Introduction
Greenwood Press in the USA have just published Anthony Frewin’s’ The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: An Annotated Film, TV and Videography, 1963-1992 (ISBN 0-313-28982-4).
The book is divided into 12 chapters covering such subjects as Oswald in New Orleans, Dealey Plaza (some 40 entries, no less), Dallas post-assassination, TV programs and compilations, documentaries, videos, theatrical motion pictures, and even lost, unconfirmed and spurious titles. There are chapters on film and TV libraries with assassination footage, a lengthy bibliography and several indexes to enable the reader to find exactly what he or she is looking for. As Martin Short says in his Foreward, this is ‘everything a filmography should be and more.’
Anthony Frewin has been a keen student of the assassination since reading Thomas G. Buchanan’s Who Killed Kennedy? in 1964. He works in the feature film industry and contributed ‘Late-breaking News on Clay Shaw’s United Kingdom Contacts’ to Lobster 20 under his ‘nom-de-guerre‘ of Anthony Weeks. (The Shaw piece was later expanded and published by the JFK Assassination Center in Dallas.) ‘
In the Introduction Frewin writes that the work started life as a proposed article for Lobster, but grew and grew until it reached book length. The publisher, Greenwood Press, have agents throughout the world and Frewin’s book may be ordered through your local bookshop. The U.S. price is $49.95.
This is a 10 minute b&w porno loop allegedly shot in a Dallas motel in the mid-1950s and featuring several of Ruby’s girls. One shot shows Jack Ruby himself buggering a girl dressed in cow-girl costume.
The film was mentioned to me by an assassination buff while I was living in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. The buff lived just off Santa Monica Blvd., out near the beach. I cannot even remember his full name now. It was Harry followed by an Armenian-sounding surname like but not Arounian. Whenever I asked to see the pic he would say that it was out on loan or that he could not find it. Harry claimed the film was shot in a motel in Dallas and was also known under the title of Modern Motel. He reckoned that Ruby was easily recognisable despite his efforts to keep his face away from the camera and that the girls were all ‘obvious show-girl types’.
I am not doubtful as to the film’s existence but I am doubtful to the identity of Ruby and his show-girls. Curiously though, one of the most famous and popular porno films of all time was shot in a Dallas motel in the 1950s and did feature a professional stripper who did dress up in cow-girl costume. This is Smart Aleck that was made in 1951 and featured a young Candy Barr (real name Juanita Slusher). Did Jack Ruby have anything to do with this film? The Mob have always been involved in pornography and is it not reasonable to suppose that their man in Dallas would have maintained this interest? Nancy Hamilton while being interviewed by Mark Lane for Rush to Judgement, No. 85, claimed that Ruby ran girls, and from running them to filming them is but a small step.
A soft-core exploitation film featuring one of Ruby’s girls has been going the rounds lately. This is Mondo Exotic, originally made in 1963 and featuring the stripper Jada, (Janet Adams Conforto). Did Ruby have a hand in making this? A clip is included in The Men Who Killed Kennedy, No. 142.
The fullest stag filmography is in Di Lauro and Rabkin’s Dirty Movies (1976), pps125-58, and runs to over 30 pages of double columns. They do not list Dallas Belles or Modern Motel, but there are entries for two versions of Motel Moderne, both made sometime between 1951 and 1954, and both featuring a single man and woman only.
See further note on Dallas Belles in the Addenda below.
Pages 15-19 From: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
Parkland, Love Field, Dallas Post-Assassination
In chronological order within subject areas.
[49] Parkland Hospital Exteriors.
Much newsreel footage was shot at Parkland after the arrival of JFK chiefly of the crowds gathered there, and most of the major documentaries discussed below include shots.
[50] Parkland Doctors: Press Conference.
This is the famous press conference given at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas at around 2pm after the death of President Kennedy. Present were Drs. Kemp Clark and Malcolm Perry (a photograph of the two doctors with White House staff member Wayne Hawkes and White House stenographer ‘Chick’ Reynolds is reproduced as Photo 14 in David Lifton’s Best Evidence [1980]).
