The Kennedy films of Robert Drew & associates.
(DVD)

Special features: Alternate, twenty-six-minutes cut of "Primary", edited by filmmaker Richard Leacock; Audio commentary on the Leacock edit of "Primary", featuring Leacock and filmmakers Robert Drew and D.A. Pennebaker, recorded in conversation with film critic Gideon Bachmann in 1961; Robert Drew in his own words, a new documentary featuring archival interview footage; New conversation between Pennebaker and Jill Drew, Robert Drew's daughter-in-law and the general manager of Drew Associates; Outtakes from "Crisis" featuring former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder and Sharon Malone, Holder's wife and the sister of Vivian Malone, one of the students featuring in "Crisis"; New interview with Richard Reeves, author of "President Kennedy: profile of power"; Footage from a 1998 event at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, featuring Drew, Pennebaker, Leacock, and filmmaker Albert Maysles; Plus: an essay by documentary film curator and writer Thomas Powers.

Titles from title frames.

Adventures on the new frontier (1961): editors, Robert Farren, Anita Posner, Stephen Schmidt, Peggy Lawson, Larry Moyer, George Johnson, Irwin Denis.

Faces of November (1964): photography, James Lipscomb, Sid Reichman, Al Wertheimer ; editor, De Nosworthy.

Primary (1960): photographers, Richard Leacock, Terence Macartney-Filgate, Albert Maysles, D.A. Pennebaker ; managing editor, Robert Drew.

Adventures on the new frontier: correspondents, Lee Hall, Gregory Shuker, David Maysles ; narrator, Joseph Julian.

Crisis: narrator, James Lipscomb.

Faces of November: correspondent, Tom Johnston.

Primary: narrator, Joseph Julian.

In 1960, a filmmaking group was granted direct access to John F. Kennedy, filming him on the campaign trail and eventually in the Oval Office. This resulted in three films of remarkable, behind-closed-doors intimacy, Primary, Adventures on the New Frontier, and Crisis, and, following the president's assassination, the poetic short Faces of November. Collected here are all four of these titles, early exemplars of the movement known as Direct Cinema.

DVD; NTSC; region 1; fullscreen, 4:3 presentation; Dolby Digital 1.0.

In English with optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.