Parallax Redux? Shots Fired During French President Hollande's Speech

"We're in the business of reporting the news, not creating it," 

says the skeptical editor Bill Rintels, 

in The Parallax View.

When is an "assassination attempt" not an "official assassination attempt?" Apparently when the shots are fired from your own security detail.

Like a scene from a modern conspiracy movie, President François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande was in the midst of a speech to inaugurate a new fast train line in the western town of Villognon when a shot suddenly rang out. The speech was briefly interrupted and commotion ensued. 

"I hope it is nothing serious."

"I think not."

Who fired?

As it was revealed, a police sharpshooter had accidentally fired his weapon during a speech, injuring at two people.

Despite the shot, once his security team concluded he was in no imminent danger, France's Socialist leader continued talking, saying at one point: "I hope it's nothing serious."

"In fact, a police sniper stationed outside the marquee where the speech was taking place had unintentionally opened fire while changing position. One local report said the safety catch was unlocked and the gun discharged," noted the U.K.'s Telegraph.

One bullet passed through the thigh of the head waiter of a local hotel and ended up in the calf of an employee of a railway maintenance company, according to Pierre N'Gahane, state prefect of the Charente region.

Unconfirmed local media reports said that the sniper shot himself in the foot and could be seen jumping up and down.

"The sniper was on high ground when the shot went off accidentally," Mr N'Gahane told reporters. "We heard the noise, the president continued his speech. After, he came back down and entered the next room to talk to the people and to see the injured. He spoke to them for a bit and left as planned."

h/t to JP

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The Parallax View is a 1974 American political thriller film directed and produced by Alan J. Pakula, and starring Warren Beatty, Hume Cronyn, William Daniels and Paula Prentiss. The film was adapted by David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr and an uncredited Robert Towne from a 1970 novel by Loren Singer.
The plot centers on TV newswoman Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss), who is one of many witnesses to the public assassination of presidential candidate Senator Charles Carroll (Bill Joyce) atop the Seattle Space Needle. A waiter armed with a revolver is chased but falls to his death. Meanwhile, a second waiter, also armed, leaves the crime scene unnoticed. A congressional special committee determines that the assassination was the work of a lone gunman.

Three years later, Carter visits her former boyfriend and colleague, newspaper reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty). Lee tells Frady that she feels there is more to the assassination than was reported at the time. Six of the witnesses to Carroll's assassination have since died, so she fears she will be next. Frady does not take her seriously. Carter is soon found dead and her death is judged by the police to be either a voluntary or accidental drug overdose.

(Rest of the plot, here.)

Warren Beatty? Really?

Waiters in the plot? A waiter was injured in France today.

Reminds me of another kitchen staff pictured in the midst of a June 5, 1968 assassination.

Boris Yaro's photograph of presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy lying wounded on the floor immediately after his June 5, 1968 assassination at the Ambassador Hotel. Kneeling beside him is 17-year-old busboy Juan Romero, who was shaking Kennedy's hand when Sirhan Bishara Sirhan fired the shots.

RFK Assassination Site: Ambassador Hotel

The Ambassador Hotel stood at 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, between Catalina Street and Mariposa Avenue, Los Angeles, from 1921 until it was demolished in 2005. The famed Cocoanut Grove Nightclub was the place to rub elbows with the biggest names in Hollywood for more than four decades. After the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968 and the decline of the neighborhood, the Ambassador's fate was sealed. Even the valiant efforts of the Los Angeles Conservancy and Art Deco Society could not save the once treasured gem.

Now, thanks to InFocusTech, you can have a replica (shown above and below) of this important historical building.

This lost icon of LA is available from InFocusTech here.

The architect was Myron Hunt, shown on the right, above. Hunt is mentioned in the writings of Frank Lloyd Wright and other Chicago architects of the era as an early member of the group which came to be known as the Prairie School, but in 1903 he moved to Los Angeles. He was involved in designing the Rose Bowl and the Mount Wilson Observatory, as well as other southern California projects. Hunt fashioned the Ambassador Hotel in an eclectic Mediterranean Revival style with Art Deco elements and signage.

The date the Ambassador Hotel was completed, 1921; the date it was demolished, 2005. The InFocusTech replica's dimensions are 3-7/8" x 4-3/4" x 1-9/16". Order here.

InFocusTech's replicas are of the highest quality and sought after collectibles.

During the 1920s, the Ambassador Hotel's nightclub Cocoanut (it is not spelled "Coconut") Grove was frequented by celebrities like Louis B. Mayer, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, Howard Hughes, Clara Bow, Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson, Anna May Wong, Norma Talmadge and others. According to Photoplay, Joan Crawford and Carole Lombard were frequent competitors in the Charleston contests held on Friday nights; Lombard was discovered at the Grove.

During the 1930s the Cocoanut Grove was frequented by celebrities of cinema such as Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg, Errol Flynn, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Lana Turner, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball, Ginger Rogers, Gary Cooper, Loretta Young, and countless others. On February 29, 1940, the 1939 Academy Awards Ceremony was held in the Cocoanut Grove, with Bob Hope hosting. (Many movie scenes were filmed at the Ambassador Hotel. See here.)

In the pantry area of the Ambassador Hotel's main kitchen, soon after midnight on June 5, 1968, and after a brief victory speech in the Embassy Room ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel, the winner of the California Democratic presidential primary election, Senator Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), was shot along with five other people. The date was significant, for it was the first anniversary of the first day of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors that began on June 5, 1967. RFK was shot on the first anniversary of this war, and died on June 6, 1968.

Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Bishara Sirhan - who was not a "Palestinian immigrant," but a Jordanian Christian Arab - was arrested at the scene and later convicted of the murder. Kennedy died one day later from his injuries, while the other victims survived their wounds. During the demolition of the Ambassador Hotel, in late 2005 and early 2006, portions of the area where the 1968 shooting occurred were eliminated from the site. The portion of Wilshire Boulevard in front of the hotel has been signed the "Robert F. Kennedy Parkway."

(Disclaimer: This is a review of this replica not linked to any fiscal reimbursement. - Loren)