Understanding the Elsie Dorman film

[John Butler]

Elsie Dorman was a 57 years old employee employed in a clerical position at the Scott-Foresman Co. in the TSBD on the day of the assassination.  Her FBI statement of 11-24-63 stated she was in the 4^th floor offices of Scott-Forseman, seated on the floor with the windows open filming the motorcade, when it first appeared on Houston Street.

In her March 20, 1964 statement for the WC she said she was using her husband’s camera and was not too familiar with its operation.  This has led some to state she was a horrible photographer and was the worst photographer that day.  That is simply not true.  What was later done by the government to her film made her such a poor bumbling photographer. 

Nothing she did at all produced the extremely altered mess called the Dorman Film.  She is not responsible for the altered, black painted, and blackened out imagery in the film.  It is so all pervasive that nothing of importance can be seen in the film on Houston Street.  When matched with the alterations of Altgens 5, this makes a mysterious, suspicious situation which needs more investigation.

One can not compare the Zapruder film to the Dorman film.  The imagery is not the same.  There are more people in Dorman on the SW corner of the Houston and Elm Street intersection than in the Zapruder film.  There are missing people in the Zapruder film when compared to Dorman.  For instance, Phil Willis is not seen at all.  Another, is in the Zapruder film you do not see Pierce Allman and Terry Ford photographing the motorcade.  But, you do in the Dorman film.

The sequence of Linda and Rosemary Willis differs in the two films.  About the only thing I see that rings true are the frames that show Tina Turner and her family.

I have worked on the Dorman film many times.  And, each time I do I come away with the impression that the Dorman film was half way altered.  In other words, the job of altering the film was abandoned and not completed.  Throughout the film people are blacked out with black paint and their image becomes unidentifiable.  This is particularly true in the frames involving Houston Street.

My thought is that there were no images available to replace with overlay images the blackened out images in the film.  The film was filmed from the 4^th floor of the TSBD and there could have been perspective and angle problems in matching up images from elsewhere.  So, they just left the blackened out images knowing no one would ever be able to seen what had really happened.  Then get your shills to blame Elsie as the worst photographer ever.

This is one of the problems I have worked on for some time. Why were so many of the films that show the intersection of Main and Houston, plus scenes on Houston Street, altered.  Why is there a Zapruder gap?  Why do 8 assassination films have skipped frames when the presidential limousine passes the Court Records Building?  Do you ever wonder what the odds are that that would occur naturally?  What is being covered up?

I’ve prepared a gif that discusses some of the problems with the film.  Each frame lasts 7 seconds which I think is enough time to read the questions.