A friend and I have been geeking out this past week over the JFK assassination. We're both watching and reading whatever we can on it. My cousin is an American History buff and happens to be in town this week. So how did we spend our first Saturday together in eons? Binge watching Reelz mini-series "The Kennedys", of course. I remember hearing about this show hen it was in production and turning my nose up at Katie Holmes playing Jackie Kennedy, and that's what prevented me from watching it then (she was still Tom Cruise's prisoner at the time). Her performance was meh. I go in with low expectations when she's in something anyway so she was about what I thought she'd be. The series overall was decent, if unfamiliar with what actually happened sometimes. The real Kennedys pitched a fit when this came out but I'm not sure why, unless they weren't pleased with the creative license the writers took. And there was plenty of that. Like so many things though, the series fumbled it when it came down to the wire. It was only eight episodes but the last two were...not great. Most of the series dealt with JFK's presidency and seemed as though it was written to build towards his assassination. In a perfect world, they would have made the assassination the finale and dedicated the last two hours to it. But instead they made the second to last episode about JFK's assassination and the finale about RFK's jaunt to the Senate and eventual assassination. While I understand that the show wanted to focus on the entire Kennedy family and not just JFK and Jackie, I don't get the pacing and decision to jump subject so much. At the end of the day, I am a film junkie and so I tend to view things not just from the history buff perspective or the fan perspective, but I also run through how I (or another filmmaker) would have done things. Obviously I'm not Spielberg or anything but there are some basic rules to making movies that seem to be increasingly cast aside in favor of more (often worse) content. This is where "The Kennedys" failed. Some examples and/or gripes;
1. Joseph Kennedy was the patriarch of the bunch and the one who wanted his oldest son, Joe Jr., to make it to the White House. Papa Joe was in politics, had money to burn and had no qualms about blowing it all to insure his boys would get what he felt they all deserved (where his sense of entitlement came from, I have no idea). He and his wife, Rose, had seven children, four of whom would be cut down in their primes by untimely deaths. Joe was the first to die when his plane was shot down in the war, thus pinning all of daddy's political hopes on a very reluctant Jack. The problem with all of this in the movie is that we only ever meet the four Kennedy kids who die; Joe, Jack, Bobby and Rosemary, who was mentally ill and subjected to a botched lobotomy by her father. We never meet the other three, even though the first two episodes focus on the younger years of the kids. I guess the ones who didn't die/change the world weren't important enough to make appearances. Anybody unfamiliar with the Kennedy story would've thought they only had four kids, all of whom died.
2. Rather than follow the family through important moments from just prior to Joe's death, which is where the movie began, the writers instead chose to jump from era to era. It wasn't painting a picture and putting emphasis on things that would make more sense later in the film, it was having some major development happen down the road and then flashing back to why that was a major development for the person. This is assuming your viewers are dense or have terrible memories and wouldn't be able to connect the dots themselves.
3. The pacing was so erratic. Like VERY erratic. We jump to the 60's when JFK was in office, then we jump back to the 50's when he met Jackie and they married, then we jump on over to Joe Sr. and his live-in mistress (who was one of many affairs he had). If you pick a time period to tell a story about then you should tell that story in the order that it happened. The occasional flashback is fine but a film full of them is annoying. Can you imagine if James Cameron jumped from the sinking of the Titanic mid-scene and flashed back to the ship being knocked together in Belfast?
4. The acting was meh. Greg Kinnear played JFK and did a decent job, he even looked like him in certain scenes (from the side, anyway). Tom Wilkinson played the Kennedy patriarch and was great, as was the woman who played Mrs. Kennedy. Katie Holmes was her usual self, not great but not unwatchable. The Bawston accents they all had to put on seemed to come and go, most notably from Holmes. Sometimes she sounded like she was from Boston, sometimes from England. Given how annoying Bostonian accents are, I would've thought they would be easy to imitate (the worst accents always are).
