By Stephen Hunter Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 21, 2005; Page C07 The Assassination of Richard Nixon isn't about the assassination of Richard Nixon, of course, because Nixon wasn't assassinated. It's about the assassination of George Neal Ramsburg, who was assassinated, to the pain and eternal grief of parents who knew and loved him, friends who adored him, colleagues who respected him. But the one name you won't find in The Assassination of Richard Nixon is Ramsburg's because nobody affiliated with the movie - big star Sean Penn, co-writer-director Niels Mueller, fabulous movie babe Naomi Watts, Oscar contender Don Cheadle - apparently gives a damn about him. Ramsburg, then 24, was the Maryland Aviation Administration Police Department officer on duty in Baltimore- Washington International Airport on Feb. 22, 1974. He was looking the wrong way when a mentally ill loser named Sam Byck walked up behind him and shot him dead. Then Byck, animated by delusional fantasies of his own importance to the world, vaulted over the body and proceeded into a loading jet, waving his gun and presumably spraying saliva. He locked the door, commandeered the cockpit and ordered the pilots to take off. When they wouldn't - the wheel blocks were still on, thus immobilizing the aircraft - he shot them too, killing one. Then he sort of ran around shrieking at stewardesses until a fast-thinking Anne Arundel police officer helped bring the tragically screwed-up business to an end. The Assassination of Richard Nixon tells Byck's story and no one else's over its remorseless and claustrophobic 95 minutes. It invites us into the airless hellhole that is the Byck brain, even if the movie tries some primitive presumed lawsuit-avoidance maneuverings by spelling the main character's name Bicke. The movie really misses something by ignoring poor Officer Ramsburg, and also the other.
The Assassination of Richard Nixon, directed by Niels Mueller, written by Kevin Kennedy and Mueller The Assassination of Richard Nixon is a remarkable film about social alienation in America with definite implications for contemporary life. Created by first-time US director Niels Mueller, the film was inspired by the story of Samuel Byck, who, on February 22, 1974, attempted to hijack a commercial airliner and crash it into the White House. Sam Bicke ( Sean Penn)—the fictionalized character’s name was altered slightly—is a middle-aged “ Everyman,” whose string of personal and professional failures testify, in part, to the illusory character of the American Dream. What’s unusual about Bicke is that he was politically semi-radicalized, during a time of enormous social convulsions, at the same time as he was mentally losing his balance. The central character’s swelling anger and frustration focus on the figure of Richard Nixon. Occupying the Oval Office from January 1969 to August 1974, Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace during his second term as a result of the Watergate scandal. The film begins two weeks before Sam Bicke’s failed assassination attempt. His life is unraveling: the possibility of saving his marriage to Marie ( Naomi Watts)—with whom he has three children—has become painfully remote. Misery dominates in his new job as an office furniture salesman where the likes of Dale Carnegie ( How to Win Friends and Influence People) and Norman Vincent Peale ( The Power of Positive Thinking) are promoted as spiritual guides. Owner Jack Jones ( Jack Thompson) supplies Sam with dreadful philistine books and tapes that preach the golden rule of selling: “ The salesman who believes. is the salesman who receives.” The fact that Sam is losing emotional ground makes itself felt from the start. He is doomed to fail at this job as he has at all others, including a stint at his.
Murderpedia Juan Ignacio Blanco MALE murderers index by country index by name Y Z FEMALE murderers index by country index by name Y Z Samuel Joseph BYCK.
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