Winter Kills (film)  

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Winter Kills is a 1979 satirical black comedy thriller film written and directed by William Richert, based on the 1974 novel of the same name by Richard Condon. A fiction inspired by the assassination conspiracy of President John F. Kennedy, its all-star cast includes Jeff Bridges, John Huston, Anthony Perkins, Eli Wallach, Richard Boone, Toshirō Mifune, Sterling Hayden, Dorothy Malone, Belinda Bauer, Ralph Meeker, Elizabeth Taylor, Berry Berenson and Susan Walden.

The film simplifies the plot of the book somewhat, emphasizing humor. It follows the events surrounding the assassination of the fictional President Kegan (patterned after John F. Kennedy). Several years later, Kegan's half-brother Nick (Bridges) discovers leads which suggest there may have been a plot to kill the President.

Winter Kills was a box office bomb, and received mixed reviews from critics. It has, however, developed a cult following.

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Plot

On February 22, 1960, President of the United States Timothy Kegan is shot and killed by a sniper during a visit to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A subsequent federal investigation named the sole perpetrator to be a lone gunman named Willie Arnold, who is murdered by nightclub owner Joe Diamond before he can stand trial.

Nineteen years later, Nick Kegan, half-brother of Timothy and heir to the wealthy Kegan dynasty, is on his father's oil tanker when a helicopter lands carrying Keifetz, a family associate, and a heavily-bandaged man named Arthur Fletcher. Carried into sick bay, Fletcher tells an orderly that in 1960 he and another gunman were hired by a man named Casper Jr. to assassinate President Kegan, with Arnold set up as a patsy. Fletcher claims to have stashed the rifle used in the assassination in room 903 of the Engleson Building in Philadelphia. Before Nick can question him any further, Fletcher dies of his injuries.

Nick, accompanied by his friend Miles Gardner and Police Captain Heller, travels to Philadelphia; uncovering the rifle from its hiding place just as Fletcher said. As the three are leaving, a gum-chewing young woman on a bicycle passes by, and seconds later an unseen sniper shoots and kills Nick's companions. In a panic, Nick rushes to a payphone and tries to call his father, but is instead connected to his chief accountant John Cerruti. When Nick reports the incident and his whereabouts, Cerruti promises to send help, but the rifle is stolen by an unseen person as Nick waits.

Nick travels to his father "Pa" Kegan's California desert estate, only to be promptly rebuked for leaving the tanker. When Nick reports Fletcher's confession and the incident in Philadelphia, he initially storms off, but later resolves to help Nick expose the assassination conspiracy. Nick learns that Captain Heller has been dead for over two years, the one killed in Philadelphia was an imposter.

Pa sends Nick to meet his former political rival and one of the wealthiest men in the U.S., Z.K. Dawson. Threatening Nick with a tank, Dawson maintains his innocence, but implicates the real Heller and his right-hand man Lt. Roy Doty. Pa calls Nick to tell him that Keifetz and the orderly that recorded Fletcher's confession have both died under mysterious circumstances.

Nick meets Doty, who remembers that the man implicated in Fletcher's confession, Casper, Jr., was connected to the Philadelphia police through Joe Diamond. According to Doty, Diamond bribed Captain Heller for access into the police station so he could kill Willie Arnold after the presidential assassination. Gangster Gameboy Baker arranged the assassination because the president did not return favors for the mafia's $2 million campaign contribution and Arnold was their scapegoat. Diamond died in prison four years after the killing of Arnold.

Nick asks his girlfriend Yvette Malone to help him track down information about Joe Diamond through her employer, National Magazine. She directs him to a Cleveland, Ohio diner, where he meets gangster Irving Mentor and bribes him for information. Mentor reports that Casper, Jr., figured in the assassination because he was connected to a Hollywood studio that lost $50 million when one of their stars killed herself over an affair with the President. Just then, the same woman on the bicycle who appeared before the shootings in Philadelphia brings a dead cat into Mentor's diner and Nick chases after her as the restaurant explodes from a bomb, the woman escaping.

Nick returns to New York, where Pa debunks Mentor's story and orders Nick to meet with imprisoned gangster Frank Mayo, who was given special leave for the interview. When Mayo suggests that Nick is being misled, Nick heads to National Magazine headquarters and learns that Yvette is not actually an employee. Later, the hostile doorman at Yvette's apartment insists that she does not live there.

Returning home, Nick finds Keifetz, who admits that he faked his death and encourages Nick to use Cerruti's intelligence connections to find Yvette. At Pa's financial headquarters, Cerrutti tells Nick that Yvette was kidnapped by Casper Jr., and recounts a new version of the assassination. According to Cerruti, a Washington, D.C. madam named Lola Comante, who obliged the president's fondness for sex, offered him a $2 million campaign contribution from Mayo and his mafia associates. When the president discovered that Pa was behind the deal, he ended their relationship, leaving Pa financially and emotionally devastated.

Changing the story yet again, Cerruti confesses that he arranged for Nick to meet a fraudulent Z.K. Dawson in Tulsa. The real Dawson and his daughter, Yvette, were the true perpetrators of the assassination; Yvette, formerly known as Maggie Dawson, was the president's mistress. Nick discounts Cerruti's story and insists on learning Yvette's whereabouts. As Nick assaults and fractures Cerruti's arms with a baton, he breaks down. Cerutti claims that Pa spent millions of dollars to support his son's presidency because it benefited him financially, but he was displeased by the president's liberal politics and so it was Pa who had him killed. Pa created an elaborate hoax to confuse Nick, including the employment of an actress named Jenny O'Brien to play the role of Yvette. When Cerruti says that Jenny is "tied up" at Kegan Medical School, Nick leaves to find her body in the morgue.

Sometime later, Nick confronts his father in his office, but Pa claims that Cerruti masterminded the assassination to augment the Kegan coffers and blackmailed Pa into keeping quiet. When Nick attempts to call the police, Keifetz and an officer break into Pa's office and Nick thinks the men are there to back him up; however, Pa announces that Keifetz is an assassin with orders to kill Nick. Defending himself, Nick grabs the officer and uses his gun to fire at Keifetz, who shoots back at the officer as he dies. Nick chases his father onto the high-rise balcony and finds Pa clinging to the rail of an enormous American flag. As Nick reaches for his father, Pa falls to his death, tearing the flag in half with his body as he calls out to Nick: "put my money in South America!". Nick staggers away, but tells the secretary that he will return because he cannot escape his family ties. Leaving the Kegan building, he has one final encounter with the woman on the bicycle, who waves at him but rides away uneventfully.

Sometime later, Nick calls Yvette's answering machine to hear her voice one last time.

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Cast

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