5. The second to last episode was chock full of soooo much melodrama that I thought I was watching a soap. It was the JFK assassination episode yet it inexplicably only spent about ten minutes on the subject. The rest was full of ominous "I've never been so happy" moments between JFK and Jackie and, "this is a new beginning" moments between Bobby and Ethel. Granted, it was said that JFK and the Mrs. marriage had never been better than it was in the months leading up to his death, but I felt it was unnecessary to show her gushing about how happy she was an hour before he died. Could it have happened? Of course. But it was a bad time to take creative license and turn an already tragic event into something even worse. Also, I don't get the build up to the assassination when they spent only a few minutes on it. When I say it was ten minutes, I mean it was ten minutes from motorcade to gunshot to JFK being put in the ground. It was almost treated as an afterthought even though it was one of the biggest events in history. And this episode led to...
6. ...The finale. *sigh* Talk about an unnecessary episode of television. It picked up with Bobby deciding he had to be President now that Jack was dead. He ran for a Senate seat out of New York and won, paving the way for his campaign for the White House. Of course, he was assassinated while in the midst of that campaign, leaving behind his wife and ten kids. The pacing of this ep was also terrible, almost as if the writers lost their direction when it came to where to take the story next. They wanted to showcase the tragedy that existed within the family and follow Bobby's story to its conclusion but they could've gone about it in a much better way. Not that his death was any less tragic or important, but Bobby's assassination should've spanned ten minutes and JFK's should've gotten a lot more time. JFK was a President, and a popular one at that, RFK was a former Attorney General running for President.
7. Being a history buff, I'm a stickler for details when it comes to historical films. I will annoy the hell out of you with my corrections while watching things like this. However, I'm not as well versed in the Kennedy story as others. My mom grew up in that age so she knows all kinds of facts and after I told her about the series, she corrected a number of things that weren't all the way true. The last episode made it seem as if Bobby was falling for Jackie and was devastated when she decided to marry Aristotle Onassis. In reality, the marriage was pretty much arranged by Bobby so the kids and Jackie could be taken care of and kept out of the spotlight as much as possible. Also, the film showed Joe Kennedy as having a single, long-term mistress when he actually had several throughout the course of his marriage. I knew a couple of things weren't fact whilst watching the movie though. JFK had many affairs yet they showed just a few of them, and depicted only the aftermath of the affair with Marilyn Monroe. They made it seem as if Jackie left him after one affair when in reality she left him because he couldn't NOT have the affairs. The writers were also quite "creative" when it came to portraying Bobby in the aftermath of his brother's assassination. It's common knowledge that he was one of the driving forces in getting his brother out of dodge ASAP and having the autopsy performed in Washington instead. But the writers showed him as being a bystander in everything and questioning the facts behind Oswald's death. At that time, with Jack dead and Joe a prisoner in his own body due to a stroke years earlier, Bobby was essentially the head of the family. Nothing that happened in the aftermath of JFK's assassination was out of RFK's hands.
8. This one isn't really about the movie but about the Kennedy clan in general and it's just one word - AFFAIRS. I mean, wow. The sense of entitlement amongst the Kennedy men in their personal lives was just insane. Children learn what they live and Joe made no secret of his many affairs so it's not surprising that his sons would grow up to be the exact same way in that area of their lives. One scene depicts Joe telling Jack on his wedding day, "Wives don't expect fidelity, but they don't want infidelity thrown in their faces". The point being to do whoever you're going to do but keep it on the hush. Whether that convo happened or not, who knows. But it goes right in line with who Joe seemed to be. And the way women put up with it back then was ridiculous too. After Jackie leaves her husband during the Cuban missile crisis, Ethel tracks her down and essentially tells her she should go back to him because he's "going through enough" (and she does go back). It was just a different time, I guess.
