Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

I'll finish now my review of the tv movie from 1978, Ruby and Oswald. Here again is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnAIWMAuJwQ

First, I'll point out that they made no attempt to establish a motive for Oswald to shoot Kennedy. They made him seem unhappy about his wife's unwillingness to move back in with him, but that's nothing to shoot the President over. They really didn't go down the road of establishing motive, and I think that was wise because nothing they did would have been convincing. 

Alright, so after his encounter with Truly and Baker, they show him, Coke in hand, going by Mrs. Reid, the secretary (who actually testified to the Warren Commission as Mrs. Robert Reid). The next thing, he's getting on the bus, and for some reason, they only showed one other passenger, the woman who got off when he did and also got a bus transfer. So, they left out Mary Bledsoe completely, even though she was an important witness. Perhaps they were taking orders from Backes.

Then, this is amazing: They actually included the part about Oswald offering his cab to a woman who urgently needed one. Would a murderer on the run do that? 

That really has the trappings of innocence, and I would think that they would have left it out.

So then, he gets to his room and ignores Earlene Roberts when she speaks to him. He puts a jacket on and gets his pistol. In reality, he changed his pants, but they left that out. 

Then, there is the Tippit shooting depicted just as the story goes. In that situation, if Tippit really thought that this man could be the assassin, why would he approach him the way he did, just pulling over and asking the guy to come to the window? Why wouldn't he think to himself: "If I'm right, then this guy is dangerous as in deadly." I'm not going to speculate about what he should have done instead, but he certainly should have acted differently. Of course, the man who did it was not the Oswald of fame.

Meanwhile, they are tracking Ruby. He's driving when it's announced over the radio that the President is dead. And he starts crying- profusely. Excuse me for being cynical, but I don't think that is a likely reaction. He didn't know Kennedy personally. They had him crying, balling, weeping, wailing. And it went on and on. Nope, not buying it.

Then, they had Oswald sneaking into the theater, and that's after they showed us him keeping a big wad of cash and leaving his wallet at the Paine house. So, why would he sneak in if he was loaded with cash? And, the official story has it that he snuck in a side door. In this case, they had him walk right by Julia Postal and walk in the main entrance of the theater. 

Then, Brewer gets Postal to call the cops and when it gets to Oswald's arrest, the cops enter the theater and they first pat down all the viewers forward of Oswald. Now, they didn't do that, and they would not have done that. They would have and did go straight to Oswald. But eventually, MacDonald gets to Oswald and orders him to stand up. He goes to pat Oswald down as he did the others, then Oswald slugs him hard. He really bashes him, and the sound-effects made it sound like a really wicked blow. Then, there's a struggle and Oswald starts screaming, "I am not resisting arrest, I am not resisting arrest." After throwing a punch like that, he had the nerve to say that? Then, lo and behold, they immediately went to handcuff him.

Now, why the hell didn't they do that with "Ruby" in the garage? You know why. Because that was Bookhout, not Ruby.

 Now, what's weird is that they made it that he had a wallet on him with two IDs, one for Oswald and the other for Hidell. But, they showed us him leaving his wallet behind at Ruth's house earlier. And we know that the official story has it that his wallet was found at the Tippit crime scene by Westbrook. I'm no Math major, but doesn't that come to 3 wallets?

Now, this is important: during the first interrogation, they had Fritz asking Oswald which floor he was on when the President was shot. But, why would he put it that way? Those floors were big. Wouldn't he just say, where were you when the President was shot? Oswald's response was that he was on the 1st floor eating his lunch. And that is ridiculous, the idea that Oswald said that, when it is well-established that he ate his lunch as soon as they broke for lunch and not at 12:30. What Oswald said was that he was "out with Bill Shelley in front." Of course, they didn't include that. One thing they did depict accurately was:

Fritz: Do you own a rifle?
Oswald: No.

And another:

Hosty: Ever been in Mexico, Mr. Oswald?
Oswald: Only Tijuana.

They have an actor playing Bookhout, but he's sitting, and we don't see how tall he is.

 You recall the scene in the hall where Oswald asked about getting a shower. They included that, but they made him belligerent and hostile about it, totally unlike what really happened.

They had Ruby interacting with Ike Pappas at the Midnight Press Conference. I wonder if that's true.

They had Oswald telling Fritz that nothing irritated him about the President.

On Saturday afternoon, they had Kelly ask Oswald directly if he watched the Presidential motorcade. And Oswald said no. That is ridiculous. It is totally made-up. And why would they wait 24 hours before asking Oswald if he watched the Presidential motorcade?

