Two years ago – before confirming it, I would have sworn it was at least four – I wrote in this space about attending an incredible re-creation of an important day in US history that has a significant tie to cinema. Each year on November 22, the operators of the Texas Theatre run the original program that was scheduled on the day that Lee Harvey Oswald walked into the theater, without buying a ticket, and was arrested less than an hour later as the man who had assassinated John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States.
I was quite impressed in 2021 with the slate of programming reflecting the most significant day in the once-Howard Hughes-owned little movie house. This year is the 60th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Barak Epstein and his team, who have been running the Texas since its reopening in 2010, scheduled an extraordinary program which paid homage to the terrible events of 11/22/63 and honored the Texas as the site of possibly the most unique movie-going experience in the nation.
I wasn’t planning on writing again about the annual tribute to one of the darkest moments in US history, but two things happened. First, seeing the expanded program – which was similar to the one Epstein ran for the 50th anniversary in 2013 – was too enticing to pass up. The featured event on the night of the anniversary, which I’ll describe momentarily, was history- and film-nerd heaven and there was no way I was going to miss it.
The second reason I felt compelled to revisit the event on this website is because I was able to share the experience with my dad; it’s something I’ll cherish doing with him for the rest of my life. My dad is a history buff and, before I became hopelessly entranced by the movies, history was my first obsession, because it’s my dad’s primary preoccupation. At one point in my life, I was convinced that I would become a history teacher, I loved studying the past that much.
If you know anything about my dad and me, you’ll know that there isn’t much we see eye-to-eye on when it comes to politics, which has seeped into many other aspects of our respective worldviews. I’m a liberal, he’s a conservative. I’m an atheist, he’s a Christian. Etc., etc., etc. I mention this because that seems to be the current natural state of things.
Political polarization is nothing new – anyone who’s seen Hamilton knows that – but the current state of balkanization in our society seems more pronounced now than at any time in the last 165 years. I knew, though, that our shared passion for history would make “JFK Day 60” at the Texas something that my dad and I could bond over. It’s one iteration of our version of Ray and John Kinsella “hav[ing] a catch.”
During our discussions over the couple of days he was in town for the event, I learned that my dad was in the seventh grade when Kennedy was shot. Everyone in his rural West Virginia school that day was instructed to return to their homeroom classroom for the terrible announcement. School was cancelled for the remainder of the day – the shots rang out at 12:30 P.M. Dallas time, which would have been 1:30 in West Virginia. As it was a Friday, and Thanksgiving was the following week, I’m assuming classes were cancelled through the holiday.
I also learned that my dad was watching – with one of his uncles – as Lee Harvey Oswald was assassinated on live television by Jack Ruby. Dad told me of hearing the gun shot and Oswald crying out in pain. Dad’s uncle turned to him and said, astonished, “They just shot that son-of-a-bitch!”
The first JFK-related screening for the 60th anniversary happened on November 21, Tuesday evening. The screening was of a new documentary titled Down in Dallas Town: From JFK to K2, by director Alan Govenar. At a svelte 73 minutes, Govenar’s film gathers recollections from people who witnessed the assassination firsthand before then moving on to cover the dozens of songs inspired by the tragedy of Kennedy’s death as well as tackling the issues of homelessness and gun violence. Homelessness is explored because it was an issue important to Kennedy, gun violence is included because it’s what ended his life. The most fascinating portion of the film comes in its opening minutes when we see a picture taken of the assassination by an amateur photographer using one of the first mass-produced Polaroid cameras.
A photo exhibit curated by Dallas Municipal Archives. (photo by the author)
Down in Dallas Town was introduced by filmmaker, instructor, and the founder of Dallas’s unique VideoFest, Bart Weiss. (Full disclosure, I know Bart, as he is a fellow member of the North Texas Film Critics Association.) Before the screening, I introduced my dad to Bart, and he informed us both that he edited the exhibit videos on display at the Sixth Floor Museum, where Oswald’s infamous “sniper’s nest” was located. It is preserved, as is the rest of the building, as a historic site.
