Executive Action

[Greg Burnham]

The most memorable line in the film is when Lancaster says there will be one shooter "on the grassy knoll." (I don't recall who first actually called it that, after the assassination.)

It was Bill Newman.

[Ron Ecker]

The most memorable line in the film is when Lancaster says there will be one shooter "on the grassy knoll." (I don't recall who first actually called it that, after the assassination.)

It was Bill Newman.

According to Gary Mack, Newman referred to the "knoll" but never said "grassy." The "grassy knoll" was apparently coined by Merriman Smith. Here's the link he sent me to his article about it:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/gk_name.htm

[David Lifton]

I went to see this movie in the theater when it opened in 1973. I remember that we were given a "newspaper"-type publication that accompanied the movie. To me, I still consider it better than Stone's "JFK" because of its from-the-conspirators viewpoint. Plus, some of the early WC critics ( i.e. Mark Lane and Penn Jones ) were consultants on the film.

The only part that bogged me down was the necessity for the conspirators to have the support of the Will Geer character, "Harold". Without it, they could not proceed. They made him out to be reluctant at first, then being "forced" to go along with the plot because of Kennedy's disagreeable actions.

I'm not so sure that anyone reluctant to kill the President would have done so without first exhausting every other option available to him.

But it is a good story and I recommend it. What it does is show you how a conspiracy COULD have existed and been successful.

As you know, JFK "plays himself" in the movie, via the adroit use of newsreel footage. Per the film credits, I was "researcher" on Executive Action, and wrote much of the "newspaper" type publication (which you mention in your post) and that accompanied the movie. Because of my connection with the movie, I had the privilege of reviewing all the film footage that was ordered from various news libraries. The editor on the movie, Ivan Dryer (who became well known, and quite wealthy, via the invention of the Laserium) was quite generous, permitting me full access to just about any of the footage he collected. One of those items showed Oswald being brought into the DPD, at about 2:03, and marched right past Billy Lovelady, who was seated in his plaid shirt. That settled in my mind, once and for all, the notion that Oswald "was in the doorway" and we had slides made of that sequence, which I subsequently provided to the HSCA.

The entire experience was quite exciting. Here was the first movie to buck the Warren Report, released about 10 years after JFK's death.

DSL