Timequest (film)
Timequest is a 2000 science-fiction film directed by Robert Dyke and starring Victor Slezak as John F. Kennedy and Caprice Benedetti as Jacqueline Kennedy. The film also features Vince Grant and Bruce Campbell. After premiering on April 13, 2002, the film had a limited theatrical release in the United States, followed shortly by distribution on VHS and DVD to the United States, Canada, and Australia.
| Timequest | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Robert Dyke |
| Produced by | Gary Bloom Charles F. Cirgenski Ron Cook James A. Courtney Mary Petryshyn Tom Van Scyoc |
| Written by | Robert Dyke |
| Starring | Victor Slezak Caprice Benedetti Vince Grant Bruce Campbell Barry Corbin |
| Music by | Dan Kolton |
| Cinematography | Lon Stratton |
| Edited by | Joseph Kleinman |
| Distributed by | Ardustry Creative Light Worldwide |
Release date | April 13, 2002 |
Running time | 95 minutes |
| Language | English |
Plot
Timequest explores the science fiction theme of altering the present day by traveling back in time and tampering with past events. In this particular film, on the morning of November 22, 1963, an elderly man (Ralph Waite) who wears spacesuit-type clothing materializes in the hotel suite occupied by Jackie Kennedy (Caprice Benedetti). The Time Traveler shows Jackie future television footage of the assassination and funeral of John F. Kennedy (Victor Slezak). Shortly thereafter, the Time Traveler speaks to the president and to the cynical Attorney General Bobby Kennedy (Vince Grant), giving them details of their respective assassinations (as it takes the Time Traveler quite a bit to convince Robert Kennedy that he is who he says he is as Kennedy attempts to debunk the Time Traveler's story) and of the public revelations of JFK's sex scandals, convincing the president to remain faithful to his wife. The Time Traveler, knowing Bobby's ways, won't state his name or his birthplace, but does mention that he was born on this day. The Time Traveler asks Jackie to dance with him; she does (the Time Traveler is obsessed with Jackie Kennedy).
The Time Traveler and the three Kennedys drink a toast in the hotel suite just before 12:30 pm, which is the time that history is definitely changed (JFK is shot-JFK is not shot). At 12:30 the Time Traveler turns into nothingness, and the lead-crystal glass that he was holding drops to the floor and shatters. Bobby finds a piece of glass with the Time Traveler's fingerprint on it. Clint Hill and Bobby Kennedy then travel ahead to Dallas and head to the grassy knoll where Hill takes out two gunmen (indicating the film producers' belief in the conspiracy theories about the assassination). Lee Harvey Oswald (Jeffery Steiger) is captured, and Jack Ruby is killed before he can shoot Oswald, who is taken to Washington, D.C. and interrogated by the Warren Commission, culminating in the CIA's disbandment. When J. Edgar Hoover threatens to blackmail the President by revealing audio tapes of Kennedy having sex with Marilyn Monroe, Robert Kennedy counters by threatening to release photos of Hoover's alleged homosexuality. When Hoover caves in and agrees to hand over the tapes, Robert Kennedy also demands for Hoover to hand in his letter of resignation.
Similar to a future situation, John and Jackie Kennedy appear on television. John reveals his infidelities and asks for forgiveness from both his wife and the nation. Jackie stands with her husband and asks the country to do the same.
Being forewarned by the Time Traveller that the Vietnam War would end up with 57,000 American soldiers having died for nothing, President Kennedy announces, ahead of the 1964 presidential election, to withdraw all US military forces from Vietnam, much to the dismay of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy then speaks for the second time at Rice Stadium, readdressing the nation the importance of the Apollo Program, but also expands it to be a project for all humanity, and openly calls for the Soviet Union to participate in it and appeals for its leader Nikita Khrushchev to negotiate an end to the Cold War. His efforts are ultimately successful, resulting in humanity's first space trip to the Moon being a joint US-Soviet project, with astronaut John Glenn (representing the United States) and (fictional) cosmonaut Nikilia Bresnev (representing the Soviet Union) planting their nations' respective flags on the Moon together.