November 22 began with the usually scheduled JFK Day screenings of the films that were featured on the Texas’s marquee on 11/22/63. If you want to see my reactions to those films, War is Hell and Cry of Battle, you can find them in the piece I wrote two years ago. War is Hell, the film that was playing when DPD entered the theater to grab their man, only exists in partial form (it’s essentially considered a lost film) with elements that Barak Epstein and his collaborators have pieced together solely for these annual screenings.
What is screened of War is Hell amounts to about 35 or 45 minutes, which works because that’s about how long the movie played before it was stopped for the arrest. The screening always starts at 12:45 P.M., as it was scheduled on the day. As you’re sitting in the theater, when the film abruptly stops, you can imagine the cops coming out from behind the curtain at the side of the screen, looking for Oswald. Epstein & Co. obtained a bit of the film in 8mm form, sans soundtrack, so the folks at the Texas added a musical score, turning the last ten minutes or so of War is Hell into a silent film, which, consequently, makes it a much more engaging experience.
As Epstein said in his pre-screening remarks, it is highly doubtful that Cry of Battle actually screened on that fateful 1963 day. It’s reasonable to suspect that the Texas, as well as most other businesses in the area, closed for the rest of the day in the aftermath of the shocking assassination. Still, Epstein, a completist after my own heart, screens Cry of Battle alongside War is Hell each year for the anniversary.
In his introductory remarks, Epstein pointed out the two seats – though, not the actual seats, as they were replaced decades ago – which Oswald switched between before being arrested. Middle section, third row from the back, second and fifth seats from the right-hand aisle (as you’re looking at the screen). After the announcement, an audience member quietly moved over a few seats into one of the designated spots for the ultimate viewing experience.
Dad and I bailed on a second documentary, after the screenings of War is Hell and Cry of Battle, called Rush to Judgement, about perceived inconsistencies in the infamous Warren Commission report on the assassination. We decided to go grab a bite to eat before returning for a special treat.
The stage is literally set. (photo by the author)
The evening featured more history-nerd catnip with a staged live-reading from portions of the Warren Commission report. The producers of the show isolated each section of the report that directly references the Texas Theatre and the events surrounding it. This consists of three interviews conducted by the report’s investigators. Two of the interview subjects, Julia Postal and Butch Burroughs, were employees of the Texas on the day in question, and they each detail their interactions with Oswald before he was arrested.
The third interviewee was John Brewer, an employee of a shoe store located a few shopfronts down from the theater. Brewer noticed Oswald loitering in front of the shoe store and he was the man who observed the assassin ducking into the theater without purchasing a ticket.
Via actors and minimalist staging, the show, titled He Shoulda Bought a Ticket, brings these interviews to life. There’s something intoxicating about hearing the events of the day and even the local streets – Zang’s Blvd. (since changed to the simpler Zang Blvd.) and Beckley Ave. are both namechecked in the interviews – mentioned in the very room where such momentous history occurred. And, as Barak Epstein noted in his introduction, listening to the questions of the investigator is like listening to a Mamet screenplay.
During the event, I discovered that one of my across-the-street neighbors — Hi, Chris! — not only works at the Texas, but he’s also the actor seen here on the left. (photo by the author)
Dad and I bailed on the grand finale of the evening – a presentation of the director’s cut of Oliver Stone’s incendiary JFK – because we’d both seen it and, since it was Turkey Day Eve, we wanted to call it an early night. Dad phoned me a few days later to tell me about a documentary he had stumbled across on Paramount+ titled JFK: What the Doctors Saw. I plan on catching up with it soon so he and I can compare notes.
The folks at the Texas Theatre are keeping a unique bit of history alive year after year. Their observance of the 60th anniversary of that history was a memory I’ll treasure; I’m so glad I got to share it with my dad.