Oh God! Then they have Oswald talking to brother Robert, and they have Robert offering to get him a Texas attorney to which Oswald responds with anger, "You stay out of this!" They had Oswald browbeating his older brother. That is so ridiculous. Why didn't they have Robert say, "You shut the fuck up, little brother. A Texas lawyer is what you need, and a Texas lawyer is what you are going to get." 

When are people going to wake up and realize that Robert Oswald is a bad guy and a liar???? 

Meanwhile, they have this "descent into madness" story going for Ruby. Among other things, he's worried that the Jews are going to blamed for Kennedy's death.

Then, they dealt with the Backyard photos except that they added a fictitious spin. They made it that Oswald said that the Dallas Police took an image of him that was just taken in the last 24 hours and used it to superimpose his face into the photo. But, Oswald never said that. He never said that it was just done with a fresh new image of him just taken. That's ridiculous even conceptually. If it was a fresh image, then it would show his facial trauma; it would show his hair the way it currently was. And that is obviously not true of the Backyard photo. This was very poor screenwriting. But, it wasn't really about screenwriting, was it.

On the Sunday morning, they did have Ruby bring Sheba the dog along. And he talks to the dog before getting out at the WU office.

They showed a big crowd at the Main Street ramp. Meanwhile, Oswald is about to be led out. They showed Leavelle handcuffing himself to Oswald, and then Graves putting cuffs on Oswald the regular way. Now, that is definitely false- unless you want to say all the images of Oswald walking his last mile are false, and I suppose that is worth considering. But in any case, if we go by the Jackson photo, Oswald's two hands were definitely not cuffed together. 

They show a cop on foot guarding the ramp when Ruby gets there.

Then they show a police car pulling out, who is presumably Rio "Sam" Pierce, except in this case, there were 2 officers in it.

And then there are no officers left, and Ruby, alone, just walks down the ramp. Nobody else gets the idea.

Why would they leave the ramp unguarded when there were strict orders to secure the place?

Then, they included Leavelle's famous exchange with Oswald; Leavelle, of course, being the only source of it. 

Regarding the hand in the pants, they were very subtle about it.

So, is that supposed to be Leavelle's hand on Oswald's pants right below the rim of Fritz' hat? If so, then they did everything they could to make sure viewers wouldn't see it. I saw it because I am conscious of it, and I looked for it. But, how many regular viewers do you think picked up on it? I'm sure it's a nice round number. 

Then when it came to muzzle blast, they went big-time.

But, that picture is all wrong. "Ruby" was much closer to Oswald. It was a contact shot. And he shot him from the side and in the side. 

Then, guess what? Unlike the real cameras which gave us nothing but noise, these cameras showed us Oswald being carried off. 

Now, was that so hard?

Then, the Penguins got Ruby flat on his back on the garage floor. Of course, that never happened.

Then, they showed us Oswald on the floor in the jail office, which we also didn't see in real life.

Then, they show Ruby, upon being taken inside, being put immediately into the elevator and taken upstairs. 

So, that's the elevator, and on the elevator, he asks the cops what happened. And they tell him that he shot Oswald. And he says, "I did?" Something like that may actually have happened because Ruby had no memory of shooting Oswald. He said that he remembered getting to the bottom of the ramp and then police were pouncing on him, and he didn't know why. And that's why he said, "It's me, Jack Ruby. You know me. Why are you doing this?"

Then, Oswald is wheeled out, and there is no dressing over his sweater.

There is none of this bull shit:

Can you, or can you not, see how fake that is?????

Then, they have Fritz interrogating Ruby, and the first thing Ruby says is, "I don't remember doing it." Bravo.

But then, it went to this ridiculous exchange.

Fritz: If you don't remember doing it, do you at least remember why you did it?
Ruby: I did it for Mrs. Kennedy.

It's a known fact that one of Ruby's lawyers came up with the idea for him to say that he did it for Mrs. Kennedy. And he hadn't seen his lawyer yet. But regardless, how is it remotely possible to remember the reason you did something that you don't remember doing?

Ruby goes on to say that he did it to show that Jews have guts.

When it's time to put Ruby in a cell, the cop shoves him into it. Nice touch. Next time, do it with feeling.

And there it ends with Ruby alone in a dark cell crying in his hands. 

I should mention that throughout, they gave Oswald a Texas/Louisiana redneck drawl, which he didn't have. 

My overall impression is that it was pablum for the masses, pure statist propaganda, but they inadvertently included a few pearls of truth.