Bobby Kennedy is also determined to uncover the Time Traveler's identity in order to prevent him from eventually inventing time travel, but a pregnant Jackie exacts an iron promise from Bobby that the Time Traveler would never be harmed. As it turns out, the Time Traveler is Raymond Mead (Joseph Murphy) (who is, like his alternate self, obsessed with Jackie Kennedy). At sixteen he commits a burglary, is arrested and put on a prison bus; his fingerprinting enables President Bobby Kennedy to know the Time Traveler's name. President Bobby has the teenager pulled off the bus, he talks to the kid, and he gives Mead a full pardon.
Years later in 1994, when Mead has become an artist and is now married, an elderly Jackie buys many of his paintings. In 2001, after JFK dies of old age (Jackie had already died by this time), their youngest son James Robert Kennedy (Rick Gianasi) explains to Mead why the Kennedy family has been so generous to him and reveals a portrait of his older self. The film later ends with Ray's younger self dancing with Jackie in 1963 as a dream sequence and Ray as a baby in 1964 staring at the televised footage of Jackie outside Parkland Hospital (where her husband was originally meant to die in the old time stream) with James as a baby on his TV.
Characters
| Actor/Actress | Character Name | History | Death |
|---|---|---|---|
| Victor Slezak | John F. Kennedy (JFK) | The 35th President of the United States. | Died in 2001 |
| Caprice Benedetti | Jacqueline Kennedy | The wife of John F. Kennedy. | Died in 1994 |
| Vince Grant | Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) | The Attorney General and 37th President of the United States. | Still alive. |
| Bruce Campbell | William Roberts | A very controversial film maker similar to Oliver Stone who makes an erotic film about Bobby's Presidency and is a Conspiracy Theorist. | Still alive. |
| Barry Corbin | Lyndon Johnson | The 37th Vice President to JFK. | Died in 1973. |
| Larry Drake | J. Edgar Hoover | The notorious Director of the FBI who tries to blackmail JFK. | Forcibly resigned from the FBI in 1963 and died in 1972. |
| Ralph Waite | The Time Traveler | Born November 22, 1963 as Raymond Mead. | Died November 22, 1963 after changing History and fading into nothing. |
| Joseph Murphy | Raymond Mead | Born November 22, 1963; became the Time Traveler. | Married and still alive. |
| Rick Gianasi | James Robert Kennedy | Born August 22, 1964; fourth child of John and Jackie Kennedy. | Married and still alive. |
| David Haig | Agent Clint Hill | Secret Service agent that kills the would-be JFK assassins and Jack Ruby | Still alive (retired) |
| Debra Port | Janice Kennedy | Wife of James Robert Kennedy. | Married and still alive. |
| Reuben Yabuku | Martin Luther King, Jr. | Civil Rights Hero who becomes The 37th Vice President under President Robert Kennedy (RFK). | Still alive. |
| Amanda Bernacchi | Cheryl Stein | Ray's wife in 1994/2001. | Still alive. |
| Dawn Lafferty | Magic Bullit | The actress in William Roberts 2001 Erotic film RFK. | Still alive. |
| Shelly Marks | Norma Jeane | JFK's most infamous Affair. Her voice is heard on the tape J Edgar Hoover tried to blackmail him with. | Died in 1962. Death unknown. |
| Richard Jewell | Agent Richards | Clint Hill's fellow Secret Service Agent who arrests Oswald at the 6th Floor Book Depository. | Still alive (retired). |
| Jeffery Steiger | Lee Harvey Oswald | The would-be assassin of John F. Kennedy. | Still alive but in Prison. |
| Marty Bufalini | Dan Rather | The Famous News Reporter who originally announced JFK's death to the world in the old timeline. In the new one he announces the birth of James Robert Kennedy in 1964. | The real Cronkite died in 2009 |
| Andrew Dunn | Abraham Zapruder | The Jewish dressmaker who originally filmed the Assassination in the old timeline. In the new one, he wonders where the President's motorcade in Dallas is. He later gets his camera stolen by Bobby and Clint after they spot him filmed them killing the assassins on the grassy knoll near him. His camera is later recovered in 2001 by William Roberts from the National Archives and he uses it to try to show his conspiracy theory about Bobby being in Dallas in November 1963. | The real Zapruder died in 1970. |