One to Watch: 'The Day Kennedy Died'
At this point, 50th anniversary JFK assassination programming is pouring out faster than those chocolates on that old I Love Lucy conveyor belt.
One just can’t keep up with all of them. However, your time would be well-spent watching this one. Smithsonian Channel’s two-hour The Day Kennedy Died, narrated by Kevin Spacey, is a well-made, one-stop look at the cataclysmic events of Nov. 22, 1963. It premieres on Sunday, Nov. 17, at 9 p.m. ET.
There’s one caveat, though. Don’t believe Spacey’s opening declaration that four of the interviewees “have not spoken on camera before.” Technically, that might be somewhat true of Parkland Hospital Dr. Robert McClelland, who’s previously done radio interviews and videotaped presentations that are readily available on youtube.com.
Other than that, British documentary filmmaker Leslie Woodhead (The Hunt for Bin Laden) has done a first-rate job of putting this all together again. Much of the video may be thoroughly familiar by now. Still, the information imparted -- both nuts-and-bolts and anecdotal -- is deftly meshed with the wealth of available images. Add the well-modulated play-by-play from Spacey, lately best known for playing duplicitous House Majority Leader Francis “Frank” Underwood on Netflix’s House of Cards.
Your friendly content provider is old enough to have been in high school French class when news of the shooting first broke. But 50 years down the road, the majority of this film’s potential audience hadn’t yet been born when President John F. Kennedy was murdered in broad daylight while riding with his wife, Jacqueline, in a motorcade that had just reached Dealey Plaza.
The Nov. 24 murder of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is also included in The Day Kennedy Died. Former homicide detective James Leavelle, who was escorting Oswald before Jack Ruby pulled the trigger, again makes it clear he had no use for the media who swarmed the Dallas police department in the two days after the assassination.
Leavelle also grilled Oswald, to whom he still seems more favorably disposed. Even though he lied about his activities, Oswald “wasn’t argumentative, actually a very pleasant individual,” Leavelle says.
Dallas Times Herald photographer Bob Jackson, who took the signature picture of Oswald grimacing while Leavelle recoiled, says matter-of-factly, “He fired and I fired. I couldn’t have planned it any better.”
The film’s final words are from Hill, who’s also prominently featured in JFK: The Final Hours. “Things like that just didn’t happen,” he says. “But they did.”
The Day Kennedy Died brings it all home anew, in ways that are both affecting and highly effective.