David Andrews

I don't know if we can peg where Babushka Lady is aiming her lens. She could be peering over the top of the camera and waiting for the limo to approach the mark she's aiming at so she can get a close-up (if indeed she's not aiming at the limo in the photo). Her right arm obscures her sightline in this full-frame - we need a detail.

Post Deleted Forgot my Warren report and confused Sports Drome Rifle range at 8000 West Davis with Sportatorium at 1000 S. Industrial, which Tosh Plumlee posted about. Apologies.

It didn't seem to me to be anything like what the Georgetown or other political atmosphere was like. Starting with the only person mentioned by his right name being Kennedy.

It's important that in the Cold War climate, John Frankenheimer was making films prophetic of assassination and coup, one starring semi-insider Frank Sinatra, who also starred in Suddenly. There's one other of Sinatra's pictures that resonates in the same atmosphere, and that - believe it or not - is Ocean's Eleven, a story in which a group of Special Ops guys from World War II try to make it in the post-war prosperity, but find that they can't keep up, and are drawn into a plot to rob Las Vegas through a paramilitary operation using their wartime skills. They respond as if it's a natural development in their careers. The drama of the film, such as it is, turns on these moments, so this part of the story is more than just subtext (it's also the blueprint for a thousand action movies to come, down to the age of Jerry Bruckheimer). This is one of the imaginings of the post-war man that was in the wind in those days, and has become an archetype in our entertainment. And you know what they say about making faces that stick....

Invoking Mary Woodward's Louella Parsons-like journalese is like me advising you to look at moment 1:09 in this, the great unacknowledged assassination commentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BJGR09QH7c

Mary Woodward was waiting "on the grassy slope just east of the Triple Underpass" when she saw that JFK and Jackie "turned, and smiled and waved, directly at us, it seemed?" So she's not at the Houston/Elm corner? And when in Zapruder do we find Jackie turning away from the right side (driver's side) of the limo? Just as her head disappears behind the Stemmons sign? Let's not dismiss a shot during the limo turn based on some hazy history. let's start picking this apart using the film footage. Also - is this the Mary Woodward story that she complained her editor rewrote from her original submitted version, distorting her eyewitness account?...

I loved his speeches. To know what he knew...

Let's see it then. Certainly. What you don't get is, that while you continue to tell everyone what they don't see, they are staring JFK's fist. A picture is worth a thousand lies, Duncan How could Greer have claimed to have made an abrupt turn onto Elm to avoid turning onto the street fronting the TSBD? The motorcade route seems to be demarcated by a line of people across Houston at Elm in the beginning of Towner above. Something has happened in the testimony. I repeat - Something has happened in the testimony...

Personally, I don't take these kinds of film seriously. That being said, it is nice that the subject was touched upon. Well, I see your point - but I love cinema generally and obviously am interested in the assassination. I'd like to combine those interests: I've written a couple of unproduced scripts - and may be doing a rewrite on a 19th-C. historical script that stands a chance of being produced. So when I see a couple million dollars and two hours of the public's time wasted on tangential stuff done wrong, I start wishing for better scripts, research, and interpretation. I watched a few minutes in the middle again on cable, and found the depiction of the Angleton-Dulles composite character rather counterproductive to understanding the Meyer case. The Meyer character's speech about "taking a bullet for the president" when a Marine guard refuses her entrance to the White House was just irresponsible and unenlightening screenwriting* - an HBO or Showtime cable movie would have had more rigorous standards applied to it, judging by their many successful historical films. And how can you leave out so many of the best parts of the Meyer-Kennedy story, such as Angleton surprised at lockpicking to retrieve her diary. One of the problems here is the Summer of '42-style frame story of Meyer half-seducing the underage neighbor boy, through whose eyes we see the Meyer story. That takes up so much time and is so unprofitable. The trouble is, to do the story right, JFK would have to be a character in it, played by an actor - and we would have to see details of the affair/relationship/friendship. HBO, which put JFK and RFK into its movie The Rat Pack, along with the title characters, and Sam Giancana, Marilyn Monroe and DiMaggio, wouldn't have shrunk from putting Kennedy and Meyer into an embrace. In An American Affair we end up with a sex potboiler where the most important sex is never witnessed, or interpreted. *OK - handled better in a better film by better filmmakers, it might have worked. In this version it was just an annoying non sequitur.

I mentioned on another thread that on YouTube you can see plenty of Euro road rallye clips showing spectator reaction (and delay of reaction) when they're expecting cars to round a curb where they're standing, but then find the cars coming, um. a bit too close. They're useful for comparison.

OK - but what about the dog that didn't bark in the night? William Greer complained about having to make an abrupt turn onto Elm, I think he said because he was momentarily confused by the proximity of the adjoining street that fronts the TSBD. (I have referred to this as the "short turn," because that's we call an abrupt turn in my neck of the woods.) So - Was there an abrupt turn? Did anyone else in the limo or following vehicles complain about Greer's turn?* Did the crowd react to or report an abrupt turn? If no to all above - Why the fabulated abrupt turn? Phenomenologically - in the study of why phenomena occur - why were we presented the tale of the abrupt turn? *I quite realize that people had other things on their minds momentarily.

I'm thinking that it's time to address: 1) The "short turn": did it happen and who noticed, reacted, or commented? 2) What did occur before the limo appears in Zapruder 3) What does Towner, or orther film/stills, tell us about 2) 4) How to interpret Towner, including some theory of what was lost through "processing damage" It's time to consider what's absent from the Zapruder assemblage, and Bob Harris at least is focusing attention on the pre-Z moments.