I'm not sorry I spent 6-ish hours of my life watching "The Kennedys". It was decent entertainment. But, proving fact is more enthralling than fiction, I found myself more drawn in by Reelz more recent Kennedy venture, "JFK: The Smoking Gun". This one was a documentary about an upcoming book (and based in part on a previous book that didn't really make waves) that puts forth a theory about who really fired the fatal shot that killed JFK. The official story is that Lee Harvey Oswald, for reasons that vary depending upon who you talk to, went up to the sixth floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository building on November 22, 1963 and fired three shots into the Kennedy motorcade, severely wounding Texas Governor John Connally and killing President John F. Kennedy. Two days later, while being transferred to another facility, Oswald himself was shot and killed by a strip club owner named Jack Ruby. Ruby claimed he shot Oswald because he was fond of the Kennedy family and did not want Jackie to have to return to Texas for the trial. Everything about the Kennedy assassination is shrouded in mystery of one kind or another, much of it brought on by the government's own idiocy when it came to handling the tragedy. "The Smoking Gun" tries to separate myth from fact and get to the bottom of how many shooters there were and whether Oswald actually fired the fatal shot.
Although I am new to information about the Kennedy clan in life, I've read half a dozen books about the aftermath of the shooting of JFK and his autopsy. I'm fascinated by medical examiners in general and the part they play in solving crimes. And some of the most experienced M.E.'s in history have taken a crack at making sense of the Kennedy autopsy. So many things were done incorrectly that day in Dallas. Why didn't the car Kennedy was in speed up the moment they heard shots fired? Why was the Secret Service so obsessed with staying with the body at all times and forcing their way out of the hospital with it so the autopsy could be performed in Washington? Their job is to protect the President but that job was essentially over once he was dead. The laws at the time made no special exception for murder, even if the victim was the leader of the free world. At the end of the day, it was a murder and, at that time, it was a state offense which meant the local M.E. should've done the autopsy. Obviously, the SS wanted to get Jackie out of there in case there was more violence to come, I imagine the mood was similar to what we all felt on 9/11; not knowing what would happen next or if it was over. But, at most, the autopsy would've taken three hours to complete and then the M.E. likely would've released the body. It's not like it was going to be complicated to determine
how he had died. What was wrong with allowing that to happen and then taking him home and preparing him for burial? The fact that they threatened the local doctors and physically moved them out of the way in order to get the body out of there speaks volumes about a cover-up. The Kennedys being in politics, and especially with Bobby being the AG at the time, were familiar with the laws of the country. Some have suggested that everything that happened was what the family wanted but what they wanted shouldn't have trumped what the law says has to happen. And none of them should've been making important decisions at that time anyway since they were in mourning. No one makes clearheaded decisions while in mourning, especially if you just watched your husband die and have pieces of him staining your clothing.
At best, the SS did what the family wanted, damn the consequences, and acted out of protectiveness. Supposedly Kennedy's SS detail was very close to him. At worst, they knew something was amiss and wanted their people to do the autopsy so that they could make the results fit the story they wanted to tell. Even with the little I knew about the assassination in the past, I've never bought into the official theory. A few things that don't make sense can be chalked up to coincidence but any more than that and you're looking at a cover-up and possibly a conspiracy. Having seen a handful of ballistics tests involving the "magic bullet" theory, I do believe it is possible that the same bullet could've struck two men. But I don't believe it was the bullet that was recovered at the hospital. Supposedly, this one bullet hit Kennedy in the right side of the back, exited his throat, hit Connally in the back, shattered his rib, shattered his wrist and lodged in his leg, severing a nerve. I don't get how a bullet enters someone's right back and exits smack dab in the middle of the throat, but okay. I also don't think any bullet, regardless of what it is made of, would show no blood, tissue or damage after doing so much damage. The bullet has a minor dent on the end but that's it. And it showed no signs of blood or tissue after it was curiously found on a gurney that Connally had been on at the hospital. Why is that curious? Because it was found on that gurney after Connally had been moved from it and the sheets had been changed. It was also curious that it was found outside of his body since it had supposedly lodged in his leg. The official story is that it "fell out" while he was on the gurney but bullets don't just fall out unless there is a gaping hole of some sort, and Connally did not have one of those.