All the film and videotape of this important event apparently vanished. The Warren Commission itself tried unsuccessfully to locate the footage and was told by James J. Rowley of the Secret Service that not only could the film not be found but that the transcripts also were no longer in existence (see Mark Lane’s A Citizen’s Dissent [1968], p92). David Lifton subsequently found a copy of the transcript some years later.
WBAP-TV was at least one local station which shot the press conference. Dallas Secret Service Chief Sorrels included this in a TV inventory he sent to the FBI. This advised that if it were not required the station would wipe the tape and use it again. This they apparently did. See No. 61.
Two mute clips of the press conference are included in Reasonable Doubt, No. 159, showing Dr. Perry with Wayne Hawkes. The Men Who Killed Kennedy, No. 142, includes some intriguing footage of JFK’s death being announced at Parkland.
The crucial importance of the press conference was, of course, Dr. Perry’s description of the neck wound as an entry wound, an announcement repeated by the White House Assistant Press Secretary, Malcolm Kilduff, in No. 280.
[51] Malcolm Kilduff at Parkland.
Several documentaries contain short mute clips of the White House Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff announcing Kennedys death. The JFK Assassination: The Jim: Garrison Tapes includes the film with sound, No. 174. See also No. 280.
[52] Dr. Robert Shaw at Parkland Hospital.
Dr. Shaw was Governor Connolly’s surgeon. He announced the Governor’s condition at a press conference.
Sound footage is included in Rush to Judgement, No. 85, and mute in The Day the Dream Died, No. 147.
[53] Parkland Hospital to Love Field.
Newsreel shots of the body being driven from Parkland to Love Field are included in Ruby and Oswald, No. 119, and The Men Who Killed Kennedy, No. 142.
[54] Love Field.
The departure of Air Force One was well covered by the newsreel companies. Footage is included in most documentaries.
[55] Andrews AFB.
Most documentaries include b&w shots of the casket being unloaded, all of which seem to be from the same source.
[56] JFK Autopsy: Bethesda Naval Hospital.
An official film record of the autopsy was made according to some sources, by Lt. William. B. Pitzer. See No. 228.
[57] Tippit Scene of Crime.
Two b&w clips taken at the site of the Tippit slaying are included in Reasonable Doubt, No. 159, below. From the evidence of the investigating officers present and the number of police cars it would seem this footage was shot within an hour or two of the shooting, probably by a local TV company. Essentially the same footage is shown in The Men Who Killed Kennedy, No. 142, and The JFK Assassination: The Jim Garrison Tapes, No. 174.
[58] Oswald’s Arrest: Texas Theater.
The Men Who Killed Kennedy, No. 142, and The JFK Assassination: The Jim Garrison Tapes, No. 174, contain b&w footage of the Texas Theater taken during or immediately after Oswald’s arrest. Clips are also used in other productions.
[59] Oswald at Dallas PD.
A full catalog of Oswald footage while in police custody has yet to be made. All documentaries listed below contain some material. The Men Who Killed Kennedy, No. 142, is the only documentary that includes footage of Oswald being driven into the Dallas PD headquarters after his arrest.
[60] The Oswald-Ruby Slaying.
Three versions of the Oswald murder appear to have been filmed. These are:
KRLD-TV, Dallas: b&w video.
KRLD-TV, Dallas: 16min b&w. Cameraman: George Phenix.
WBAP-TV, Fort Worth: 16min b&w Cameraman: J. Jamison.
This listing is based upon an inventory sent by J. Edgar Hoover to J. Lee Rankin dated 20 January 1964. In all of the documentaries that follow only two versions are ever utilized. It may be that the two KRLD-TV versions listed here are one and the same.
The longest ‘take’ of the slaying is included in Assassination! No. 176, and includes ‘live’ commentary.
Jamison is noted above, No. 24.
The Hoover inventory is reproduced on pps280-1 of Weisberg’s Photographic Whitewash (1976).
[61] WBAP-TV, Dallas.
Dallas Secret Service Chief Forrest V. Sorrels forwarded to Washington an inventory of all the footage shot and held by this Dallas TV station amongst which were interviews with the Parkland doctors. Sorrels wrote, ‘WBAP-TV advised that they will hold this tape for us until the President’s Commission makes a determination if they want a copy of it. If the Commission does not want a copy of it, they plan to erase it and use it over again.’
