles Harrelson, who was married numerous times, had a wife at one point  with the maiden name of Diane Lou Oswald.  Go figure that one? ......nu nu nu nu. 

I'm no big fan of LBJ.  Although he did enact major domestic legislation, probably way more than JFK could have achieved, but his disastrous Vietnam policy is his rightful legacy.  He mislead the American public over and over about the real nature of the Vietnam conflict, only to be exposed by the Tet Offensive of 1968....and later by the Pentagon Papers. 

As for suspicions of LBJ's involvement in JFK's killing, there's a lot of smoke there.  If JFK hadn't met his maker in Dallas, LBJ would have surely been disgraced by the Bobby Baker/Billy Sol Estes scandal and off the ticket  in '64.  And I've read that RFK was orchestrating the whole thing.  In fact, Life magazine had the LBJ Scandal scheduled to run as its headline issue in the first week in December 1963. JFK's demise upstaged all of that and the scandal never really got legs after 11/22/63  And let's not forget, LBJ and Hoover were neighbors in DC and long time good friends. Hmmm?  Roger Stone, yes that Roger Stone, wrote a recent book fingering LBJ as the mastermind of 11/22/63.  

Do I think LBJ was behind 11/22/63...not really....but he sure had the cui bono.....like his political career.

[Joe Bauer]

On 10/17/2017 at 8:06 AM, Dan Doyle said:

Bit of a late comer to this thread,  but having just watched a Morning Joe interview with Rob Reiner and Woody Harrelson about their new movie LBJ, I was struck by the irony that Woody Harrelson is in a movie that in part replays the JFK assassination.  Woody is one the sons of convicted killer  Charles Harrelson.  Jim Marrs fingered Charles Harrelson as one of tramps caught near Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63 .  Charles Harrleson claimed, in 1980, when he was being arrested for assassinating a federal judge( the first time a federal judge had been killed in the 20th century), to have been one of the 3 shooters in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63 .  And to add to the irony here, Charles Harrelson, who was married numerous times, had a wife at one point  with the maiden name of Diane Lou Oswald.  Go figure that one? ......nu nu nu nu. 

I'm no big fan of LBJ.  Although he did enact major domestic legislation, probably way more than JFK could have achieved, but his disastrous Vietnam policy is his rightful legacy.  He mislead the American public over and over about the real nature of the Vietnam conflict, only to be exposed by the Tet Offensive of 1968....and later by the Pentagon Papers. 

As for suspicions of LBJ's involvement in JFK's killing, there's a lot of smoke there.  If JFK hadn't met his maker in Dallas, LBJ would have surely been disgraced by the Bobby Baker/Billy Sol Estes scandal and off the ticket  in '64.  And I've read that RFK was orchestrating the whole thing.  In fact, Life magazine had the LBJ Scandal scheduled to run as its headline issue in the first week in December 1963. JFK's demise upstaged all of that and the scandal never really got legs after 11/22/63  And let's not forget, LBJ and Hoover were neighbors in DC and long time good friends. Hmmm?  Roger Stone, yes that Roger Stone, wrote a recent book fingering LBJ as the mastermind of 11/22/63.  

Do I think LBJ was behind 11/22/63...not really....but he sure had the cui bono.....like his political career.

A totally valid question for me is...how far would LBJ and his long time "like brothers" buddy J. Edgar Hoover go to protect their careers, reputations and maybe even jail time for LBJ and maybe an exposure of Hoover as a Mafia protecting cross-dresser?

Both LBJ and Hoover had "everything" to gain and lose with JFK's continued survival...or his death.

Both men had histories of extreme limit crossing when their personal interests were threatened. Does anyone here really think LBJ didn't have some decision making hand in Malcolm Wallace's doings and Wallace's outrageous walk away from his murder conviction or his own sister's suspicious death or perhaps even the disappearance or Madeline Brown's nanny? How about those other deaths of LBJ career threatening characters?

I fairly assume that Billy Sol Estes wasn't whacked only because a guy as devious as Estes would have certainly created a "Fail Safe" booby trap for the big boys to protect him in this way.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Joe Bauer

[James DiEugenio]

Joe,

This has all been gone over in Joan Mellen's book.

If you are not going to read it, then read my review over at Kennedysandking.com

One of the things that we should stand for is the best and newest research.  If not, we just keep sliding back into what I call assassination folklore.  

Has anyone been reading the NARA releases besides me?  There is some really interesting stuff in there. And no one is reporting on it.  Especially those two blowhards, Shenon and Sabato.