Just watched the movie "Thirteen Days' on a movie channel.
It was riveting. It involves the time when JFK and the country was experiencing the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bobby Kennedy negotiated a deal with the Russian ambassador to take our missiles out of Turkey if the Russians would take their missiles out of Cuba. What a dicey time it was.
If you can watch it I recommend it. It reminds me that now we have a president who would probably let all hell get loose before he would do what Jack and Bobby Kennedy and the President's assistant Kenny O'Donnell were able to do. My husband was in the navy stationed at Guantanimo Bay at the time so he has a special appreciation for this movie.
Nobody knew at the time that we were so close to a war with Russia.
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First, Kevin Costner helped produce the film, but was miscast as Kenny O'Donnel. Horrible attempt at a Boston accent. Regardless, if one gives that a pass, the film holds up and other than some compression of events, it is damned accurate historically.
I've always been a fan of Bruce Greenwood. I like his JFK very much. Robert Culp was a real surprise as Bobby.
The supporting cast was on the whole astounding. All the cabinet officers were top rate castings. I am a fan of many of the character actors. Kenny O'Donnel's real son played the CIA photo analyst at the beginning of the film. Peter Lawford's son played the low level photo recon commander, a Kennedy family connection.
A real chilling to the bones performance came from Kevin Conway as SAC General Curtis LeMay (who did not keep his office long after the events in the film).
Another I rather like is Elya Baskin as Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. He's an excellent character actor. (He plays lots of Russians.) Here he absolutely nails a very tense scene with Culp as RFK when we were at the end of the ropes during the eleventh hour. The scene still sends chills up ones spine, even when one knows how it turns out. The whistling bit is a little over the top, but somehow still works.
I can watch this film over and over. It is so well done.
I like the colorized archival footage that was woven into the film. I remember those scenes, as I delivered The Detroit News at the time, so I was a bit of a news geek. I was in Jr. High School at the time.
Hope things are well with you, CTY!
On edit: ARRRGH! Steven Culp as RFK, not Robert Culp.
