PAUL LANDIS: SUPER SECRET AGENT HERO? by Cantara Christopher
I swear this is genuine. Paul Landis, one of the Secret Service agents on the Kennedy protection detail in Dallas iwho failed to protect the president from an assassin’s bullet back on that fateful November 22, 1963, has his own idea of how to start a picture. Got this personally from the director of the upcoming feature film The Kennedy Detail:
“Stephen, I don’t know how you intend to open your movie, but I have an idea that I would like to run by you, not intending to intrude into your creative space. Just a thought. Please forgive any miss spelled words. I’m just going with the flow.”
Paul (not Paulie)
Opening Scene: Taking place while titles, actors ,credits, etc. burn thru in white.
Start – Surround sound – Motorcycle engine starts – Loud – …Varoom. Then a second – same sounds – Varoom…Varoom. Followed by other sounds, cars starting, “Let’s roll”, voices, commands, close ups of car wheels starting to move, cycles shifting into gear, Presidention flag on fender, feet walking & starting to jog, all close ups & tight shots…lots of quick shots & cuts…people waving…shouting…fenders…cycle exhause pipes…flashers blinking…Clint/Paul exchanging glances…”Jackie, Jackie”…”Mr. President”…”Over here, over here Mr. President” etc., etc. More pix of buildings, people in windows…waving. Someone running towards presidents limo, arm extended…Agent looks at hand, quick flash close up…gun?…Knife?…finally a camera. Another Agent pushes person back towards crowd. the person tumbles…motorcade continues.
All sorts of scenes taking place and building in intensity as motorcade reaches & continues down Main Street in Dallas. Finally, as motorcade slows & turns right onto Houston…sounds start to fade…crown thinning out…..camera scanning buildings, Plaza, overpass, etc. As other sounds fade out, an erie background sound starts to fade in. We are now going into slow motion as cars start turning left onto Elm St…Silence….Sound (Click, click…lock & load)…theatre audiance in suspense, silent, intence, waiting in anticipation. Everyone knows what is about to happen…silence……BAM…Screen goes White. Blank!
Next Scene: Version of scene 12 – Paul getting shot, etc…Paul wakes up with a start…covered in cold sweat. (His idea of how it should have been).
CUT
Page 2, Scene 20 – WRHS (either 2010, age 75, or 2011, age 76).
To be continued…………………………….
God save us from amateurs.
Cantara Christopher
Screenwriter, Bolden
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About vincepalamara
Vincent Palamara was born in Pittsburgh and graduated from Duquesne University with a degree in Sociology.
Although not even born when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Vince brings fresh eyes to an old case. In fact, Vince would go on to study the largely overlooked actions - and inactions - of the United States Secret Service in unprecedented detail, as well as achieving a world's record in the process, having interviewed and corresponded with over 80 former agents (the House Select Committee on Assassinations had the old record of 46 with a 6 million dollar budget and subpoena power from Congress), not to mention many surviving family members, White House aides, and even quite a few Parkland and Bethesda medical witnesses for a corresponding project. The result was Survivor's Guilt: The Secret Service & The Failure To Protect President Kennedy.
Vince is also the author of the books JFK: From Parkland To Bethesda, The Not-So-Secret Service, Who's Who in the Secret Service, and Honest Answers about the Murder of President John F. Kennedy: A New Look at the JFK Assassination.
All told, Vince has been favorably mentioned in over 140 JFK and Secret Service related books to date (including two whole chapters in Murder in Dealey Plaza, The Secret Service: The Hidden History Of An Enigmatic Agency by Philip Melanson, and the Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board, among many others), often at length, in the bibliographies, and in the Secret Service - and even medical evidence - areas of these works.
Vince has appeared on the History Channel's THE MEN WHO KILLED KENNEDY (VHS and DVD), C-SPAN, Newsmax TV, A COUP IN CAMELOT (DVD/BLU RAY), KING KILL '63, THE MAN BEHIND THE SUIT (DVD), National Geographic's JFK: THE FINAL HOURS (including on DVD), PCN, BPTV, local cable access television, YouTube, radio, newspapers, print journals, at national conferences, and all over the internet. Also, Vince's original research materials, or copies of said materials, are stored in the National Archives (by request under Deed Of Gift by the ARRB), the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Harvard University, the Assassination Archives and Research Center, and the Dallas Public Library.
Vince Palamara has become known (as he was dubbed by the History Channel in 2003) "the Secret Service expert." As former JFK Secret Service agent Joe Paolella proclaimed: "You seem to know a lot about the Secret Service, maybe even more than I do!" Agent Dan Emmett calls Vince a Secret Service expert in his new book.
Vince Palamara 