Crisis: Behind A Presidential Commitment

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: B-     Film: B

 

 

As a follow-up to the classic Primary (1960, reviewed on this site), Robert Drew gave us Crisis three years later.  Instead of being about the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is about the Kennedy White House taking on Alabama Governor George Wallace over the Governors’ defiance of a Federal court order that allowed the first African-American students into the University of Alabama.  Their names are Vivian Malone and James Hood.

 

Wallace hardly kept his casual, institutionalized racism in the closet, celebrating it as a way to keep his constituency happy.  Being right and being popular are not the same thing.  Hew turns out to not act like an extremist in many of his general behaviors, but that false sense of whom he is quickly fades into his arrogance.  This was a time most politicians did not understand the power of the media, especially Wallace.  He comes across very badly when all is said and done.  By appearing in this film, he helped the Civil Rights movement go forward in ways he never could have imagined.

 

It is disturbing to hear Wallace talk about “The South” and how they will decide who the next president will be.  Knowing what we know now, it is more ominous than ever, as the idea of the “single bullet theory” fades away.  Many even then had to feel someone would “love to kill JFK” for letting “those Negroes” into that school.  The legacy of domestic terrorism and murder is undeniable, and this was one of the all-time great moral victories won by any president.  Crisis captures that unforgettably.

 

The full frame transfer off of the 1.33 X 1 16mm film is accurate enough, though this is not a brand new transfer.  Like Primary, this will be the last time this transfer will be usable for home video, as Drew is going to need to do a High Definition digital master for playback in that format in native form.  Richard Leacock, narrator James Lipscomb, D.A. Pennebaker, and Hope Ryder are the main cinematographers this time, with help by Abbot Mills, Patricia Powell, and Morten Lund.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 is dubbed Stereo on the back of the package, but the older black and white footage is pretty much monophonic.  This time, unlike Primary, the sound is limited, yet not as compressed-sounding.  It still sounds like it is from an optical track the generation after magnetic recording, but who knows where those masters are.

 

Extras include another winning commentary by Drew and Leacock, another text statement by and info piece on Drew, the same Docurama gallery with select trailers, and the 12-minutres long Faces of November.  This film is about the aftermath of the murder of JFK.

 

See this DVD.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo