Maryhill-born Robert Carlyle plays organised crime figure Jack Ruby in November 1963, a film about the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy.
Ruby was a nightclub owner with alleged links to the Mafia. He shot Lee Harvey Oswald two days after he was arrested over the president’s killing.
Oswald had told reporters he was being set up as a “patsy” to take the blame for the shooting.
He was being moved through the basement area of Dallas police headquarters, which was filled with police officers and journalists, when Ruby stepped forward.
Ruby shot Oswald in the stomach at close range before officers restrained him.
The shooting was shown on live television. Guinness World Records later described it as the “first known human killing seen live on TV”.
Ruby’s actions led to claims that gangsters had played a role in Kennedy’s death and had helped cover up the truth.
November 1963 is based on “first-hand accounts”, including information from relatives of Sam Giancana, who headed the Chicago Mafia during the 1950s and early 1960s.
Giancana was rumoured to have helped Kennedy win his presidential campaign. It was also claimed that he felt betrayed after Kennedy’s administration began a campaign against organised crime.
That campaign was led in part by Kennedy’s brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
The film follows a 48-hour period around the assassination, which took place on November 22, 1963.
Kennedy was travelling in the back of an open-top limousine through Dealey Plaza in Dallas when shots were fired.
The seven-storey building overlooked the route. Texas Governor John Connally was also hit by gunfire but survived.
Kennedy was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 30 minutes later.
The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that Oswald had acted alone in killing Kennedy and Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit.
The House Select Committee on Assassinations reviewed the case during the 1970s. In 1979, it concluded that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy”, while agreeing that Oswald had fired the fatal shots.
Carlyle is joined in the cast by Mandy Patinkin and Dermot Mulroney.
Patinkin played a retired CIA veteran in the television series Homeland. Mulroney appeared in the 1997 film My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Jefferson White, who stars in the western television drama Yellowstone, plays Oswald.
The film was directed by Roland Joffé, who was nominated for two Academy Awards. He is known for directing The Killing Fields, a 1984 film about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, and The Mission, released in 1986.
November 1963 is due to be released in the UK and Ireland early next year, following a release in the USA later this year.
