Zapruder Film
The Zapruder frames used by the Warren Commission were published in black and white as Commission Exhibit 885 in volume XVIII of the Hearings and Exhibits. Frames of the film have also been published in several magazines, and the film was featured in several movies. Copies of the complete film are available on the Internet.
In 1994, the Zapruder film footage was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for permanent preservation in the National Film Registry.
Other films of the assassination
Zapruder's film is the most complete movie of the assassination, as it depicts a relatively clear view of the motorcade from a somewhat elevated position.
No extant film shows clearly the critical portion of the infamous "grassy knoll" from which many claim shots were fired, and none depict better detail of the presidential limousine than the Zapruder film. However, it is not the only film depicting the presidential limousine on Elm Street.
There are films and still photographs taken by at least 32 photographers in Dealey Plaza at or around the time of the shooting, including: F. Mark Bell, Charles Bronson (not the actor with the same name), Malcolm Couch, Elsie Dorman, Robert J.
Hughes, John Martin, Charles Mentesana, Marie Muchmore, Orville Nix, Patsy Paschall, and Tina Towner, along with an unidentified "Babushka lady." The films by Orville Nix, Marie Muchmore, and Charles Bronson depict the fatal head shot seen in the Zapruder film, and the films of Bronson and Hughes show the open sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository.
On February 19, 2007, a film shot by George Jefferies was released. The color 8 mm film, taken on Main Street in Dallas approximately 90 seconds before the shooting, has the best view of Jackie Kennedy in the motorcade and the positions of the Secret Service agents before the shooting, and also clearly shows that President Kennedy's suit coat was bunched up around the neckline. This fact would seem to repudiate theories identifying the mismatch between the wound in the President's back and the holes in his suit and shirt as evidence that more than three shots were fired.
History
Three copies of the Zapruder film were made on the afternoon of November 22.
Zapruder retained the original and one copy, and gave the other two copies to the Dallas office of the Secret Service for their investigation. Within three days, Life magazine (owned by Time Inc.) purchased the original film and all rights to it for $150,000 (equivalent to $916,000 in 2006), payable in six annual payments of $25,000.
Kennedy Memorial Edition", and in issues dated October 2, 1964 (a special article on the film and the Warren Commission report), November 25, 1966, and November 24, 1967.
In October 1964, the U.S. Government Printing Office released 26 volumes of testimony and evidence compiled by the Warren Commission.
In early 1967, Life released a statement that four frames, 208–211, of the camera original had been accidentally destroyed, and the adjacent frames damaged, by Life photo lab technicians. Life released the missing frames from the first-generation copy it had received from Zapruder with the original. (Frames 155–157 and 341 were also damaged and spliced out of the camera original, but are present in the first-generation copies.)
In 1966, Josiah Thompson, while working for Life, tried to negotiate with Life for the rights to print important individual frames in his book, Six Seconds in Dallas.
Life refused to approve the use of any of the frames, even after Thompson offered to give all profits from the book sales to Life. When Thompson's book was published in 1967, it included very detailed charcoal drawings of important individual frames, plus photo reproductions of the four missing frames.
The court held that "there is a public interest in having the fullest information available on the murder of President Kennedy. Weitzman set up his own optical house and motion picture postproduction facility later that year.
Employee and assassination buff Robert Groden, hired in 1969, used one of Weitzman's copies and an optical printer to make versions of the Zapruder film using close-ups and minimizing the camera's shakiness.
Prior to the 1969 trial of New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw for conspiracy in connection with the assassination, a copy of the film several generations from the original was subpoenaed from Time Inc. The courtroom showings of Garrison's copy in 1969 were the first time it had been shown in public as a film.
In March 1975, on the ABC late-night television show Good Night America (hosted by Geraldo Rivera), assassination researchers Robert Groden and Dick Gregory presented the first-ever network television showing of the Zapruder home movie.
One of the sources of controversy with the Warren Report has been its difficulty in satisfactorily accounting for the sequencing of the assassination. In the authors' words, "The film, we realize, does not depict an assassination about to commence.
It shows one that had already started."
Cultural effect
The film's 1975 broadcast on Good Night America ignited widespread public distrust in the findings of the Warren Commission. For example, after the final shot, Jacqueline Kennedy can be seen mouthing what appears to be the words, "Oh, my God!" A closeup from the portion of the film showing the fatal shot to Kennedy's head is also shown in the Clint Eastwood film In the Line of Fire.