Documentary filmmaker Robert Drew was celebrated this weekend by the National Archives and Records Administration and Hollywood's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
On Friday The Associated Press gave a screening at the National Archives of his 1963 film "Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment." "Crisis" shows President John F. Kennedy and his attorney general Robert Kennedy considering ways to respond to Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace's resistance to integrating the University of Alabama.
Drew got to know Kennedy when he made the then-senator's 1960 presidential primary bid against Hubert H. Humphrey in Wisconsin the subject of his first film, "Primary." Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, liked the film and Kennedy gave Drew total access to the White House, including the Oval Office, to film "Crisis."
Drew also had access to Wallace, and the result is fascinating, unfiltered views of the Kennedy brothers' decision-making, race relations, Wallace's belligerent embrace of states' rights and the two young, black students at the center of the maelstrom.