At the same time, though, Connally seems to be attempting a look backward - we usually don't notice this because the limo is still far friom the camera. Connally doesn't seem to have his crowd-pleasing face on during this head turn. And the next thing JFK does is to look over at Jackie, as if checking on her, or checking if she noticed something. I'm thinking that the "New Frontier" is Towner vs. Zapruder, with evidence from any film from Houston St. that shows the turn onto Elm. The "short turn by Greer" may just be a smokescreen for another disturbance.

Tim Gratz: "The Rat Pack" is available on DVD. I really liked it, particularly the scenes re Joe Kennedy's giving orders to Frank Sinatra. Seconded. This HBO movie really has the flavor, and many of the facts, of the Kennedy-Hollywood connection. I want to check the credits to see if any historical advisors are listed.

Duncan - something happened during the turn that was snipped (or "burnt") out of the Towner film, and omitted entire from Zapruder. It may have been Kennedy reacting to the famed "short turn," potentially embarrassing to an already criticized Secret Service. People might see Kennedy lurch in his seat from the abrupt turn motion, right "under the assassin's window." But should we look at the Towner film again to see if the "short turn" is not a cover fiction for some other disturbance that might have been even more obvious in an unedited Zapruder? Did anyone in the limo (aside from Greer) complain about the turn? Does the fabled turn look alarming to the spectators or anyone besides Kennedy? If not, we have to consider other scenarios. Bob has alerted us to important things missing in Zapruder that have to be researched from other films, other experiences of the motorcade, other possibilities. I'm not sure that a open-and-close left-hand wave made by JFK while the limo proceeded without trouble is strictly comparable to a gesture made during the complex motions and duration of the turn. And comparison of Kennedy's two right-hand hair brushings - in Towner before the "aborted wave," and at Z-133 - has to be discussed if we seek cues to what's going on, and what's missing in the films.

Was Bob H.'s "first shot" an attempt by the shooting team to do the "sensible thing," the supposed absence of which we've all wondered over? Was it an attempt to place the possible kill shot right under "Oswald's window" (though it was not fired from there)? Is the "gap" in firing between Bob H's "first shot" and the wounding at the Stemmons sign put in to avoid later argument that the tree was in Oswald's way?* It's possible with radio-coordinated firing and useful yellow curb markings. Is the dark-complected man waving to indicate that the last possible detente in the most covert version of the plot - the version not involving a possibly obvious frontal head shot - has been reached, but without success? Speculation about why Oswald did not fire on Kennedy as he approached down Houston may be resolved by considering the potential need to balance the goals of: achieving the best incrimination of the patsy;** beginning the firing at a place in the crossfire zone where the limo had no option but to continue down Elm; and keeping the frontal gunfire as minimal as possible. After the Stemmons sign was reached - a window of optimum Oswald-incriminating firing is past, limited by that obscuring tree - the concern over an obvious frontal shot was no longer viable.*** *Others may counter that there is no gap. **With medical resources standing by to make the wound(s) agree with the sixth-floor window trajectory. ***This, of course, does not mean that firing from the rear ceased once the Stemmons sign was passed.

Triplicate post - see below - very sorry.

Duplicate post - sorry

Don R.: Turn the cheesy soundtrack on this clip all the way down and watch Connally in this rather useful framing. What is it that Connally jerks his left arm at and lifts his hat up to ward away? A bumblebee? Bob H: Find the last couple places in your own filmography where JFK brushes his hair away, and compare the size/duration of the hand gesture involved. He does it briefly with his right hand just at the beginning of the Tina Towner clip shown in your "The First Shot" presentation, before the limo proper is fully turned onto Elm. It's at about 0:02-0:03 in this version: I'm thinking that the "hair-brush motion" at Z-133 (which is after the "before" comparison moment in Towner above) is partly habit, and partly a self-checking gesture. If JFK wasn't actually peppered with backflying asphalt grains from the missed shot, then the hair-brush motion may be the physical equivalent of a "Whew!" - that is, a transfer of energy from Kennedy's reaction to the missed shot into an innocuous, "business-as-usual" gesture, to not alarm the crowd or Jackie. I notice that his next action is to look over toward Jackie, as if to make sure she's OK. This hair-brush/self-check is just a residual effect; the real action is already over. It was cut out of Zapruder (whose JFK footage "begins" as soon as it's safe to, with JFK's "innocuous" gesture), and it was truncated in Towner due to the "processing damage" done by the FBI. Then, during the turn, as you've shown us, is where the real action was - something happened in the middle of Towner and at the start of Zapruder that, um, somebody didn't want us to see...

I have to say that while I enjoyed some isolated moments of that picture, I thought it was a shrinking violet as far as dealing accurately with Cord Meyer, James Angleton (whom it seemed to conflate into a composite figure with Allen Dulles), and the "Georgetown Crowd." A potboiler - I hope any future films about the assassination's "supporting cast" pussyfoot around a lot less.

I've followed a lot of Bob's video presentations on the "early miss," though - and I'm far from ready to write it off. The gesture could conceivably have both motives in it. Ex-servicemen and executive officers both, Kennedy and Connally were definitely "on parade," and thus their reactions were tempered - until the bullet penetrates the windshield from the front, and Connally ducks to his right most forcefully. Kennedy's presidential cool was on the line down there in "nut country," so interpretation of his gestures has to take his self-restraint into account.

OK - but as earlier film of the motorcade on Main and elsewhere shows, Kennedy was repeatedly brushing his windblown forelock back.

If anything, I'm a Mark Lane disciple, historically.

OK - strike 'hearsay.' I thought there was a broader legal definition, now I'm set wise. Marguerite Oswald defied her surviving sons and asserted that the DPD Oswald was a soldier working undercover for his country. Did she offer any assertions through hearsay of statements to that effect made by Lee? I still tend to believe her, regardless. So, see, now I can use it in a sentence.

Ray - you're offering assertions (hearsay), not a defense.