The Parallax View

[John Simkin]

I suppose most members have seen the film, The Parallax View. Here is a good summary of the film by Philip Brubaker:

Joe Frady is a determined reporter who often needs to defend his work from colleagues. After the assassination of a prominent U.S. senator, Frady begins to notice that reporters present during the assassination are dying mysteriously. After getting more involved in the case, Frady begins to realize that the assassination was part of a conspiracy somehow involving the Parallax Corporation, an enigmatic training institute. He then decides to enroll for the Parallax training himself to discover the truth.

The film is based on the novel by Loren Singer. The book is in fact very different. The assasination in the book is modelled on the JFK killing. However, for the film it was changed to mirror that of the assassination of RFK.

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Great great movie. I think it holds its own against any U.S. movie made in the 1970's, which was a strong decade.

I am curious about the book. Are there direct allusions to MK-ULTRA program?

[William Kelly]

Great great movie. I think it holds its own against any U.S. movie made in the 1970's, which was a strong decade.

I am curious about the book. Are there direct allusions to MK-ULTRA program?

Hey Nate, Indeed, the Parallax View is a revolutionary flick, and it's author (Singer?). whoever it is, very knowlegeable about MKULTRA.

The book and film are similar except for the ending, where in the film, the reporter (Warren Beatty) is framed for the assassination of a Senator at the Dallas Trade Mart (JFK's destination), in the book, the New Jersey policeman investigating a traffic accident in Cape May (adjacent to a secret USN Sub Com base), recognizes the accident as a professional hit man murder.

The book has a sense of good cop figuring out the dastardly deed, while the movie ends with a Warren type Commission wrapping up the cover up.

Just my observations on having seen the movie and having read the book, only released as a pulp paperback, as far as I can ascertain.

Bill Kelly

[Pat Speer]

The Parallax View is yet another reminder of that short period after Watergate when members of the media WANTED to open the closet doors and find the skeletons. Now, more often than not, they're standing in front of the closet doors, pretending there aren't any.

Beatty, by the way, made another valiant effort to shake things up with Bulworth, one of my favorite movies. It also made references to the RFK killing. Clearly, we can count Warren Beatty among those of us who suspect RFK was killed by a conspiracy.

[Tim Carroll]

The book and film are similar except for the ending, where in the film, the reporter (Warren Beatty) is framed for the assassination of a Senator at the Dallas Trade Mart (JFK's destination), in the book, the New Jersey policeman investigating a traffic accident in Cape May (adjacent to a secret USN Sub Com base), recognizes the accident as a professional hit man murder.

What is the basis for the assertion that "in the film, the reporter (Warren Beatty) is framed for the assassination of a Senator at the Dallas Trade Mart (JFK's destination)"...? In the context of the movie plot line, that event occurs in Los Angeles, the same city in which the Parallax Corp. is located. There is no credit at the end showing that it was filmed at the Dallas Trade Mart.

Tim

[William Kelly]

The book and film are similar except for the ending, where in the film, the reporter (Warren Beatty) is framed for the assassination of a Senator at the Dallas Trade Mart (JFK's destination), in the book, the New Jersey policeman investigating a traffic accident in Cape May (adjacent to a secret USN Sub Com base), recognizes the accident as a professional hit man murder.

What is the basis for the assertion that "in the film, the reporter (Warren Beatty) is framed for the assassination of a Senator at the Dallas Trade Mart (JFK's destination)"...? In the context of the movie plot line, that event occurs in Los Angeles, the same city in which the Parallax Corp. is located. There is no credit at the end showing that it was filmed at the Dallas Trade Mart.

Tim

Hi Tim,

The assertion is only my assumption, based on a statement by someone from Dallas that the final assassintaion scene in the Parallax View is the Dallas Trade Mart, a building I've only seen from the outside so I wouldn't know first hand, though I stand to be corrected if someone can ID the location or quote from the screeplay. Whether the DTM or a Hollywood studio, I think the implicaiton is that the culliuiod scene is suppose to be like real scene JFK was destined for when he was killed.

More imortant, I think, is the book, the author of the book, the fact that Collins Radio engineers were engaged in a Parallax Project at the time of the assassintion, and the fictional entity's real life counterparts PERMINDEX and MKULTRA.

And the book's ending in the Jersey marshes between Cape May city and Wildwood Crest, where there happens to be a secret, USNavy electonics warfare communicaitons facility, certainly tells me that Mr. Singer, or whoever wrote the book, knows more than what he is saying in his little pulp paperback novel.

Maybe the whole Parallax thing is to change the way we view certain situations, much like the scientific defination of the word.

BK

Edited March 31, 2006 by William Kelly