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Film 815: JFK

Trivia: Perry R. Russo, who was a key witness to conversations taking place between David Ferrie, Clay Shaw (aka Clay Bertrand), and Lee Harvey Oswald, plays a man in the bar at the beginning of the film, where Garrison and Lou are watching the TV coverage on the shooting. Mr. Russo yells about how they should give the shooter a medal for shooting Kennedy.

Director Oliver Stone's favorite film of his own.

The film generated intense controversy upon its release with many accusing Oliver Stone of making up many of the facts. In fact, Stone published an annotated version of his screenplay, in which he justifies and attributes every claim made in the film. Stone later addressed the controversy in his TV movie Wild Palms in which he has a cameo. That film takes place in the 21st Century and has Stone appearing on a talk show discussing how all his conspiracy theories surrounding "JFK" had been proven true.

Director Oliver Stone's first two choices to play Jim Garrison were Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson.

Every detail concerning the set for the Oval Office was meticulously reconstructed based on archival footage of the White House during President John F. Kennedy's term. The set cost about $70,000 to complete, yet it only appears in about eight seconds of film and is in black and white.

Many actors waived their usual fees to appear in the film.

Getting permission to film in the Texas School Book Depository proved to be very difficult. The Depository demanded $50,000 to put someone in the window where Lee Harvey Oswald had stood. They were only allowed to film at certain times of the day, with only five people allowed on the floor at any one time. Co-producer Clayton Townsend said that the hardest part of the whole process was getting permission to transform the building back to the way it looked in 1963. That took five months of negotiation. Scenes of interior action on the sixth floor were actually filmed on the fifth floor, as the sixth floor is a museum exhibit. But all point of view shots of the motorcade were filmed from the actual sixth floor window, as well as all shots of the shooter behind the window as seen from the outside.

Making Dealey Plaza look the same as it did in 1963 cost $4 million.

Dr. Marion Jenkins, the anesthetist, plays himself in the film. He was genuinely surprised at the level of detail and research that had gone into preparation for that key scene. Even the tiles for the set of Trauma Room One were exactly the same shade of green he remembered (even though the scene itself is black and white in the finished film).

Martin Sheen provides a narration at the beginning of the film. He played John F. Kennedy in Kennedy and would later act in the film Bobby, which is centered around the assassination of John's brother Robert F. Kennedy.

Kevin Costner researched the character of Jim Garrison extensively, including meeting the man himself as well as his friends and enemies.

Those are real tears choking up Kevin Costner as he makes his closing summation as Jim Garrison. The weight of what he was saying meant the actor became emotional although the speech was not scripted that way.

Is the only film that stars both Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau without the two of them sharing a scene.

The television show Seinfeld would later parody the "magic bullet" theory featured in "JFK" in an episode where Kramer and Newman believe that they had been spat at by NY Met Keith Hernandez. Jerry diagrams the course of the "magic loogie" and Keith later reveals that there was a second spitter, Roger McDowell. Wayne Knight, who plays Newman, is also in "JFK" as a member of Garrison's team. He would be one of the two men to model the shooting in court to prove the implausibility of the "magic bullet", not unlike how Jerry disproves Newman and Kramer's theory.

Dean (John Candy) Andrews' sweaty face during his talk with Garrison is real. Candy was petrified at the idea of appearing in a dramatic film with professional actors like Gary Oldman and Donald Sutherland. He sweated profusely throughout all his scenes.

Oswald's arrest was filmed in the real Texas Theatre where it happened. Money from the producers helped to restore the theater and keep it in business.

When Joe Pesci is ranting about the assassination, saying that no one will ever solve the JFK murder, he utters the famous line, "It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma...." He was paraphrasing Winston Churchill's quotation, made in a radio broadcast in October 1939: "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."