Jeremy Profe, Rafael and Gabriel Francisco have completed "The Lennon Report," which is due in theaters next year.
When three filmmakers from Bergen County decided to make a docudrama about events in the hours following the Dec. 8, 1980 shooting of ex-Beatle John Lennon, they were faced with a host of conflicting reports.
"We were interested in the doctors and the nurses and their experiences. We wanted to give an accurate account of the events that unfolded that night," said Jeremy Profe of Rutherford.
Profe wrote and directed "The Lennon Report," an independent film expected in theaters next year.
But while he and producers Rafael and Gabriel Francisco, twin brothers from Closter, waded through old news reports and documentaries about the murder, they discovered many stories from that night had been embellished or were untrue.
Some of the people who claimed to have played a role or witnessed events in the aftermath of the shooting either weren't there or didn't have their facts straight, the filmmakers claim.
Among the incorrect assertions the filmmakers say they uncovered:
- Two doctors claimed over the years to have operated on Lennon, but it was a third colleague who performed the surgery
- A television reporter claimed credit for breaking news of the shooting, while it was a colleague being treated at the hospital who found out John Lennon had been shot
- A police officer said he gave Yoko Ono a ride home after Lennon's death. But news footage shows her getting out of a chauffeured limousine, possibly sent by music mogul David Geffen
- Upon hearing the news of Lennon's death, Ono banged her head on a concrete floor. The claim is met with several denials
The filmmakers' research led to a segment that aired recently on Howard Kurtz's show "Media Buzz" on Fox News.
"For 35 years, no one has questioned these people or gotten (their facts) together," said Rafael Francisco. "It's really difficult to understand how the media is still getting the story wrong to this day. We had to basically correct the media narrative to get the film done properly."
The night Lennon was shot, Dr. Stephan G. Lynn held a press conference at Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan (now Mount Sinai West).
Lynn, who was director of the emergency department, announced that Lennon died during surgery.
During the press conference, Lynn does not name Lennon's surgeon.
"Everything is sort of spoken on the hospital's behalf and not doctor-specific for about 10 years," said Profe, citing the research.
But then in December 1990, Dr. Richard Marks gives an interview to People magazine and appears to take credit for the surgery.
"When I realized that he wasn't going to make it, I just sewed him back up. I felt helpless," Marks told the magazine.
Marks died in 2010.
Years after the Marks interview, Dr. Lynn began telling reporters and interviewers that he massaged Lennon's heart in a futile attempt to get it to pump again.
He also said upon hearing the news of her husband's death, Yoko Ono became hysterical. "She threw herself down on the floor and began banging her head on the ground," Lynn told The New York Times in December 2005. In later interviews, Lynn said Ono had banged her head on a concrete floor.
Ono has denied this occurred. The filmmakers said they spoke to nurses who were present and they also denied this happened.
In a statement to Fox News, Ono said in part: "I did not bang my head on anything, let alone a concrete floor. I had to stay calm and well for Sean's sake."
Sean was the Lennons' 5-year-old son.
"We went to speak to other parties and nobody could corroborate (Lynn's) stories," Profe said.
"We realized this can't be accurate," he said. "There's no way that you're doing separate interviews with separate people and nobody would put (Lynn) in that room during the surgery."
In the interview with Fox News, however, Dr. Lynn maintained he was in the operating room trying to save Lennon.
Dr. David Halleran of Syracuse, NY, has recently come forward in media interviews to state that he was the surgeon who operated on Lennon. Nurses who were there back him up, according to Profe and the Francisco brothers.
The filmmakers said the first draft of their script had Lynn operating on Lennon and that he was "the hero of the film."
"It wasn't much fun going back to our investors and telling them that the entire script we sold them on we had to do a 180," said Gabriel Francisco. "But thankfully (they said), 'Tell the story right, tell the story the way it happened.'"
The filmmakers say the movie was re-written to have Dr. Halleran performing the surgery and Dr. Lynn arriving toward the end to serve an administrative role.
Production on the movie wrapped earlier this year and the filmmakers are looking for a distributor. They recently released a trailer of the movie to the media.
They hope to be in theaters by early 2016 and say the movie will appear on DVD and similar formats after that.
Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.