Editing John Frankenheimer (section)

===Political relationships with the Kennedys===

In a 1998 interview with film critic Alex Simon, Frankenheimer recalled that his first contact with [[Kennedy family]] politics occurred during the 1960 presidential campaigns: 
 
{{blockquote |I was probably the best-known television director around. And I was approached to do some work for John Kennedy. And I don't know...I was 30 years old. I was going through a divorce [with wife Carolyn Miller], and I just didn't want to deal with it, so I said no.<ref name="Simon, 2008">Simon, 2008</ref>}}
 
In light of [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|Kennedy's assassination]] in November 1963, Frankenheimer lamented, "Then he was killed, and I'd always felt guilty about not having done that work for him early on."<ref name="Simon, 2008">Simon, 2008</ref> 
 
During his filming of [[The Manchurian Candidate (1962 film)|''The Manchurian Candidate'']] (1962), Frankenheimer reports that he and producer/screenwriter [[George Axelrod]] were anxious that the Kennedy administration might object to the plot, which graphically depicts an assassination attempt on a liberal presidential candidate by a right-wing conspiracy. When cast member [[Frank Sinatra]], a personal friend of Kennedy, was sent to sound out his reaction to the film, Kennedy (who had read the [[Richard Condon]] novel) responded enthusiastically: "I love [[The Manchurian Candidate]]. Who's going to play the mother?"<ref>Simon, 2008: Frankenheimer quoting JFK, presumably based on Sinatra's report. See here for Sinatra's role as go-between. And: Frankenheimer: JFK “loved the movie…”</ref><ref>IMDb: See here for info on wife Carolyn Miller, with whom Frankenhimer had two children.<br>Pratley, 1969 p. 114: Frankenheimer's comments to Pratley appear to conflate President Kennedy's reaction to Manchurian Candidate (1962) with his assistance in the production of Seven Days in May (released in 1964). Contradicts Frankenheimer's remarks in Simon interview, 2008.</ref>
{{quote box|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk|fontsize=100%|salign=center|quote= “...There is no such thing as an unpolitical man. You have to take a stand in life. I was very impressed with and devoted to Senator Robert Kennedy. I believe in what he stood for...I arranged, supervised and directed all his television film appearances. I dedicated myself to that in full...his death was an irreplaceable loss...I think he represented everything that was good in this country. And there's been a terrible void since he was killed.” - John Frankenheimer in Gerald Pratley's ''The Cinema of John Frankenheimer'' (1969)<ref>Pratley, 1969 p. 220, pp. 221-222: Frankenheimer</ref>}}
When Frankenheimer began pre-production on his political thriller ''[[Seven Days in May]]'' (1964) in the summer of 1963, he approached Kennedy's press secretary, [[Pierre Salinger]], to arrange to film a segment on location in vicinity of the [[White House]]. The story concerns a political coup organized by a fascistic Chairman of the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] (played by [[Burt Lancaster]]) to depose the liberal president (played by [[Fredric March]]) and install a military dictatorship. Kennedy approved the picture and accommodated Frankenheimer by withdrawing to his home in [[Hyannisport, Massachusetts|Hyannisport]] for the weekend during the White House shoot.<ref>Simon, 2008<br>Pratley, 1969 p. 114</ref><ref>Walsh, 2002 WSWS: “President John Kennedy helped persuade a Hollywood studio to finance the film, according to one account, and offered White House locations for shooting. Frankenheimer's next project centered on a plot by the head of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff to organize a coup and overthrow the elected president.”</ref>
 
As to whether Frankenheimer ever met Kennedy, the director offered contradictory versions. To biographer Gerald Pratley in 1968, Frankenheimer said, "I never had the pleasure of meeting [JFK] personally" but noted that Kennedy had fully supported the production of ''Seven Days in May''. In 1998, during an interview with film critic Alex Simon, Frankenheimer recalled that Kennedy purportedly said to Salinger, "if it's John Frankenheimer [directing ''Seven Days in May''] I want to meet him." Frankenheimer adds, “So I met him, went to a press conference with him. He was wonderful to me.”<ref>Pratley, 1969 p. 114</ref><ref>Simon, 2008<br>Pratley, 1969 p. 139-140: Frankenheimer: “When I returned from Europe, I had change a great deal...I saw my own country from a different perspective, from a very tragic perspective we were in Europe during the assassination of the President and we were able to judge foreign reaction to us and our behavior...I saw myself from a different perspective too.”</ref>

Frankenheimer regarded Kennedy's assassination as a profound calamity for America: “I think we lost our innocence as a country with John F. Kennedy's death.”<ref>Simon, 2008<br>Pratley, 1969 p. 221: Frankenheimer: “The deaths of the Kennedys [John and Robert] were probably the most horrible events to happen to American since [President Abraham] Lincoln's assassination.” And p. 139-140: Frankenheimer: “...I saw my own country from a different perspective, from a very tragic perspective [when] we were in Europe during the assassination of the President and we were able to judge foreign reaction to us and our behavior...I saw myself from a different perspective too.”</ref>
 