This Secret Service memo dated 18 May 1964 says the station’s footage includes: ‘Oswald shooting; NBC news re-enactment of Oswald’s shooting; Doctors talking about Oswald at Parkland; Interview with Chief Stevenson and Chief Curry reference charges, etc. on Oswald; Tippit funeral.’
Some WBAP-TV coverage is included in No. 67, The Kennedy Assassination: As It Happened.
See Weisberg’s Whitewash IL. The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up (1966), p331. The memo is reproduced on p264 of Weisberg’s Photographic Whitewash (1976).
[62] WFAA-TV, Dallas.
The inventory of footage compiled by this station (the local ABC affiliate) ran to some 26 sheets and was included in the Sorrels communication to the FBI mentioned in the previous entry. The WFAA listing was compiled by Joe Graham, a station employee. It was indexed and gave timings. Amongst the more provocative items:
‘Secret Service quotes indicate automatic weapon used.’
‘Bulletin – Secret Service believes that an automatic weapon was fired from the top of the knoll.’
The search of the TSBD was also covered, there were interviews with the Parkland doctors, and interviews with Oswald in police custody. Weisberg in Photographic Whitewash (1976); pps265-70, reproduces memos between J. Lee Rankin and A. Goldberg which discuss the station’s footage. Goldberg writes an enthusiastic memo dated 25 May 1964 urging Rankin to obtain the station’s tapes and the following paragraph is worth quoting in full:
I have reviewed the index of tapes from WFAA-TV and believe that the tapes might reveal new information and permit checking of statements made by witnesses. For instance, in Supplement, PKA-5-2, a reporter, Vic Robertson, recollects that Jack Ruby attempted to enter Captain Fritz’s office while Oswald was being interrogated. There is extensive coverage of the third floor corridor of the Police Department that might show this particular scene. It is conceivable that the shots at Parkland Hospital might show Ruby, thereby corroborating Seth Kantor’s statement that Ruby was there early on the afternoon of November 22. If there is coverage in these tapes or others of the Texas School Book Depository Building and vicinity immediately after the shooting, there is a slim possibility that it might show Oswald leaving the building or area.
Goldberg’s enthusiasm would come to nothing as we now well know (who was it on the Commission who said, ‘We’re supposed to be closing doors, not opening them’?). Several collectors in the critical community have coverage on video of the whole of WFAA’s live output from the Friday to the Monday (in excess of some 21 hours of transmissions). The tapes include an interview with the Dallas police captain, Will Fritz, who was in charge of the transfer of Oswald when he was shot and contain this famous and unintentionally hilarious exchange:
REPORTER: Captain, what excuse – letting him [Ruby] get that close?
FRITZ: What excuse did he use?
REPORTER: No, what excuse do you-all have, you know, that he got that close?
FRITZ: I don’t have an excuse.
All of the WFAA transmissions together with outtakes are archived in the collection at Southern Methodist University, No. 264 below.
See also Nos. 8 and 27 above, and Weisberg’s Whitewash II. The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up (1966), p331 et seq.
[63] Jack Ruby.
WFAA-TV (Dallas) and NBC newsreel footage shows Jack Ruby in the audience amongst reporters at the Henry Wade press conference held in the Dallas PD on 23 November 1963, This was the occasion when Wade claimed Oswald was a member of the ‘Free Cuba movement or whatever’ and Ruby corrected him by stating that it was the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The Free Cuba Movement was an anti-Castro movement funded by the CIA.
If we had no other evidence than this, that within 24 hours of the assassination Ruby knew who Oswald was and, moreover, knew that he was a member of the FPCC, alarm bells should have rung in the head of anyone investigating the assassination.
Aside from the Oswald slaying there is little material of Ruby included in the programs discussed below. The Men Who Killed Kennedy, No. 142, contains one of the most comprehensive selections of Ruby footage. No. 147. The Day the Dream Died, also has some rare later footage.
[64] Alexander, Steven L.
See No. 227 below.