The only film of the shooting was taken by Abraham Zapruder and was confiscated almost immediately upon the FBI finding out about it, but was made public about a decade later. It's readily available on YouTube and it's as graphic as it is confusing. Video cameras were relatively new technology back then so it's grainy and taken at a much lower rate than we're used to. It's also brief and it's crazy to think of how quickly everything can change. In a span of about seven seconds, the President goes from waving and smiling at the public to being gone. There's so much to take in during those seven seconds though. His reaction, Connally's reaction, the timing of their reactions. Supposedly, JFK was hit by the second bullet that Oswald fired, the same one that also struck Connally, but I don't think that was the first hit he took. In the video, you can see JFK grab up around his chest and neck area and Jackie leans in and moves his hand over those areas to check why he's in such discomfort. The SS agent who drove the car testified that he heard the President say he'd been hit, something he couldn't have done after being struck by the second bullet since it severed his windpipe. it seems more likely that the first bullet hit the pavement outside the car and ricocheted into him, or that he was hit by some kind of shrapnel. Jackie seems alarmed in the video, as you would be if someone you loved was hurt in some way, but she doesn't seem to be in "OMG" mode like you'd be if that person was gushing blood from their throat. Milliseconds after she starts examining him, the kill shot happens and everybody knows what went on from there. The video is interesting but it's so grainy and is shot at such a low rate that it's impossible to tell the exact sequence of events, and thus the battle of conspiracy or not has raged for fifty years now. And it will no doubt continue to rage for a long, long time to come because we don't have all the evidence and the investigation and autopsy were both botched. We're left with a ton of questions and many interpretations but no real conclusions or concrete evidence, other than the fact that JFK died.
Like everyone else, I have more questions than anything else. Was Oswald just crazy or was he hired? Why did a strip club owner suddenly catch a conscience and shoot Oswald, if not to shut him up? If it was a cover-up then why did no one kill Ruby to silence him (he died in prison two years later of natural causes)? Which bullet actually struck JFK first and were there only three shots? With such a botched autopsy, it's very possible that they missed (or deliberately overlooked) other wounds. Which description of JFK's injuries was accurate? The staff at Parkland Memorial Hospital that worked on him claimed that his injuries were gruesome and that the right side of his head was missing, leaving the remaining brain matter hanging out. The official report, autopsy photos and autopsy report show that his head was intact but seemingly had the right side of the scalp pulled back. If you see the video, you see that his head was literally blown off so I have no doubt that the photos and report were tampered with in some manner (adding to that theory is that the hair on the top of his head is much shorter than his hair actually was at the time). His wife was actually holding pieces of his skull and brain in her hands, there's no way his head would be as intact as it was stated to be in the autopsy. I'm inclined to believe the hospital staff about the head wound, it had to be gaping. I also don't understand why Oswald waited as long as he did to shoot. The motorcade was halfway down the road when shots rang out. Oswald was by no means an expert marksman, he failed that particular test once in the Army and when he did finally pass it he just
barely passed it. If you're going to shoot someone, wouldn't you shoot them as soon as they came into view? Especially if you're going to try and get more than one shot off and you're not the best of shooters to begin with. Could he have even gotten three shots off in those few seconds? Some say yes, some say no. It seems to depend on which "expert" is doing the test. If it was a conspiracy, then what was the motive? Well, there's no shortage of people who want to kill you when you're President. But I find the theory that every crime organization and our own government joined forces to kill him. That's an awful lot of people charged with keeping a mighty big secret. And if it involved the government intentionally killing him, I have to think they'd have done a better job of covering it up. They're good at keeping secrets.
