Markus, thank you very much. Those clips, although very blurry (as you noted), leave me with no doubt the blurry clip I posted is indeed a Mal Couch clip.
As noted by Richard Trask in Pictures of the Pain Mal Couch and Robert Jackson bailed from their CameraCar3 after convincing the driver to let them off after passing the Triple Under Pass. Apparently, Jackson made it back to the rail yard in time for him to be filmed by John Martin Jr, along with Roger Craig etc. Couch probably returned to the plaza along the sidewalk that passes through the north TUP tunnel, and films this subject scene at Haygood's parked motorcycle. For me, this is a new film clip. I am especially happy the scene includes the peristyle wall shadow in the background. That shadow, along with the nearby wall holes (cutouts), can be used to timestamp the clip. Very unfortunate for me is all three versions of that clip (mine and the two you linked) are hopelessly blurry-so much I can't make out the wall holes at all!
There is an indirect way to timestamp the scene by noting the similarity to a photo taken by Frank Cancellare from atop the knoll. Below is the Cancellare image from Robin Unger's online photo collection.
That photo shows a peristyle wall shadow equivalent to about 12:32.
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,2013.0.html
At lower right we see a man with thinning hair and hand in his left pants pocket. Near him is a man with his back to the camera wearing a Stetson style hat. In the street behind them we see the rear half of Haygood's parked motorcycle. I believe these two men are near Couch's camera and center frame in the film clip.
Other similarities with Cancellare's photo are Mary Moorman with Jim Featherston standing along the south curb of Elm. To their right (photo left) is a standing man wearing a dark jacket with white pants. Cancellare's photo includes Charles Brehm with his son, still at the south Elm curb. Brehm and son are not present in the Couch clip.
1. This Couch clip was taken very shortly after the Cancellare photo and puts the Couch scene estimated time at 12:32-12:33.
At my visit to the Sixth Floor Museum's Reading Room I briefly viewed their Couch film scenes filmed in Dealey Plaza. I noted early in my notes that the museum's copy is slightly blurry, about the same as found in many documentary DVDs. I made a timeline of the scenes but made no mention of this clip in my notes. I don't know if I just missed it or it was not present. I do know that now I will pay very special attention to the museum's version for this scene. My hope is the clip is that their clip has enough clarity to determine a time stamp from the peristyle wall shadow.
Thank you again Markus for taking the time to locate those video references.
James
Hello James,
thanks for the post. The scene seemed familiar to me and therefore came quickly to the version by Helmer Reenberg. A little later I remembered the film by David Von Pein (it has a very extensive and informative video archive of various television stations, which reported on the JFK assassination day).
Excellent work as you associated the scene from the couch film with the Cancellare Picture (I would probably have watched the film 100 times and could not find any connection, although I am also interested in a temporal reference of the Cancellare picture).
You are right that what is seen on the couch is very close to the Cancellare shot, which suggests a small time difference.
As for the quality of the couch film, there may be a better version on Youtube. I am not quite sure, but I am forming a better long version (which also contains the film scene in question), but with the variety of videos on YouTube I no longer know which one it was (maybe I'm just wrong). However, I am strongly convinced that there could be a better long version, just compare the short version of Couch of the YouTube channel Blankdogman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4GGU6-n1BM with the long version that Helmer Reenberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmexsNkEiHc put on YouTube.
Especially at the point where the couch is filming, the policeman he drives past can clearly see that the Blankdogmann version is much clearer (you can see the face of the police officer more clearly) than the version by HelmerReenberg (but definitely shouldn't be a negative criticism of this channel represent).
Maybe there is still a better film.
Please keep an eye on the Babushka Lady in Couch.
I can only join Dennis Morissette, that would be great to finally give this pseudonym "Babushka Lady" a face and the film could help a lot, as I have already mentioned elsewhere, Robin Unger has managed to make her face more recognizable , The Babushka Lady could be a very important key figure in the JFK assassination.
Anyway thanks again for the post.
Best wishes
Markus