Film critics Joanne Laurier and David Walsh observe that “The Kennedy assassination marked a historical turning point. One of its aims, in which it ultimately succeeded, was to shift US government policies to the right and intimidate political opposition.”<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
 
Frankenheimer's most significant bond with the Kennedys was his political and personal relationship with Senator [[Robert F. Kennedy]], to whom he quickly committed his services during the 1968 presidential campaign: “When [Robert Kennedy] declared his candidacy in '68, I immediately called [campaign manager] Pierre Salinger and said ‘Pierre, I want to be part of this.’"<ref>Pratley, 1969 p. 217: “I was very active politically with Senator Kennedy…” And p. 221: “I think he represented everything that was good in this country…”</ref><ref>Simon, 2008: See here for Frankenheimer quote</ref> 
 
Frankenheimer reports that he filmed Robert Kennedy's campaign appearances and coached the senator on improving his political persona, providing this support for Kennedy over three months in the spring of 1968.<ref>Simon, 2008: “ I was there with [RFK] for 102 days” before his assassination in June 1968. Frankenheimer reportedly used his cinematic talent to counter the Kennedy's reputation as “arrogant and cold.”<br>Thurber and King, 2002: “Always politically liberal, Frankenheimer spent part of 1968 working on Kennedy's presidential campaign, acting as director of campaign spots.”</ref>
 
Frankenheimer was devastated by [[Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy|RFK's assassination]] in June 1968, due in part to his proximity to the event. Kennedy spent the night before the California primary in Frankenheimer’s Malibu home. He had first been scheduled to accompany Kennedy through the [[Ambassador Hotel (Los Angeles)|Ambassador Hotel]] after the candidate's victory speech in the California primaries. Early news reports listed Frankenheimer as one of the wounded in Kennedy's entourage. Frankenheimer and spouse [[Evans Evans]] were waiting at a side entrance of the Ambassador Hotel to pick up Kennedy when he emerged from the press conference and drive him to their home. According to Frankenheimer, they witnessed police removing [[Sirhan Sirhan]], later convicted of the shooting, from the premises, then discovered Kennedy had been mortally wounded.<ref>Simon, 2008<br>Walsh, 2002 WSWS: “He identified strongly with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and suffered with its collapse. This is literally so: on the final day of Senator Robert Kennedy's life in 1968, he was staying at Frankenheimer's house and the director drove him to the Ambassador Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, the site of his assassination.”<br>Pratley, 1969 p. 221:  Frankenheimber: ... there was no doubt that Robert Kennedy was going to be President...Now [1968] we are on the brink of chaos in this country. We were on our way out of it with President [John] Kennedy...I see no way out now...With [[Richard Nixon]] [as US president] God knows what will happen. We could all be dead before this book comes out…”</ref>
 
Traumatized by the event, Frankenheimer withdrew from politics, and after completing ''[[The Gypsy Moths]]'' (1969) moved to France to study the culinary arts. He recalled in 1998: “Yeah. I managed to finish one film, ''The Gypsy Moths'', but I just felt like 'What's the point? What does any of this really matter?' I mean, when you're a part of something like that and then all of the sudden it's taken away with just one bullet [snaps fingers]. It really makes you take stock in what's important...That's when I went to France, and that's when I went to [[Le Cordon Bleu]], because I just had to do something else with my life, and I really couldn't go near politics for a long time after that.”<ref>Simon, 2008: Frankenheimer: “there was this tremendous involvement with Robert Kennedy. We were very, very close friends and I did all the film and television for his campaign. He stayed with me and I drove him to the Ambassador Hotel the night he was shot. All his clothes were in my house...and I really had a nervous breakdown after that.”<br>Thurber and King, 2002 NYT: “He spent several years in France, where he studied cooking at the [[Le Cordon Bleu]], emerging as a gourmet chef.”</ref> Walsh comments:
 
{{blockquote|Frankenheimer's social concerns largely disappeared from his work for the next two decades. He became identified more and more as an "action director" with competent and uninspired works such as ''French Connection II'' (1975) and ''Black Sunday'' (1977). The first is memorable principally for the strain of violence, indeed sadistic violence, which appears in Frankenheimer's work. This reached something of a height in the grisly and pointless ''52 Pick-Up'' (1986) and endured in Frankenheimer's work through his final feature films, including ''Ronin'' (1998) and ''Reindeer Games'' (2000).<ref>Walsh, 2002 WSWS:<br>Barson, 2021: “Personal problems—exacerbated by the assassination in 1968 of his close friend Robert F. Kennedy, whom Frankenheimer had driven to the hotel where he was killed—began to take their toll, and Frankenheimer counted few real successes over the next several years.”<br>Thurber and King, 2002: “But despite his early success, Frankenheimer's career went into sharp decline in the 1970s and ‘80s, when he made a series of films that were both critical and commercial failures.</ref>}}