With all of the theories out there, some legit and some crazy, "The Smoking Gun" doc put forth this theory: That Oswald began shooting and got off only two shots before a third shot came from elsewhere and finished the job for him, albeit unintentionally. Where did the kill shot come from? The Secret Service. This is not a new theory but it hasn't been fully investigated until now. One of the SS agents was a newbie named George Hicky, only on the job about four months, and his primary job within the service was to keep tabs on the Presidential cars. He was riding in the car immediately behind the Presidents', along with a number of other agents. All of the agents were of course armed, but on this particular trip they had a new toy - a semi-automatic rifle that was on the floor in that second car. At least one SS agent claimed the gun was cocked and loaded and that all anyone had to do was switch off the safety and start shooting, should the need arise. All SS agents were required to submit written statements about their actions that day and Hicky's statement claimed that he picked up the gun, cocked and loaded it but did not fire or turn off the safety. At least 11 witnesses, 7 of them SS agents, claim to have seen Hicky holding the gun after the shots rang out. There is also a photo showing him (or someone, we can't see the face of the person) holding the gun at that time. But
when he picked up the gun is in dispute. He claims he picked it up after the third shot rang out and the motorcade began racing to the hospital. Many others claim he had it at the time the third shot was fired and that he appeared to be looking back towards the depository when the car he was in suddenly jerked forward and he fell back into his seat. Hicky didn't deny any of that happened - except that he had the gun before the third shot. "The Smoking Gun" doc theory is that he picked up the gun after the second shot in an attempt to find the perpetrator and possibly return fire. He stood up in the back of the car, rifle in hand, and as he was surveying the buildings for the shooter, the car sped up to begin heading to the hospital. As the car jerked forward, Hicky fell backwards and accidentally pull the trigger, hitting Kennedy in the head and killing him. He had either already taken the safety off as he grabbed the gun, or it was switched off in the chaos. If that's what actually happened, it's unbelievably tragic for all involved. Can you imagine being in charge of protecting the President and then accidentally
killing him? That's horrific. And, unlike a lot of other half-assed theories, this one has some traction.
The book alleging this SS agent theory was first published while Hicky was alive and the author sent him several letters prior to its publishing, asking if he would speak to them about it and giving him a sort of head up. He never responded, even after it was published. Nearly THREE YEARS after its publication, he sued the publishing company and authors claiming that it was all untrue. Why would you wait three years to dispute something like that? If someone accuses me of stealing a sandwich from Whole Foods, I'd pitch a fit and emphatically deny it (unless I stole it, of course), but someone says this dude shot the President and he's unaffected by the allegation? It almost seemed as if someone finally filed it for him and he was still 'meh' about the whole thing. Maybe because he wasn't sure himself if it was true or not. He never spoke publicly about the assassination and he was never called to testify at any of the formal inquiries about it (although they are thought to be part of a cover-up anyway). Further adding to the speculation, that particular rifle was removed from SS use immediately following the assassination. Given that they had just gotten it and, according to them, it hadn't even been used (or misused), why would you stop using it so suddenly? A number of people at ground level, including some government officials in the motorcade, said they smelled gun power after the third shot. You don't smell gun powder unless you're VERY close to where a gun was fired. Oswald was in the sixth floor of a building that was downwind of the motorcade, meaning there's no way the scent of gun powder from his weapon could've reached street level. If it wasn't his gun, and it's unlikely it was, then who else on the ground could've fired? The most compelling part of this theory for me is the ballistics evidence. The bullets Oswald used were so obscure that the FBI had to track some down in order to test them and they weren't designed to explode upon impact. Instead, they were designed to produce clean, through and through wounds so that the wounded had time to get medical attention and survive. The bullet that allegedly hit both JFK and Connally was this type of bullet. The bullet that killed Kennedy could not have been. The injury to his head was
massive, his brains were literally blown out and all around the car, his wife and the streets of Dallas. Bullets meant to go through you don't stop and blow your head up in such a manner. That last shot almost had to have been fired from another weapon. Also, if Oswald had fired that shot, it would have exited through the left side of Kennedy's forehead or face because of the angle from which it was coming from. But only the right side of his head had bullet wounds. Of course, we can't say anything definitively. But this is one of the better theories I've heard. It has concrete, scientific and evidentiary based conclusions that make sense and add up, rather than a theory that kinda fits but has holes, as most others are. It also explains why the SS was so aggressive and anxious to have the autopsy done by unqualified government officials. They were well trained, they knew what weapons did what kind of damage and they saw what kind of damage was done to JFK and what was done to Connally. Something did not add up. If they even suspected one of theirs had something to do with it, then they would've circled the wagons to protect themselves and the government. The agents in the car with Hicky would have known whether or not he fired, they may have even seen it. Oswald must not have been able to believe his luck when someone else finished the job for him. If this is what happened, I feel tremendously for the Kennedy family and George Hicky. It has to be awful to live with something like that. Fate can be a bitch sometimes.
